Vegan pizza anyone?

My son is allergic to a lot of foods.   Usually if there are foods that he can’t eat we just tell him that he can’t eat it because it will make him itchy and for the most part that is a good enough reason for him to not try it even when everyone else including his parents are eating it.  And for a kid who can’t restrain himself in a lot of areas he’s able to show a lot of self control when it comes to foods that he can’t eat.  Maybe he still remembers the past times where he’s broken out into hives or even worse when his face swelled up and his breathing became labored.

I have a lot of different food allergy stories to tell about my son.  Some funny and some sad…  this one has a little bit of both.

This past Christmas we spent it with my parents and my brother’s family.  They also have a son who has food allergies but not as many as J and not as severe.  Since my mom would have to prepare separate foods for J for each meal it was easier to just have his cousin eat the same foods as well since they always ate at the same time.  But one afternoon my mom brought back pizza for all of us to eat. J happily sat down to eat his fried rice while all the adults ate pizza.   But this time his cousin wanted to try the pizza and since he’s not allergic to anything on it he got to have a slice.  As soon as he saw his cousin eating the pizza he got upset and became very quiet and pushed his food aside and said he wasn’t hungry anymore.  Then in his bossy nature said that his cousin couldn’t eat the pizza.  It was hard for him to see everyone including his cousin eating something that he so wanted to try.  I think it also doesn’t help that we sometimes tell him that maybe when he’s older he can eat these and he repeats it to himself that when he’s older then he can eat the same foods as mommy and daddy.   It’s moments like these that make me so sad for my son and my heart aches for him.

The next day my mom and I were eating leftover pizza and J points his finger at my pizza as close as he can without touching it and says, this is pizza, I can’t eat it.  Then he leans his nose over my pizza and takes a big whiff and goes, ahh,我聞到 mommy 的 pizza 了(I can smell mommy’s pizza).  He does the same thing to his grandmother’s pizza and then happily goes back to eating his own food.  My mom and I look at each other and burst out into laughter.

M has a couple of co-workers that are vegan and he realized that J can probably eat a lot of the vegan food since J is allergic to dairy and eggs and vegans don’t eat anything derived from animals.  So he asked a co-worker about vegan pizza and where to get it.  Turns out we can make our own vegan pizza and Whole Foods carries all the products.  So over the weekend M asks his son if he would like to have pizza… and J burst into the biggest grin and said yes!  They headed over to the nearest Whole Foods and bought all the ingredients…  tofu mozzarella cheese, dairy/egg free crust, garlic free tomato sauce and veggie toppings.  When they got home J was bouncing off the walls and could not wait to make his own pizza and eat it.  After he took a few bites of the finished product we asked him how he liked his pizza and he answered back that it doesn’t taste very good.  But it didn’t matter he was on cloud 9 the rest of the night and was just happy to have gotten to eat pizza.  So the crust doesn’t taste quite like regular pizza crust and the cheese doesn’t really melt too well and the sauce probably could’ve been a little thicker but it was a good dinner and we were all happy, none more so than J, to all share a pizza together.

Edit**

I get easily discouraged every time I take him to see the allergist and always need a day or so to gather myself and figure out what to do for him and make sure he doesn’t see how sad I am for him.  While I am extremely thankful that J is a healthy, growing (albeit skinny), active (sometimes too active) kid who has a good sense of humor I really hope and pray that he would grow out of most if not all of his allergies.  The older he gets I often worry how school will be like for him and for me when I cannot watch what he eats 24/7.  I wonder how he will handle it and how I will handle it as well.

Bad Parenting?

It’s the last week of the NFL regular season games before the playoffs and turned out to be an extremely important day for M’s beloved Eagles. Since the Eagles were playing in the afternoon, as soon as church was over we didn’t stay to mingle and chat with friends but instead hurried to the car to go home and watch the game.

But on the way home J said he didn’t want to go home and wanted to go out to watch the game. So in the car we decided, what the heck, let’s take the whole family to Q’s, our neighborhood sports bar. J has gone a couple times with his dad before but this is the first time since C was born that the whole family has gone.
It turned out to be a really fun time for everyone. We ended up seeing some good friends and some old friends and it was nice catching up with them. J had a blast with all the people and just running around the place.

As we were leaving though I couldn’t help but wonder what a sight we must be and what people must be thinking seeing a family of four – me and the hubby and our kids, J who’s 2 and a half and C who’s 7 months at a sports bar surrounded by people drinking beer and watching football. I tried to steal a few subtle glances at people’s reactions as we walked out… I think some were amused and thought it was cute but I think others were shocked and puzzled.
Oh well, we all had a good time there and at least we didn’t take the kids to Hooters.

I’m home

That’s what I said to my husband when I called him to tell him that I had gotten to my parents house about an hour away from us. Then I quickly realized my mistake and corrected myself, ummm… I mean I’m at my parents home. Haha, M quickly commented on my Freudian slip.
It had been a long hard week and the weekend no easier. I was desperately needing a break and a little help in taking care of my two sick and needy kids. My mom could sense my exhaustion over the phone so she told me to come on over and they didn’t have to ask me twice.
As soon as I got here last night I felt a sense of relief. I am spoiled rotten when I get here and I absolutely love it. Last night after we put the kids to bed I took a shower and then proceeded to laze on the couch with my feet propped up. I also should mention that I was reading People magazine which my mom bought just for me because she knows I love it so much. On top of that, my mom came and put a glass of water next to me and proceeded to blow dry my hair as I continued to read my magazine. It was soooo great. My mom was commenting that this is one of the good things of being a daughter (since I doubt she does this for my brother). I responded back, I’m not so sure my daughter will get this kind of treatment from me when she’s older. My mom laughed and said then my daughter can get it from her grandmother.
Today has been no different. My parents woke up early to watch the kids while I slept in. They played with them, dressed them, cooked for and fed them, and bathed them. They did just about everything except breastfeed C.
And now that the kids are in bed tonight, I am once again sitting on the couch with my feet propped up. Meanwhile, my mom is washing the dishes from dinner, preparing food for me to take home and my dad is mixing me a cocktail drink and popping me some popcorn.
As my mom finishes up in the kitchen and comes to sit down next to me I tell her thanks and she answers back, you will always be my daughter.
I love my mom.

Feeling connected

Do you ever feel like you just don’t feel connected to your husband even though you’re getting along great with him and you’re not arguing or going through anything stressful at the time?

When people ask me during the day how I’m doing I reply back that I’m doing pretty good all things considered and I really do feel that way.  Especially during the day when my mind is just focused on the kids it’s hard to think much about anything else.  I guess I’m not that great of a multi-tasker.

But just last night when it was just me and my hubby hanging out in the living room it just hit me that I feel like we haven’t really connected lately.  Usually after the kids go to bed it’s pure bliss…  I love every moment of it and never want to go to sleep…  although usually I pay for it the next morning when I’m so tired from not sleeping enough the night before.   But anyway, I digress.

I don’t know if it’s cause the holidays are right around the corner or if i’m not getting enough sleep or what but things have gotten a lot busier for us lately.  And last night as we had the night to ourselves we both needed to decompress a little so we decided to veg and watch TV and catch up on an episode of Chuck.  And while we watched TV together I just got this heavy-hearted feeling and just felt like we hadn”t had a chance to really talk and catch up on each other’s lives.  Along with things getting busy it also didn’t help that we all started getting sick.

Tonight we had a meeting at our place with some small group leaders and since we were all feeling sick I was just going to go to bed early and get some rest while M stayed for the meeting.  But as the meeting was going on in our house and I was finishing cleaning up the kitchen I decided to stay for the rest of the meeting.  Even though I was sitting in the back and blowing my nose constantly I decided to stick around because I realized that I didn’t want to wait to hear how it went from M the next day.  Even though it was a meeting and everyone was discussing small group stuff, in some odd way I felt like I was connecting with M again.  I guess I felt like we were sharing in ministry together which is something that we’ve had trouble doing since having kids.  And instead of waiting to hear about the meeting afterwards I can now have a discussion with him about it and we can share our ideas together.

So even though I was not looking forward to tonight it really turned out to be a blessing for me.  And even though we haven’t been out on a date in months and I’m pretty sure this stuff probably never even crosses the hubby’s mind, it’s nice feeling connected with him again.

Christmas shopping

The weather has been beautiful outside for the past week or so but I have not taken my kids out to any parks in a long time.  It’s sad, I used to take them outdoors at least two or three times a week but now with Christmas right around the corner I find myself taking my kids to toy stores and malls and grocery stores instead.  I enjoy researching and shopping for gifts for the kids and their cousin but it sure is time consuming.  If we’re not at Toys R Us or Disney Store then we’re at Target or some other store in the mall looking around for the perfect gift for each of them.

I don’t think J seems to mind the shopping too much since he gets to play with all the toys in the store.  He likes to pull them off the shelves and says he wants to buy this and that.  I in turn say no, put them back on the shelves and bring him down another aisle where we follow the same pattern.  Thank goodness he hasn’t gotten to the point where he will throw a fit if he doesn’t get what he wants…  at least not yet.

But today as we were making our way from the parking lot of Albertsons it just struck me how little time we’ve spent outside.  During the mornings we’re running our errands and then after they wake up from their nap and shake out of their grumpy and groggy selves it’s too dark and cold to go outside.

I made a mental note to myself to spend more time outdoors in the next couple weeks…  I miss being outside with them, letting J run around and burn off some steam, and just enjoying the outdoors.