Rant (Sorry)

I realized the other day that all of our kids can walk! Pretty soon all of them will be doing their business in the toilet, we'll have no more cribs (first time in 8 years!), we have no infant car seats, someday we'll have no diaper bag! Can you imagine? Boy, life will be easy then. Yeah right. That's about the time I become the full time chauffeur, right? I'm only a part time chauffeur now. Always dragging the little ones to the big one's stuff, or vise versa. But I did look at the little fingerprints on the window and the little tiny shoes scattered by the front door, and got a little sad because I know they won't be there soon. Boy, time is going fast....

And here begins the rant:
I don't know if I told you this, but I found a preschool for Joey! My friend from church, Kim, works there. I'm feeling pretty comfortable about sending him. She knows all about his allergies and their severity. We went to other schools, to take little tours, and I would always talk with the teachers about it. I was always met with this response, "Oh, it's no big deal. We've had other kids with allergies, and for snack time we just have them sit at their own table." Excuse me?! It's "no big deal"!? Are you insane? One molecule of nut in this boy's mouth, or on his hands, and he dies. It's no big deal? And you'll separate him from the other kids and make him sit in solitude for something that's not his fault? No thanks.

So I'm really excited about this preschool. I was sitting at a play area at the mall a few weeks ago and ran into another mother that took her twins there. We got to talking and discovered that our boys had the same allergies, and have had the same background with doctors not knowing what was wrong with our babies, and not believing us when we suggested what the problem was. And her kids went to the same school! I think it's meant to be. The school is proactive in keeping him safe, and ask all the parents to avoid bringing anything with nuts there. Ahh, finally, some common sense.

I've always been afraid of the way other parent's will react to not being able to bring nuts. But really, how big of a sacrifice is it -- to (heaven forbid) not have our kids eat something? Is it really that much of a sacrifice to have the peanut butter sandwich as an after-school snack instead of endangering a little boy's life? Should we not teach our children respect, restraint, and sympathy toward other people and their life's situations? Maybe we should get rid of all the handicapped parking spaces. After all, how dare they ask us to park 10 feet farther away from the front door? How dare someone ask us to refrain from eating whatever we darn well please! We are Americans! We should be able to eat anything, all day long!!!

Okay, I'm better now. Thanks for listening.