Up and Down

I love my Mother in Law. And I don't mean that facetiously. She's funny, and truthful, and sometimes she's losing her mind, but we love her anyway. (I'm convinced Me-Ma is Monkey's favorite person on the entire planet.) She is also the first one I turn to for advice since my own mother isn't here. My Mother in Law has talked me down from many a metaphorical ledge in the past.

So when she called me last Tuesday in a panic about Scootch, I convinced myself to stay calm and return the favor.

Tuesday morning I dropped off Monkey and Scootch to Me-Ma's as usual and then was off to work. The cell phone rang before I even got to my destination. My MIL was frantic, asking me what Scootch first signs of an allergic reaction were. Apparently, she was finishing her breakfast when I dropped off the kiddos, and Scootch asked for a bite of her cereal. He had almost 3 spoonfuls before she remembered there was some granola mixed in with her Cheerios. Granola with almonds.

We went through the signs of a reaction and the protocol for what medicines she needed to use if he did react. I also called every couple of hours to see how he was doing. But the miraculous thing is that he didn't have a reaction at all. Peanut allergic Scootch, who has been ordered to avoid all other nuts as a general rule, doesn't seem to be allergic to almonds.

I'm hopeful after such a happy accident as this.

Someday We'll Look Back on This and Laugh

Food is such a sore issue with me that I sometimes forget that the Monkey doesn't have any problems with it. Unless, of course, they're the problems SHE comes up with about it. She is almost four, and very decisive about what passes through her lips. There are bargains twenty times a day for candy, and now that the Easter Bunny has visited, her definition of "eggs" means the hollow plastic kind filled with Kisses and jelly beans.

Taking all this into account, she is also very rigid about her meals. Breakfast is either oatmeal or cereal. Lunch is a soy butter and jelly sandwich. And judging by the fiasco last Friday, her refusals aren't based so much on a matter of taste, but more on a matter of control.

When I announced on Friday that we were heading home from the store to eat lunch, her first response was that she wasn't hungry, "So, we don't need to go home. We can go to another store." Nice try.

I went through the contents of the fridge as offerings as we drove, trying to entice her to want something different. Pizza. Yogurt. Chicken nuggets. She still clung to the "I'm not hungry" testimony.

I decided that I was not going to partake in the classic Fake-nut-butter-and-jelly-sandwiches, and settled on grilled cheese instead. So I tried to persuade her to live a little and have what I was having. Bread grilled in butter with cheese in between. I even offered to throw some bacon in the middle (bacon is the other holy food in her treasured list of acceptables). But to no avail. She staunchly refused to eat any thing but a soy butter and jelly sandwich. "With RASPBERRY jam, Mom. Not grape like my brother." Yes dear.

Well, I pick my battles. So soy butter and raspberry jam sandwich it was. Cut in four pieces, just as she decreed. With a side of chocolate milk in the pink princess cup.

I calmly made myself grilled cheese. (I even treated myself to a strip of our precooked bacon in the middle). I threw it on a plate and sat down in my spot between Monkey and Scootch, lifted my sandwich to my mouth, and as I look over to see her dismantled sandwich with all the jam scraped off and consumed by her fingers, she pipes up with, "Mom. Could I have some of your grilled cheese?"

Someday her antics will amuse me. Just not today.