Tip #5275: Completely forget that your nine year old son was once "intolerant" of peaches.
How is this tip handy, you wonder? Well let me share with you a little story from last night.
While setting the table for dinner, Elaine made Warren some sweet tea with the Mio drops he loves. He took a drink and said, "is this peach or just sweet? It tastes like peach!" Elaine insisted it was indeed just the sweet tea. I took a sip and confirmed W's discovery. Peach. Warren paused for a moment, looked at me and asked, "should I try to drink it or dump it out since I don't really like peach tea?" (We've been on them about wasting food recently, so this was quite a valid question.) I suggested he try and drink about half of it and then he could make new tea.
He drank it all, while musing as to whether the tea tasted like peaches or mango. I thought nothing of it. When he was finished, he got a glass of water, and by then we were all sitting down to dinner.
While we were eating, I noticed a spot near Warren's mouth. "Dude, you have something on your cheek. Wipe it with your napkin please." He wiped. It was still there. I looked at his plate - no ketchup. Nothing pink that would leave that mark on his face. And then it hit me.
When W was 10 months old and we were introducing baby food, he developed a rash on his face from the peaches. The doctor called it an intolerance to peaches rather than an allergy. He suggested we try to reintroduce peaches at a later time and keep an eye on it. As the years went by, Warren would try a bit of a peach and would declare that he didn't like it because of the texture. (Lordy lordy he was such a texture kid. Remind me to tell you about the tags I had to cut out of shirts, and how he once smacked me with all his might because he got ketchup on his hand, which was clearly my fault from across the table. But I digress.)
"Oh crap," I cried. "Warren, did you drink all of that tea?" Puzzled, Warren nodded that he indeed had. "Well dude, now you've got a little bit of hives kicking on your face. Let me get the benadryl."
I then had to explain what a hive was, why benadryl was the medicine of choice, why said benadryl was clear when it said it was bubble gum flavored (dye-free), and what an intolerance to peaches was. I asked how his tongue and mouth felt. "Fine, except that the medicine doesn't taste a THING like bubble gum," Warren responded. (I was looking for swelling or difficulty breathing, but I'll take a 'this medicine sucks' instead.)
Elaine was near tears. I asked what was wrong and she told me she thought it was all her fault because she made the peach tea and didn't know he couldn't have peach tea and she thought it was the sweet tea and did she hurt Warren and boo hoo hoo.
Do you think she was a bit tired and done with winter break? Yeah. She was.
I reassured her that Warren was fine, it wasn't her fault and if it was anyone's fault, it was mine. I talked more about how some people she knows have serious allergies, but Warren's intolerance was nothing like that.
Problem solved. Hive gone. Mom of the year already secured for 2012. Don't even bother trying to compete people!
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