E's progress

Well, we went out to eat Friday night at Black Bear Diner. We fed the kids beforehand, just in case there wasn't anything safe for them. Just about everything on the menu contained egg and they serve breakfast all day long. We really wanted to see how E would react being around his allergens. The server got us a table in a back room in a corner. There were not a lot of people around us. We had them wash down E's area of the table with a clean rag. R and I ate foods that had tomatoes. I also had sweet potatoes. E knew that he was not supposed to touch his face and he did a wonderful job! We all washed our hands and face before leaving. We are proud to say that he passed sitting in a room with other people eating foods he is allergic to. Now although he did ok in a room with other people, he was not touched by anyone AND he did not touch any other surface other than what had been cleaned. His face has been so clear lately that we wanted to just try to see what would happen. Obviously we had the benadryl and epi-pen. Thankfully we did not need to use either one.

Also, as a reward system in our home, we use a "treasure box". Each time the kids do something good, ie brush their teeth, eat their meal, get dressed, read to someone, share toys, etc, they get to put a rock from one container into another. When all the rocks are in the "happy can" (it has a smiley face on it) they all get to choose out of the treasure box. This time, E chose to have a date with Dad. Dad took him to weinerschnitzel and let him have a plain hotdog. We were very cautious about this. R drilled the employees about every single food label for all the different products and even what oils they use one the hotdog grill. There was tomato and nuts (nuts were only near the registers, not near where they cook the hotdogs). E went the whole meal w/o ANY incident. R said E was so excited to be able to go somewhere and eat food that we did not prepare. E tried to not play it up too much when he got home. E said he didn't like it at all, but I know he's just playing cool with me.

So...because he has done so well with each of those situations, we are going to try to go to church w/o wiping down all of the chairs for a few weeks to see how he does. We are really hoping that he can actually go to Sunbeams with the other kids...That way he is not in a primary class all by himself, poor guy. It has got to be boring being the only kid!

We are also going to start having home school park days soon where the kids get to play with other homeschooled kids. J is really excited about it! It will be nice to have some friends for the kids to play with.