Food Allergies: touching every aspect of family life

On May 1st my older son made his First Communion. And you may be wondering "If the older non food allergy child made his First Communion, how do food allergies come into play here"? But they did.

See for us Catholics, First Communion is a big deal. It would be similar to Bar Mitzvah in the Jewish faith. It's the Catholic moving forward to becoming a full member in the Catholic church. A coming of age of sorts. So after the First Communion, there's usually a big party. We don't have an overly large family, but we were expecting 27 people at our party.

I usually do all the cooking for anything that we have and we always have the celebration at our house because it's too difficult to find a restaurant or party center that can safely accommodate the Little Man and his allergies. Large parties scare me because it's harder to control the allergens and cross contamination. And having all of this in our home was stressing me out. How could I cook for 27 people and have everything heated and ready to go while we were in church? Could I cook for 27 allergen free and have it be tasty and cost effective? Could I do all of this without killing myself? The more I thought about it, the answer was NO to everything.

After wracking my brain on what I was going to do, I remembered that the caterer that we used for my husbands Christmas party told us that they had several family members that had Celiac Disease and numerous food allergies. So I called them to see if they could put together an allergy friendly menu for me. And they did. Their kitchen is not free from allergens so they could not guarantee me that there would not be cross contamination so we decided that it would be best to do the allergy friendly food but have the Little Man still eat food that I cooked safely for him. But cooking for one was much better than cooking for 27. And if the food was "safe" then I didn't have to worry about allergens in my house and I didn't have to worry about running around during the whole party yelling "WASH YOUR HANDS" like a shrill harpy (which I've been known to do). Was it cost effective? No, it was pricey. And since it was already pricey I decided to throw in a staff member to heat and set everything up while we were at church so this way it was all ready to go when we got back from the service. Was it worth the money? A.B.S.O.L.U.T.E.L.Y. It was the best thing I could have done. It was a totally safe and relaxing time and I didn't suffer a migraine like I usually do trying to do ALL the work before a large party.
And was the extra precaution of "all" safe food necessary for the Little Man? Is he really that sensitive? Unfortunately, yes he is.

Last Friday we went to Progressive Field for a business event for my husband. The event wasn't quite as intimate as I usually like but I thought we had everything under control. The Little Man had all safe food. Everyone knew about his allergies. Hands were washed (yes, the shrill harpy showed up at the business event), but something went wrong. The only thing I can think of is that the leather furniture was cross contaminated and by the end of the night the Little Man was tired and laying on it (even though the shrill harpy kept yelling at him to get off of it) and his hand must have come into contact with something. Right before we left he must have put his hands in or near his mouth. His allergic reaction occurred on the freeway before we made it home.

Yes, he is that sensitive. And Yes, he's only five years old and hands go in the eyes, nose, and mouth. My point is: You can never be too careful.
Even when the event or situation isn't about the food allergic family member, it still is. Once a family member has food allergies, it's a part of every aspect of family life. There's no escaping it. But you can work around it and still celebrate all of the good times in life...safely.