New School Year

Wow, I had no idea it was this long since I last posted. We are now into a new school year. The one where he eats at school. And everything is fine!

We have an action plan in place and he sits at a separate table in the lunchroom. By separate I mean it is his table only. No other children sit there, not even during other lunch periods. Then each day the teacher asks if anyone has a peanut-free lunch and if they do then they can sit with Alex. The only problem is that it only sits four kids and usually more want to sit with him! He loves it.

The school is not peanut-free but the two first-grade classrooms are. I made a list of safe snacks the teacher can use to buy snacks for the classroom. At the beginning of the year they asked for a $10.00 donation to buy snacks for the year. That way everyone is eating the same thing and it is safe to eat.

Other than that things have been uneventful. We leave for DisneyWorld in 10 days and I have been hearing wonderful things about their food allergy awareness. Hopefully that holds true. I’ll have a full report when we get back.

Hope everyone out there is having a wonderful fall!

The Peanut-Free Birthday Treat

This was a great idea for a birthday treat. It was cute and as peanut-free as I could make it while still buying mainstream ingredients.

Nilla Wafer Hamburgers

Two Nilla Wafers
One Snack Size Peppermint Patty
Vanilla Icing tinted red and some tinted yellow
Sesame Seeds

No need for a description, I’ll just show the picture:

A Peanut-Free Birthday Treat

February 2. Groundhog’s Day. Alex’s birthday.

I am trying to come up with a cute birthday treat for Alex’s kindergarten class that is peanut-free, not boring and still utilizes the snack sheet that I gave at the beginning of the year.

I haven’t come up with anything yet. I thought about buying the Keebler fudge stripe cookies and putting a little icing face on them but that seems kind of dumb. Baked goods are out. Although cookies aren’t exactly healthy, they would be quicker to eat than say a box of Nerds. Alex first requested Lucky Charms cereal. I was trying to figure out if I could make little pots of gold to put the cereal in but I haven’t spent enough time searching the net for ideas.

I guess if all else fails, I’ll just send in a couple boxes of Lucky Charms and they can enjoy that snack for several days. We shall see. I’ll update when I come to a decision.

Public School

So Alex has been in public school now for a week and a half. He is really enjoying spending time with the kids. It takes some prodding but I can usually figure out what he did during his time at school. I feel comfortable with the precautions the school is taking this year. We have a plan of action in place, there was a letter sent home to all kindergartners and then a letter sent home to the whole school letting parents know there is a child with a life-threatening peanut allergy attending. His classroom is peanut-free and all snacks must be from a pre-approved list that I made.  Even birthday treats must come from the list.

I think the fact that I had tried homeschooling really made the school administrators realize how terrified I was of sending him to school. Thus they took every precaution they could without making the entire school peanut-free. I’m happy about that. Alex needs to know where he can and can’t make adjustments.

So things are going well. The only thing that I was surprised to hear Alex tell me was that he was excited that he didn’t have to eat a different snack than everyone else. He was beaming when he told me that they all got the same snack. My sweet boy. I never thought he minded having a different snack in preschool, I guess he did but never said anything. It breaks my heart to think about him hurting. At least now he’s happy.

Homeschool Failure

I can’t do it. I wanted to. I just can’t. I called the elementary school that Alex was suppose to attend and got the ball rolling to put him into the kindergarten class. We have a meeting on Friday where we will discuss our concerns and what protocols Alex will need.

I have been having an internal battle again about whether this was the right decision. This is just so tough. I just feel that Alex will have a better education in the public school system. It’s not that I feel what I taught was wrong. He just doesn’t have much of an interest in learning and I feel that a person who was taught how to teach would be better for him. I will do what I can at home to help him but he needs that classroom experience.

Is this the end of our saga? Probably not. Will he ever be homeschooled again? I can’t say for certain. I hope that this decision is the right one. When I told him that homeschool wasn’t really working for us I asked if he wanted to go to school. He replied with a sigh “well, I do miss my friends”, maybe if he is around kids his own age he will get interested in learning.

Homeschool it is … at least for this year.

The decision has been made and Alex will be homeschooled for the kindergarten year. I have spoken to the principal at the school and since they have a morning and afternoon kindergarten class, the only way I can really ensure a peanut-free classroom is for Alex’s class to be the only one in the room. The principal and I are going to reconvene in January to talk about the following school year. I received some great information from another mom who has a daughter just leaving kindergarten in another school district.

I just didn’t feel prepared enough for this year. Now that I have a plan with the principal, paperwork and more information I feel better for the first-grade year. So that’s the plan. Hopefully I won’t go crazy having both kids home with me this year but it should be a fun but educational time.

Decision – Home

I think we are going to homeschool for the kindergarten year. That gives me time to get the school prepared in a way that will keep Alex safe for his first grade year. The year he will have to eat with the students in the cafeteria. Hopefully I will be able to do a good enough job this year preparing him both academically and emotionally for public school. As much he understands he can’t have peanuts, he doesn’t understand everything about it. For instance, as we prepared for a three-day beach weekend last week, Alex told me we didn’t need his epi-pens because we were only going a few days. Unfortunately that couldn’t be further from the truth. I tried explaining to him that he needs his epi every he goes. It’s these little things that make me very nervous about sending him to school this year. Hopefully this year at home will prepare the school, me and Alex for first grade next year.

Vacation Fine – RAST not good.

Our beach vacation went great. Alex was able to eat out without incident and enjoy most of the things the beach had to offer. He was a like a fish in water with the ocean. He loved it. Although he loved the beach, he loved playing games on the boardwalk the best.

While we were there our daughter did something to her eye and I ended up having to call the pediatrician. As they were hanging up they said that there was a note on Alex’s chart that he RAST test came back and he is still a Class 3 peanut allergy.

Alex started as a Class 3 and then the last two years he was a Class 2. I had such high hopes of it being a Class 1 this year. At least we would be headed in the right direction. But to be a class 3 was such a blow to my already fragile state. Fragile due to the school situation. Which we still haven’t decided on. I have a month to figure out what we are going to do. Right now I am leaning much more toward homeschooling. At least until he is able to understand the symptoms of an allergic reaction and able to administer his epi-pen himself.

This latest test score has pretty much told me that Alex will not outgrow his allergy. I have decided to look into some teaching hospitals around us to see if they are doing any kind of clinical trials. I would love to be able to send Alex to school without worrying that a slight touch of peanut would send him into anaphylaxis. I have read stories of peanut allergic children who ingest a small amount of peanut protein every day. They are able to withstand some amount of peanut with no problem thus taking the “may contain” scare out of day-to-day living.

 

Public, Private or Home

School that is. I have no idea what to do for my son. I have such anguish about how his schooling should be done. Public would give him the most social benefit. Private would give him a better education and home would keep him safest. It sounds logical right? Except that everyone I know is totally opposed to homeschool. Including my husband. I fall asleep at night contemplating our situation. Preschool was easy. There was no lunchroom, no pb & j sandwiches on the menu every day, no peanuts in the classroom. Easy.

Kindergarten, while not a huge deal because he won’t be eating lunch there is still a haven for pb loving kids. Did they have it for breakfast? Is it on their hands? Will someone bring in a pb cupcake for their birthday? It makes me cringe and brings me such anguish.

The only way my decision is going to be made easy is if by some huge miracle he has outgrown his allergy.

If you read my blog, please don’t hesitate to give me your opinion. I’d love to hear it.

We made it through preschool!

Alex’s first year of preschool was started in September 2006 and now here we are on the day of his preschool graduation. I am very pleased to say that with precautions and education he has made it through preschool with no reaction to peanuts!

This year Alex had two teachers. The first one had adopted three siblings the year before and just couldn’t get home life and teaching to jive. I was bummed because she was a great teacher. Anyway, I was talking to her the other day and I mentioned how hard it was going to be for me to send him to school in September and she said “I can imagine it’s scary, I was scared to have him in my class!”. And as long as a teacher has that fear or realization that his allergy is serious I think he will be fine. If a teacher thinks that the peanut allergy is no big deal, well, then, we are in trouble.

So yay for preschool graduation!