Party Post Partum

You may relate to having friends who throw the best kids birthday party ever. Or maybe you are that friend. Our friends are over the top awesome at parties. They plan and hand paint decortions a month a ahead of time. Super Hero backdrops for the kids to pose in front of, a station of six games the kids get to play, all Superhero related, and win tickets which they later get to redeem for prizes and balloons that they bent and twisted into swords and super long weanie dogs themselves. Of course, the home made cake looks like it was rolled out of "Cake Boss" too. Layers of fondant and four tiers (even bigger than the picture shown), each decorated with the colors and design of the costume of five different Super Heros from Avengers, with the hulk hand bursting out of the top layer. Amazing!
Did I mention the parents both work and the mother is a lawyer who works nearly 80 hours a week sometimes?
How they do it is beyond me. Their parties are awesome.
So we always go.

The problem is, when we get there, although Ben and I, with the most allergies, are super careful and only eat what works for us, I cave and let Bodee and Bronson eat pretty much whatever they want. They don't have the severity of allergies we do, so I think, "It's only this one time" or " A little bit will be okay." and they eat the pizza (gluten) and candy (GMOs)and cake( food coloring, gluten and GMOs). Ben and I sit and watch the Incredibles movie they have playing while everyone else eats cake. It's too tempting to watch them. Cake is my downfall. But this time anyway, I stay strong for myself. For the two younger ones, I honestly just did not want the screeching and crying, stomping and flailing to spoil the party. So I let them eat the "treats".

And boy do we pay for it later. I want to be clear here, it's not my friend's fault. This is every party we go to. I let my kids eat stuff I know doesn't really work for them. I caved. And the results were what they were, not bad or wrong, just really really annoying.

Bodee was on permanent grouch mode for the rest of the night and well into the next day. He stomped, yelled, slammed doors and gave us mean ogre faces at the dinner table. I almost laughed at him one time because he was staring at me like a one eyed pirate so hard I thought his one eye might pop out. I told him so and then he was screaming at me for laughing at him. His veins popped out and his face turned pink with aggression. It occurred to me that when my friends were kids, they might have gotten slapped upside the head for talking to their parents like that.

Bronson was a screech monster from hell. He cried every time his brother looked at him and he screeched holy hell when I asked him to pick up his toys. Everything was "I don't love you anymore Momma", which is a really big deal for him to say, and "I hate you" to everyone else. I lived each moment in regret every time I raised my voice to tell them to stop fighting and be quiet. I was not inspired. I was annoyed, upset, regretful and mad at them for not controlling themselves.

I kept trying to remind myself of a saying I saw on Facebook written over the face of a miserable looking child "I am not giving you a hard time, I am having a hard time." I got it. They are having a hard time. Well, I am having a hard time with them having a hard time. My husband is ready to blow a gasket and yells "Just make him STOP!" He hollers that he is leaving the house to go work at Starbucks, but after a shower to simmer him down, he puts a movie on for the kids and all seems to settle.

I realize that it's not worth it. Not going to the party, but letting them eat stuff that just doesn't work for them. Bronson's stomach gets a bloated and rashy and Bodee gets dark circles under his eyes and they both look miserable. They don't want to behave this way, they feel like they can't control themselves, I know. I feel like that sometimes too when I have eaten tons of sugary, food dyed, GMO foods. I feel like I am on one of those rides at a carnival that spins really fast and I am screaming and later vomiting profanities uncontrollably. It's Party Post Partum. The body is out of wack from all the chemicals and crashes into the abysss of feeling bad, fits and tantrums.

Sometimes it takes uninspired moments to create inspiration. What I am getting from this experience is a possibility for coming together like a band of B Boys before we go to parties. Bringing our own food and agreeing that after the party we get to all do something super fun as a family together if we all eat our own food instead. We have an After Party! We celebrate our self control, reward our restricted diet, with GMO free, gluten free, food dye free and preservative free abundance of food. It's not that hard either. I make extra gluten free, GMO free pizza and cupcakes and freeze them in the freezer, ready for the next party. I bring some food dye free lollipops from Trader Joe's and GMO free candy in case all the other kids get goody bags with candy it them so I can swap it out. My kids can eat the fruit and popcorn and drink the juice (as long as it doesn't contain corn syrup) and play all the games til their hearts content.

I could just not RSVP to parties and stay home and avoid the mayhem. I can see though, that there would be a real loss in bonding, fun and celebration of our friends. So the "inspired parenting" challenge for me transforms the situation from one of regret to a possible opportunity to really have it all...go to parties and all do what works for us and be our own Super Heros. Sometimes, saying "No" is actually saying "YES" and is the most heroic thing to do.

Zen Honeycuttt

What I Know and Don’t Know about the Cause of My Sons’ Allergies

I don’t know if it was the induction. I was urged to be induced because he might be “too big” and he came out a skinny, wrinkly 6.8 oz baby covered in vernix. He was not ready. He could have grown stronger in the womb for a week more at least. He ended up being allergic to too many things to write here without losing your interest; a myriad of food, environmental and animal allergies.

I don’t know if it was the vaccines. I gave my son the slew of them. Everything recommended, even the one with five at a time. After that one he started getting random 24 hour fevers and rashes. He had a febrile seizure in the car that nearly had my husband crash the car from panic.

I don’t know if it is the environment. We have lived in homes with synthetic carpeting and synthetic flooring. House cleaners with toxins, plastic house wares with estrogens and cabinets with formaldehyde, so I hear, pressed into the wood that slowly leaks out and gives housewives a 60% increase in cancer. As there is in most homes, I am sure there is mold in our walls; I smell it when it rains. I am sure the electronic waves from the TV, microwave, cell phones and iPad are inundating our bodies with stress. Toxins, they say, weakens the immune system and could lead to increased allergies.

I don’t know if it is the effect of the food over time. We gave him food that was as healthy as we knew how. Soda and chips only at Nana’s or birthdays. No junk cereal. Once organic became more prevalent, we did that for berries and fruit and some veges. But we also gave him the processed breads, pastas and treats. We did. We gave him corn that we now know has pesticides engineered into the DNA. And now he, and my other sons have allergies to almost everything out there.

I don’t know if it is the effect of the GMO’s, it could be the preservatives. It could be the food dyes, high fructose corn syrup or the food fillers. But the overall reason for his many allergies might very well be the amount of acidic foods he eats, which thins the stomach lining and allows the food particles, whether they be GMO or not, to escape into the blood stream and cause the body to react and attack. The attack shows up as a rash on the body. But I do suspect all of the above, especially the foods.
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Whatever the cause is of my son’s extensive allergies, I do know I am going to find out. I am going to keep trying. Because the future we now have is unacceptable. It need not be this way.

We cannot eat out at restaurants and going to parties is heart breaking. No cake, no pizza, no hot dogs,no ice cream. It’s a nightmare. My son wailed and cried that he would rather not go last time. I found it hard not to curse God. After he slips and eats a little gluten he is out of control emotionally. If he eats nuts by accident in Thanksgiving stuffing, we are sticking his thigh with an Epi pen, and as blood spurts from his leg, we dash to the hospital. At Cub Scout events we have to bring our own food and sequester ourselves. I have to hoard our food and protect it from the hands of other starving eight year olds. They wonder why he is different.We explain it all but still…he feels odd, fearful for his life and weak…sickly…an outcast. All he wants is to be strong.

Many kids feel like this and don’t KNOW that they have a food or ingredient allergy. One friend confided, after I told him about my son’s allergies and the children’s book I am writing about it, that his son would punch holes in walls and was furiously disturbed for years until they did a food elimination diet and slipped one day and gave him a strawberry ice cream from the ice cream truck. The Red Food Dye 40 was the cause. Once they found out he became a different kid, in a good way. And all along he had been given ADHD drugs, psychotherpay, punishments etc…there are children who want to focus at school but can’t. There are kids who feel depressed and don’t know why. There are divorces happening that need not. There are suicides and violence everyday that are in many cases, I believe linked to food and ingredient allergies….the question is do we have to just put up with it? Just survive it?

We do know… we miraculously did find out recently that the red painful and embarrassing rash around his mouth is a Carrageenan allergy. (in ice cream, hot dogs, sauces, dressing, lunchmeat and toothpaste.) We know about the gluten/wheat, nut, peanut, mushroom and my other son’s egg and dairy allergies as well as others…we know about those. What we don’t know is why.

We have a hunch about this acidic/alkaline theory and we are altering our lifestyle to eat alkaline. It wasn’t a usual pathway we took to get this possible answer. We went to an Iridologist, someone who reads the iris of your eye like a tree trunk. She could see I was anemic when I was seven. She could see that my mother has arthritis in her left knee even though she doesn’t limp. She could see that my son’s stomach was too acidic. She could see his Carrageenan allergy…something a western medical doc would take many months of painful blood tests to find out if they even tried. Mostly they would just prescribe a cream and tell him to stop licking his lips. As if it’s his fault.
This Iridologist was shared with me by a friend. I am forever grateful to her.I would never normally go to a doctor who looks at your EYE to diagnose me or my kids. That’s crazy woo woo. But I was desperate…and anything is possible. So I went along time ago and have gone back twice with my son. She told us all about acidity and alkaline foods and how we can balance our diet and heal his stomach. She gave us a pathway that we are trying, to eliminate allergies altogether. We don’t KNOW, but we will try it.

In the meantime, she told us that the red flare up around his mouth was a Carrageenan allergy (a what allergy??? a food thickener made of processed seaweed or moss) and I made the mistake of giving him organic chicken lunch meat with Carageenan in it and it flared up again, I researched it some more. I found out, that if left undiscovered, if we just slapped a cream on it or shot him up with a steroid or make him drowsy with allergy medication…if we just accepted that this is the way it is, got resigned and doubtful about it…the Carageenan allergy would create ulcers in his stomach and eventually cause cancer. My son.

Other kids might have a different allergy and their parents are struggling with behavior issues, creams, steroids and meds too. They may be resigned too. They may now know…not only what is causing the behavioral or allergic reaction, but they don’t know that this is life or death. And they don’t know that they don’t know.

I wish to empower parents and children to find out for themselves. Try alternative health care. Try Holistic, Naturopaths, Iridologist, Reiki and Energy healers, Try Chinese herbalists. Find what works for you. Don’t just go to a doctor who says take this medication…for the rest of your life....don't let acceptance actually become resignation. Wonder and try! Share with your friends what you learn from alternative, integrative and holistic healthcare. You may just be inspiring someone and saving a life.

Zen Honeycutt
Mom of three boys, 9, 7 and 3