Friday, July 10, 2009

The Other Day My Child Asked Me That Dreaded Question..

The other day, I heard those words every mother of a peanut allergic child dreads to hear. They are the words that put a chill through my heart and an ache in my head. And even worse these words were not even uttered by my peanut allergic child!!! It is so painful I have trouble typing them even here......... But OK, here goes. Other peanut allergic child mothers look away if you have to.

Two days ago, on July 7 2009, my oldest son Michael looked innocently up at me and asked, "Mommy, when can we go and see a baseball game?"

I calmly replied in an attempt to distract him "T-Ball season is over for the year, you can play instructional next year"

Michael looked up at me exasperated and replied, "No Mommy, like the one on TV. My friend friend is going to see the Giants. When can we go?"

I was able to tell him we would have to look into it, but what do we do???

I quickly ran over to the awesome web site Peanut Free Baseball Games, to see if I could find any sort of somewhat safe games, but Alas the closest games to us that I could find are in San Diego and Seattle.

I know I could try and take all sorts of precautions and just go, but I think I would have a heart attack ducking peanut shells, and trying to get an almost 5 year old to continually wipe his hands. Of course this is also the child who may have reacted to sitting next to a man on the airplane eating a bag of peanuts. I just don't think I could stomach going without actually going insane.

So, what are my other options.... Send the older child with his father while the other one sits at home and I am wracked with guilt over what he is missing out on. Send the older child with a friend and hose him down when he gets home? Don't let anyone go???

If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them. Maybe it is time for a road trip to San Diego or Seattle.

3 comments:

Karen said...

Take the alergic child to a "non food event" the same week as the alergic child goes to the baseball game. Perhaps a drive in where you can bring your own chairs.

The stress of being around nuts will at the very least shorten your life, via stress.

Or wait a few weeks to see if a nut free section opens up closer to home.

Unknown said...

My kids have been asking about going to the Red Sox, and there were 4 (yes that is right!) games with a peanut-free seating area. BUT, my PA son is only 5 and there is no way he will sit still long enough to justify the very expensive seats. To save money, we could do standing room, but he'd only last a very short time standing, so we opted to wait a few more years. Maybe wait a tiny bit and plan on a future road trip? I have heard many good comments about those Seattle games.

Thanks, BTW, for mentioning peanutfreebaseball.comand for your kind words!

Anonymous said...

Would be nice if all sporting and other events would go completely nut free,,,

Linda