Hard habit to break

More new firsts for the week: we had take-out Thai food in our home, on our table, nuts and all. That was a crazy site for me. Thai food was the most off-limits of all the food genres due to the pervasive nuts, and there it was, sitting in our kitchen. We ate with friends who, when they arrived, started to separate their young son from his container of little snackies in the car, lest he bring them in and risk contaminating our home with nut products. “Not to worry,” I said; “it’s not an issue anymore.” We all stood and looked at each other, shaking our heads in disbelief.

And speaking of disbelief… I took Ari to a drop-off birthday party this weekend, and as we were driving, we discussed the fact that – because he’s graduated and because he finished his dose for the day - he could eat anything at the party that he wanted. (I didn’t mention that I couldn’t have even dropped him off previously, as watching a kid with severe food allergies at a party is a lot of responsibility to ask another parent to absorb; that’s another first unto itself.)  As we got closer, I told him I’d come in to drop off his EPI-pen (still needs to go everywhere with him) and check out the food, and he asked me why. “Why do you need to check out the food? Can’t I eat anything now?” I was quiet. He was right. He could eat anything; there was no reason for me to check out the food, other than daily habit and regimen, drilled into me after five years of anxiety. I laughed with Ari about it, and told him that I’ve done it for so long, it’s hard for me to remember (and believe) that I don’t need to anymore. He asked why he still needs to have an EPI pen, and he seemed ok with the fact that it’s a precaution that Dr. Nadeau said is still important. It felt strange to hand off the EPI pen to the host family without the usual detailed speech about food restrictions, what to look out for, etc. Instead, I felt that Ari is mature enough to watch out for his own symptoms, so we discussed how a reaction presents for him… “spicy” mouth (as he describes it), itchy/blotchy skin… and that he is supposed to tell an adult immediately if either of those things begin to occur. He seemed comfortable with that responsibility, and recalled the spicy feeling during the updose days, so knew what I was talking about. 

As I dropped him off there to eat all of the foods he couldn’t have touched a year earlier (ice cream toppings, cake, etc. – yes, I knew what they would be, because I couldn’t help myself and had to ask anyway, once he was out of earshot), I felt so proud of him and his calm maturity through all of this. That’s my big little guy.