A Heart Shaped Peanut !!!!

Just in time for Valentines Day, here is another of my interesting peanut discoveries -

The Heart Shaped Peanut.

According to this blog Yumsugar.com a farmer in China has decided to grow heart shaped peanuts. I am not sure why, or how, or even if this is really true, but I sure hope no one decides this is a great idea, and makes heart shaped peanuts a part of the American Valentine tradition.


We are off to pack ourselves into the car and drive for long hours amid screaming and fighting to go and visit the grandparents in Los Angeles this weekend. I have a feeling I will be a bit busy/stressed/tired to get on here before then. On Friday before we leave in the afternoon, I have to orchestrate 20 plus valentines for 3 children. yikes!!! I hope no one decides on a healthy heart shaped peanut treat. So in case I don't get back here before then.....

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Why I Hate Decorating Cakes - A Happy Ending

Whew!!! I finally finished decorating the cakes, and am so relieved to be done. I thought I would share the finished product with all of you out there waiting anxiously to see the finished product.

Natalie's Princess Cake

Michael's Hot Wheels Cake

I HATE Decorating Cakes!!!!

I hate decorating cakes. That is right, I hate it. The icing is like glue and sticks to everything, the food coloring is messy, and it is a pain to clean all those little decorating tips. I hate it!!

Why am I going on about my cake decorating hatred. Well, you see, my twins 6 birthday is this Sunday, and since I am the proud parent of a food allergic child, I am forced to make my own cakes. Of course, because I am forced to make my own cakes, I aspire to make them better then any bakery cakes, so no one feels they are missing anything. My twins, of course want two separate cakes, so I need to decorate two cakes - Natalie wants a Barbie Island Princess Cake, and Michael a Hot Wheels Cake- which means twice the pressure.

I am sure you are now asking yourself how this all began. (I am sure you are also asking yourself why I am writing about my cake decorating hatred, but that is easy, I have spent the last 10 hours making and trying to decorate cakes). After Conor was diagnosed, and I made the unfortunate discovery that no bakery cakes would be safe for us, I decided to sign myself up for a cake decorating class. I had once tried to decorate a cake without such a class, and it was not a good experience, so I figured a class would give me all the expertise I needed. Each week we had to bake a cake, and make our own icing and then go to class and decorate the cake the cake of the week. Then we could take our decorated cake home and share it with all of our family and friends.

The first class was not to bad - I made the cake from scratch, and closely followed the recipe for the perfect icing. I did a simple Superman cake, and excitedly brought it home to share with everyone. As soon as Conor took a bite his face started to swell. Great, I took this class to make him cool safe cakes, and instead he has an allergic reaction to my first cake. Oops. I could not figure out what was going on, I had made everything myself from scratch. After some serious contemplation I finally figured it out - Conor was allergic to eggs, and was reacting to the meringue powder in the icing. After an allergist visit, and some testing confirmed the allergy (it all made perfect sense later, and explained alot of unexplained reactions) I learned to make icing and everything else without eggs.

This has gone on way to long for now. I need to get back to my cake decorating now that the little ones are finally in bed and not able to "help". Unfortunately in our house, "helping" ends up involving sticking fingers in the great masterpiece I have just created, and fighting, crying and large messes. I promise to post pictures of the finished projects when I am done.

Wish me luck

What I Learned During the Superbowl - Don't Freak Out if Blood is Ozing From Your Child's Ear

It was Sunday afternoon. We were all ready to sit down and watch the big game. Conor had a cold for the past few days, but we had been able to control his coughing with the nebulizer, and he seemed on the road to recovery. (Yes, any time the asthmatic child gets sick, it is always a deal. I hear someone sneeze and immediately ask "Who is it?" If the response is Michael or Natalie, I always think oh good. Not good for them, but at least it is not Conor) I thought all was well, when he starts screaming about a terrible pain in his ear. After I force him to drink his chocolate milk spiked with ibuprofen, I realize it is time to toss him into the car and head over to the local after hours pediatric clinic. For those of you that don't have one of these places, I feel for you. It is just like a pediatricians office that is open from 5-10 pm during the week, and 10-10 weekends and holidays. It truly is one of the greatest inventions of all time, and cures the problem of what to do when your child decides they are sick first thing Saturday morning, and your Dr is not open again until Monday, and you really don't think it is that worth of the ER.

So I bribe my sweet little thing into the car with 2 cookies, and his sister decides to come along for the ride because she has no interest in watching football, and would rather watch her little brother get poked and prodded. We finally reach our destination and go into the office. The doctor comes in, and looks in his ear, looks at me, and proclaims that his eardrum is about to burst. OK, between my three children we have probably had about 10 ear infections and no one has ever mentioned the possibility of an eardrum bursting. Even better, she told me if the eardrum did burst, Conor would probably have blood and puss oozing from his ear. Cool!!! No doctor ever told me of this possibility either. If I woke up in the middle of the night to my screaming child with blood oozing out of his ear, I would probably freak out and rush to the emergency room.

Little did I know, that although a burst eardrum is not a good thing, it is not that bad, and usually relieves the pain and heals by itself. No one ever told me these evil ear infection possibilities. If they did, they could probably save alot of crazed worried parents some panic when dealing with their oozing ear infected children.

So just in case you want to learn more about this cool phenomena of eardrum bursting and puss and blood here is a link or two.

http://www.hearingaidscentral.com/bursteardrum.asp

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/perforated_eardrum/article_em.htm

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/ruptured-eardrum/DS00499

Thankfully we seem to have caught the ear infection just in time, and so far I have not seen anything oozing (I like that word), out of ears. (Noses are another story though) We are on the cool antibiotic that takes less time (the one good thing about being allergic to penicillin) and are hopefully on the mend.

You Know You Are the Parent of a Food Allergy Kid When...

For those of you that have not been there yet, check out the totally awesome site Kids With Food Allergies. (Yes, I was a Valley Girl in my youth. Really, I grew up in the San Fernando Valley - home of the Valley Girl) It is a really great place with lots of great information.

While I was reading the support forums, I came across a great post that made me laugh at our not so funny situation of being parents of a child with food allergies. Check out the post "You Know You are the Parent of a Food Allergy Kid" here.

Some of my favorites are...

"...DD playing "Mommy" with her doll is feeding from the WHITE (Neocate-color) disappearing liquid bottle after totally rejecting the orange one and then giving Baby a neb treatment.

You know you're a pofak when finding a new safe candy bar gets you as excited as a little kid on Christmas morning. And, you have to tell the stranger standing behind you in the line why you are so excited.

...you can glance at a list of 20+ ingredients in minuscule font and pick out all of your allergens (including derivatives) in less than a second."

Of course this inspired me to think of a few of my own...

You spend hours deciding on what sort of product you should carry your child's epi pen in, and then a few more hours deciding if you should get the carrier in red race car fabric, or the cool floral. In the end you finally decide to buy both so you can have your choice of which you want to carry.

You unabashedly hate an advertising figure, and blame him for the downfall of modern civilization simply because it is an advertising figure for the food your child is deathly allergic to.

So there Mr. Peanut - I hate you and am proud of it!!

Even though you can not cook to save your life, you learn to bake and decorate nut free, egg free and dairy free cakes in the shapes of dolls, 3-D cars, and every character imaginable, just so your allergic child can have a birthday cake that is cooler then everyone else's bakery bought ones.

When you first make the wacky cake recipe you learn that if you combine vinegar and baking soda, you can make a cool volcano type eruption.

You know that there is such a thing as egg free mayonnaise, and that it really does taste pretty good.

All your son wants for his 4th birthday is a red medical alert bracelet.

I am sure I have tons more, but I am all tapped out for now. I would love to hear other peoples.

I Found My Perfect Dog - The Peanut Detector Dog

Since Buster the pug has been getting up there in years, and had the big cancer scare, we have considered getting another dog to add to our household. Although Conor tested off the scales allergic to everything including dogs, we have had Buster since before he was born, and with general precautions like keeping Buster out of the bedrooms, and regular washing/grooming, Conor seems to be ok with him.

So, I started doing some research into what sort of dog we would be interested in next. Although Pugs are totally awesome little dogs they do SHED ALL OVER EVERYTHING!. Mick was also interested in getting a bit bigger dog, since we have the space for it since we moved. Much to my delight, I discovered that there are many non-shedding dogs such as the Poodle, Shit Tzu, Kerry Blue Terrier, and the greyhound. While I liked all these dogs, I was not sure how good they were for our family with three sweet little things running around. Then I came upon my answer - the Doodles. That is right, the Labradoodle, and the Goldendoodle. These dogs are combinations of Labradors and Golden Retreivers and poodles. They have the great disposition of the Labs, but are breed to have the non shedding coat of the Poodle. WOOO HOOOO

On my final scan of the Internet, I then came across my dream dog. The Peanut Detection Dog. That is right, a dog that can detect peanuts with a whiff of its nose.

These are special breeds of dogs specially trained to recognize the scent of minuscule amounts of peanuts, pretty much like those trained to sniff explosives or narcotics

According to their website peanutdog.com

"A Peanut Detector Dog is a valuable tool for a person with an allergy to peanuts. Since a dog’s sense of smell far surpasses that of humans, detection of odors is a perfect job for these dogs. Our Peanut Dogs, undergo extensive training, are easily able to detect minute quantities of peanuts in any form; raw, cooked, oil, butter, dust, etc."

Imagine, going to a restaurant with Fluffy the peanut detector dog, and letting him sniff everything on Conor's plate before he eats it to make sure it really is peanut free like the waiter said. Fluffy can scan the park and discover hidden jars of peanut butter, or a misplaced peanut butter sandwich. He could probably even sniff out Mr. Peanut from a slew of advertising papers. Think of the possibilities.

All my excitement crashed down however, when I saw the price...... 10,000 dollars. Yikes!!!

I can dream however. Maybe I will win the lottery.

Blood is Thicker Than Peanut Butter

Although I was not present, I was told this wonderful story about my children by our Au Pair Natalia. Natalia took all three sweet young things to the local park to play one afternoon while I was gallivanting around town.

Since they are so close in age, our home is filled with fighting, bickering and general turmoil and upheaval between the youngins. They fight over everything, and anything.

Here are some examples,

Child, "I want that domino"

Me, "there are 75 other domino's that are exactly the same"

Child, "but I want the exact one he is playing with."

Other Child, "I want that one and only that one too.

Here are some other things commonly heard in our home,

"Mommy, he/she touched me"

"Wwwwaaaaaaaa he bit me"

"That is mine and you can not play with it!!"

"OOOWWWWWW"

"NNOOOOOOO"

Me,"Help!!!"

So anyways, while they were at the park, they noticed a giant jar of peanut butter sitting out on one of the picnic tables. Having been well trained by their obsessive and paranoid mother, they jumped into action to protect the safety of their little brother. After securing the perimeter of the peanut butter laden area, they decided they needed to go home and make signs to put up around the park to let everyone know the dangers of peanuts to the peanut allergic. When I got home I discovered everyone working diligently around the table coloring in peanuts and putting x's through them. They made about 10 signs and were very determined to share their knowledge with the world. Unfortunately Natalia was unaware of the proper way to spell peanut, and all the signs declared loudly - NO PEANAUTS - DANGER.

I was so touched I gave everyone a big hug, and told them how proud I was of them for looking out for their brother. They really wanted to go back to the park to wallpaper it with their signs, so I had to explain that unfortunately the part is a public area, and although peanuts are my arch enemy, many people like and enjoy them, and have every right to bring them to a public park. As a compromise they agreed to just decorate our stroller and sand toys with the signs, so everyone would know to keep peanuts away from them.

I guess blood is thicker then peanut butter.