Lessons in Special Parenting: 2/4

This week flew by and was a great week for me, professionally. Not too bad as a mom, either. There is nothing like getting a really good report 2 days running, after 1/2 a week of snowdays!  You GO, Amelia!

Is this the effect of the food?  I am going to give you this illustration, from yesterday.

Chris got in the mood for On the Border, which got me in the mood for it.  Now we love that restaurant, mainly because you can get a nice family meal, complete with ice cream for super-cheap.  Also, it’s near the new Target, which we love.  Unfortunately, Mexican restaurant food is extremely difficult to accommodate on a casein-free or tomato-product-free diet.  We decided the heck with it, and in the car debated whether or not to get the salsa when they brought out the chips.  (Too bad they make you pay for the guac!)  Chris sagely said, “Well, we don’t know for sure, but by your own argument*, let’s reintroduce the food and see if she reacts.”

We gave her the salsa. Here’s the weird part.  At first, she looked terrified of it.  She picked up her chip and went to dip and stopped herself several times.  Did she instinctively know something? Just when we were about to pull it away, the waitress plunked down a brand new, full dip dish of salsa and Zoe dipped.  We forced her to eat it sanely, calmly, and with reserve. I’m proud to say, she did very well, and didn’t scream when we took it away.  Could it be…???

Then we got home and I looked at her face. “Look Chris, she’s got that redness on the side of her mouth!”  At the same time, we nodded and said, “She’s allergic!”

Now, what I left out is that Chris had asked in that earlier conversation if the allergy tests came back negative, did that mean she could eat tomato-based products again. I told him from what I read, they were not 100% reliable and there could be false negatives. So, there you have it – we did our own, and we made a huge discovery.  Psychologically, it was fascinating to see her reaction to the now-forbidden foods.  (Yes, we’ve told her she can’t eat it, but it’s hard to gage what she hears or is processing when we get no response.)

The lesson this is week is try what the experts say and trust your judgment. As parents, we’ve been so often taught that someone is an expert, listen to so-and-so and forget the rest.  This is foolish.  The only real way to get to the bottom of something that’s not abstract is to carefully test it and gage the results as subjectively as possible.  Simple test: remove the food, bring it back, measure results.

It’s not rocket science but who knew that taking lab in high school would help with parenting?? lol…

peace out, & happy friday folks!
*I read that in Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies: The Groundbreaking Program for the 4-A Disorders (my affiliate link)