Con Artist

My Little Con Artist.  Today he had a half day of school, and grandma picked him up for a fun filled afternoon.  The original plan was for them to come back to our house, eat lunch which I had prepared, and then go to the movies.  But when grandma arrived at school my son was dead set on going out to lunch--Pizza Hut to be exact.  Grandma was convinced that I had told him they were going out to eat, which wasn't the case.  Pizza Hut is a place we have not ventured out to yet, even though my son won a free pizza from his book reading club at school.  I just wasn't sure how he'd do there with the extra greasy pizza and breaksticks, but he's been begging us to go for 2-weeks.

So the little con artist swindled Grandma out of a small pizza and breadsticks.  Come to think of it, I bet he even got a soda pop out of it.  I'll have to ask him in the morning.  As Grandma was telling me this story, I asked my son who was sitting right there if he had ever eaten Pizza Hut before.  The look on Grandma's face was priceless, she hadn't considered that he shouldn't be eating it.  Hours have since gone by and he seems absolutely fine.  No unusual itching, skin irritation, or belly aches.  He just might have gotten away this scotfree.

New Changes

I keep meaning to write about the normal, everyday products that my son has been using.  About 6 months ago I started using regular laundry detergent, All Free & Clear.  He had been using a plant based powder for a number of years while we tried to figure out what was causing all his skin irritation.  He's also gone back to using some regular Ivory soap, no more specialty emu oil bars.  Most recently he's switched to Colgate toothpaste, even though I know that Tom's is better for him he prefers the minty taste of Colgate.  Those three changes alone are big money savers.

There are some things that we'll never switch away from as our new knowledge has proved too valuable.  We'll always shop for better organic meats & other foods when possible, we'll stay away from canned good and go with fresh or frozen (cans are lined with BPA unless you pay extra for Eden brand), we'll stick to using white vinegar for cleaning and as a substitute for laundry detergent (along with a few drops of eucalyptus oil), I'll always make my own chicken broths from organic chickens, we'll stay away from soy and other genetically engineered food, and we'll continue to supplement with probiotics, fish oil, and vitamin D.  Oh yeah, there will never be another vaccine to enter my son's body (per waiver of multiple MDs.)

Halloween 2012 a Success

Halloween 2012 proved to be a huge success for my TMNT (that's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for those that were like 'Huh?!')  We had 3 Halloween events and 1 Fall Harvest party at school (they do that instead of the traditional Halloween thing.) From the onset of these food allergies we've always made a deal with my son that he can go trick-or-treating, but he's not allowed to eat any candy while out and he has to turn all of his candy in for a trip to the toy store.  This has worked out well, and he prefers the toy hands down to any candy.  Three years ago I did let him try a Hershey's kiss, only to end up in hives.  This year he was allowed to keep some candy that which included Twizzlers, Starbursts, Skittles, LifeSavers, and Now & Laters as he does fine with all of them.  It's really weird though to watch his mannerisms with candy though.  For instance with Skittles, he will take a plastic container and pour them in, and ask how many he can eat.  I ask him how many does he want and he'll usually say 'three', and then I tell him go ahead.  He'll then proceed to put a lid on the bowl and be done with them.  I on the other hand would have eaten the whole bag and never stop to ask permission for another one. 

He did ask if he could try a KitKat, and he was absolutely fine with it.  I was thrilled and wanted to run out and buy him a whole bag.  But then I had to do the obssessed mom thing and take a closer look at the ingredients:

KIT KAT Milk Chocolate
Ingredient sSUGAR; WHEAT FLOUR; NONFAT MILK; COCOA BUTTER; CHOCOLATE; PALM KERNEL OIL; LACTOSE (MILK); MILK FAT; CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: SOY LECITHIN; PGPR, EMULSIFIER; YEAST ; VANILLIN, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR; SALT; SODIUM BICARBONATE

What's this 'PGPR' that I've never seen or heard of before?  Turns out that PGPR stands for Polyglycerol polyricinoleate, which is used by chocolate makers to reduce cost and according to Wikipedia, Hershey started using PGPR in 2006 to replace/reduce cocoa butter (you know, the stuff that makes chocolate healthy.)  So altough I'm thrilled he could eat a KitKat, they won't become a staple in our house.