Cool Weather and Cool Whip

When the phone rings at exactly 5:04 a.m., it is a pretty sure bet that the kids aren’t going to school. That is exactly what happened this morning which meant another virtual learning day due to snow. When we looked out the window once the sun actually rose this morning, we had only about half an inch of snow, but according to the info the district sent out, there was more snow in other areas of the district and the storm was expected to continue throughout the day. So although conditions out here were perfectly acceptable this morning, we sighed, rolled our eyes, and got the kids set up for virtual learning. 

The funny thing is that Nathan was sending texts all morning sharing with us the amount of snow that has fallen, and is still falling, in Logan. With trees that have become shrubs due to snow, statues that have a new snow-do, and the need to shovel out his car, they definitely have far more snow than we do. And guess what? They still had school. It made for an entertaining morning, one where we chose to laugh rather than complain. 

(The snow at our house-it was minimal)

An upside to our snow day was that the shortened online school day meant there was plenty of time for Malia and me to color Easter eggs this afternoon. Malia is not interested in doing an actual Easter egg hunt, which is totally fine by me, but she still wanted to color eggs. We did, however, scroll through Pinterest to find a different way to color our eggs. We’ve always gone the traditional bowls of liquid dye direction and we were both feeling adventurous. We looked at a variety of egg dying methods and Malia settled on the oft used but new to us Cool Whip method. 

We started by soaking our boiled eggs in vinegar to intensify the color of the dye and that was fascinating. The chemical reaction that occurred made for some interesting viewing. Next up was adding the food coloring to our mounds of Cool Whip. Malia and I were a bit uncertain at that point because the drops of gel food color looked like way too much and when we swirled it as directed, it just looked far too dark and not all that interesting. As such, we prepared a few dye cups with a smaller amount of color to see how that worked out in the end. By far the most satisfying part of this particular adventure was gently pushing each egg into the mounds of colored Cool Whip. I don’t know about Malia, but I would do this whole thing again in future years just for the satisfying squish as each egg was nestled into its dye. The second most satisfying part of the experiment was rinsing off the eggs at the end and discovering that they actually look really cool! Although we were skeptical at the outset, we learned that more dye is better for this coloring method. The ones with less dye were completely boring.

I feel like we made the best of our snow day despite the fact that it is April and pretty much everyone is well past ready for spring. Around here, we have to keep reminding our kids that spring in Utah brings all kinds of weather. The winters have just been so dry for so long that they are unaccustomed to the lingering snow. But Kev’s birthday is in June and as a kid, there were years when it snowed on his birthday, and I remember snow late in May. For us old timers, the unpredictable weather is perfectly normal. In fact, our anniversary was this weekend and there was snow on the day we got married. My sister, Rachael, got married in February and the weather on her wedding day was the exact same as the weather on the day of my April nuptials. So, while we are all looking forward to warmer days that linger instead of balmy days alternating with snowy ones, I’m not upset about today’s precipitation. It created a pocket of free time that made for some good mother/daughter time.

A-Hunting We Will Go

The past several years have seen Malia doing a solo Easter egg hunt. We blame that solely on COVID. This year, with things finally edging more towards normalcy, my mom wanted to see everyone for Easter. For us, Easter Sunday is spent at home with Kevin’s parents joining us for dinner, so we decided to gather with my clan on Saturday for an egg hunt and lunch. We ended up being small in numbers, my parents, Esther, Rachael and Dave and three of their kids, and me and my little crew minus Nathan, were the only ones in attendance. While my mom would have liked to see everyone, the smaller numbers actually made things a bit calmer, which was nice. 

Daniel, Matthew and Drew hid all the eggs for Malia, Kate and Sam to find. They were pretty clever in terms of hiding places and had to give a few hints to the younger crew. I had stuffed the majority of the plastic eggs with tiny stuffed animals and some little squishy animals that are all the rage right now with the elementary school set. The stuffed animals were far and away the most favored though, with even Matthew claiming a tiny lion as his own.

We also took the opportunity to have a small celebration for my mom’s birthday, which was two days ago. I made her a coconut bundt cake and fancied it up to have an Easter theme. Two birds, one stone, right? Anyway, it was a super simple cake with super simple decorations, and it was delicious. I haven’t made this particular cake for a long time and had forgotten how moist it is. My little crew and I have decided that we need to revisit some old favorites for our FHE treats for awhile instead of trying new things as there are many little gems buried in the depths of my cookbook.

It’s always nice to be able to gather with family. I think that in times past I took that for granted, but that is one more thing that COVID has changed. Like so many other things, being cut off from family and friends for so long has opened my eyes to what a blessing it is to be able to gather with the ones we love. 

And as a side note, Malia did in fact make Jell-o eggs this evening.

Egg-stravaganza

Easter is in a few days and the kids are on spring break, so we spent the day participating in some fun Easter themed activities. In fact, it was a threefold egg themed activity day. First up was decorating Easter egg pancakes. The pancakes were carrot cake pancakes, one of my springtime favorites, and were topped with an assortment of berries, cream cheese syrup, and whipped cream. It was an egg-ceptionally delicious way to start the day. And we all had a nice serving of veggies for breakfast. 😉

The second phase of today’s egg-tivities was making sunbutter eggs. Think chocolate dipped peanut butter eggs, but sunflower seed butter instead which makes them safe for my nut allergy kids. I made these once years ago thinking Matthew would like them, but when he wouldn’t eat them, I opted not to make them again. I thought they were delightful, but I absolutely did not need to eat an entire recipe all by myself. Last month, Matthew was browsing through my recipes and happened to come across this one. He got egg-cited and wanted to try them. In his defense, he was still really young the last time we tried these, and he is a lot better about trying new foods nowadays, so we gave it a go. Matthew is egg-static about our results. He loves these eggs. Malia doesn’t like the white chocolate dipped ones, but she does like the ones dipped in normal chocolate. Her reasoning is that the sunbutter tastes weird and the normal chocolate covers up the flavor better. But the rest of us enjoy them, so I’m not worried about them not being eaten. 

We finished up our eggs-tra busy day by coloring eggs. Matthew wasn’t interested in joining us, but Malia and I had fun. She was egg-static about some of her results, and had to rotate eggs in the cute egg cups so we could take pictures of all the ones she thought turned out egg-celent. She told me she wished we had more egg cups so she could showcase all her special eggs at one time, but the cups were an impulse purchase in Hobby Lobby just because they were cute which meant that I didn’t give much thought to how many she might want. We rectified the problem by simply rotating the eggs in the cups and taking multiple pictures. And she was nice enough to include my lovely jade green egg with curving stripes in her gallery. 

It has been a super fun day, but I’m a little bit eggs-hausted. I’m looking forward to putting my feet up and watching “Easter Parade” this evening. That hasn’t always been a tradition, but I think it should be. I mean, how is a ritual viewing of a classic starring Judy Garland and Fred Astaire not an egg-cellent idea? After such a busy day, it is egg-zactly what the doctor ordered!

And as if we don’t have enough egg in our faces, the kids want to eggs-tend the fun by making Jell-O eggs tomorrow. 😂

So...

It looks like the milk waffles are not a resounding success. Matthew has eaten a small waffle (about 3” square) every day this past week with no obvious problems. This morning we ate milk waffles for breakfast. Matthew had a full serving after which he had the same “not feeling right” reaction that he had last Saturday. He described it as feeling like he had a golf ball in his throat. Like last week, it passed in about 15 minutes, but to me it says that his body is not ready to tolerate that much milk.

I don’t see this as a failure. I see it as proof that he is less allergic than he once was. I also see it as a valuable bit of info gained. Matthew is disappointed that the milk waffles have not gone as smoothly as the egg waffles. He really wants it to work. But he’s also smart enough to know that not now doesn’t mean not ever. So now I call the doctor and figure out our next step. Based on the info she gave us at Matthew’s last appointment, I suspect it will be continuing to explore eggs, with cookies being next on the list. But we’ll see. The doc is the expert and she may have different ideas.

Learning Curve

I keep finding myself wanting to tell Matthew to wash his hands after he touches egg waffles to prevent cross contamination and to keep everything else safe for...Matthew. It is clearly going to take me awhile to wrap my brain around this whole “eggs are ok” thing.

L’Eggo My (Better Than) Eggo!

After our big coupe at the allergist’s office on Tuesday, the hot topic of conversation became when to have Matthew try egg waffles. Kevin and I both felt like sooner would be better, but we’ve always included Matthew in the decision-making process where his foods are concerned, and this time was no different. Matthew was inclined to wait until after school starts so he won’t have the additional stress of going to seventh grade weighing him down. Kevin told Matthew that the stress of starting school won’t go away, it will just change to stress about homework. He also encouraged Matthew to test out the waffles this weekend. I agreed with Kev and having said our piece, we left him to ruminate.

Yesterday Matthew told us that he was ready to try the waffles today. Was he scared? Yup. But he was also determined. So this morning we hauled out the waffle iron and set to work making the batter. Was I stressed? Of course. Did cracking eggs into the bowl kind of freak me out? Absolutely. It’s something I haven’t done for a dozen years. But in spite of those emotions I felt as I taught Matthew how to crack eggs, I felt an overall sense of peace and calm. I honestly felt like everything was going to go well.

And guess what? It did. Things went perfectly. The waffles had no effect on Matthew other than to give him a full belly and a giant grin. I’m so proud of how much courage he showed in making this decision. Eating something that he has spent his whole life knowing would kill him is incredibly scary and I think he’s amazing for making the choice to move forward so quickly. We’ve looked at our calendar and we’ve decided that he’ll eat egg waffles for a month and then over Labor Day weekend we’ll switch to milk waffles. That gives all of us (and his body) time to get used to the egg waffle bit before we switch it up. If milk waffles go well, we’ll raise the stakes and do waffles with both milk and egg over fall break in October. I have high hopes for this whole process. I’ll pray, as I’m sure Matthew will, for things to continue to go well. As I’ve said before, this could be a game changer for him.

Oh, and it’s a good thing he likes waffles because we made a mountain of waffles so he can eat some every day. 😊

Good News!

Matthew’s food allergy treatment plan has kind of been on hold since our allergist retired a year and a half ago. The doc we saw last year was not a good fit for us. Not only was he not proactive in terms of getting more foods back in Matthew’s diet, but none of us were comfortable with him. Malia saw another allergist earlier this year and we were all much more comfortable with her. She has the attitude of getting my kids into as a normal a life as possible rather than just saying they can’t do or eat things (she suggested the gloves and pretreatment with antihistamines prior to horseback riding rather than suggesting Malia skip it all together), which is much more in keeping with our attitude about how life should be for our kiddos. While Matthew met her back in the spring, today was his first official visit with her.

We do bloodwork and skin prick testing on Matthew every year and there were some surprises this year. Matthew’s number for egg white is down to 10. That is lower than it has ever been! As a frame of reference, when he was three or four, his number hovered around 45, so 10 is amazing! Not only that, but the component testing of the egg proteins (component testing gives results for the individual proteins in each food rather than just the food as a whole) had some even better results. There are two proteins in eggs. One of them is considered “bad” because the protein doesn’t break down when it is cooked. The “good” protein does break down when cooked. Matthew’s number for the good protein is 12, which is fantastic. And here’s the best part-he tests negative for the bad protein!! So although he may never be able to eat eggs cooked sunny side up, eating fully cooked eggs may become a possibility in the future. His number for milk is down to 8 and casein (one of the proteins in milk) is at 6. So that’s fantastic too! Matthew and I were both so excited!

The skin prick testing still shows that he is allergic to the raw egg and milk, but his hives were only about the size of the tip of a pencil eraser. For a comparison, the hives for his environmental testing (grass in particular) were a couple of inches big. The doctor’s reaction to that was to state that Matthew is a very allergic individual. Yup. We’ve heard that before. On several occasions, actually.

With the results of the skin prick testing factored in, the doc presented us with a food plan. She wants Matthew to start eating waffles with eggs in them. After a few weeks, she wants him to switch to waffles with milk. If that goes well, waffles with both egg and milk are up next. And after that, we start trying cookies. How amazing is that?! Our excitement (and trepidation) ramped up with that news, but this is most definitely a proactive step forward. We’ve been playing the waiting game since the retirement of our original allergist, but I feel like we are finally back in motion. Matthew’s body is making some progress and if this all goes well, he will be making some big strides into being able to eat much more normally.

Eggs-capades

Tomorrow is Easter. Since 50% of our children have passed the age of hunting for eggs, the whole affair is much lower key than is was in days past. On the other hand, 100% of our children still enjoy coloring the eggs so they all participated in that portion of the festivities. And honestly, I think Nathan likes hiding eggs almost as much as he enjoyed finding them when he was younger!

We Learned Two Very Important Things Today

First, cookies don’t bake long enough for the egg proteins to break down. The proteins need to be exposed to high temperatures for long enough that they break down so that the body doesn’t see them as an allergen. Clearly 10-12 minutes is not enough for Matthew.

Second, when trying new food at home, we need to feed Matthew one bite (as opposed to one cookie) like we do at the doctor’s office. That way he can tell us something does not feel right but hopefully he won’t have huge problems. If we had fed him only one bite, his mouth would have felt itchy fairly quickly like it did with the whole cookie, but the amount of egg that actually got to his tummy would have been significantly less and the resulting reaction probably would have been less as well.

He had a very unpleasant afternoon, but on the up side, he was never in a place where the Epipens became necessary. That in itself is a huge thing for us. It means his body is baby stepping in the right direction.

Egg in His Face

Matthew had another food challenge this morning. We've done so many over the past year and a half that you would think we are pros, but let me assure you that each one is equally nerve racking. We were doing a challenge for eggs in baked goods so I made cupcakes with eggs. After cooking without them for so long, it was actually really stressful to crack them into the bowl knowing Matthew was going to eat them. And my stress is nothing compared to what Matthew deals with. But he has been able to add a good variety of foods back into his diet after past food challenges so he soldiers on.

As in the past, this one went well and now we begin slowly adding things into his diet. The first thing I'm going to give him are those King's Hawaiian rolls. I love those things and haven't purchased them in years because they have milk and eggs. Hello, tasty goodness. Welcome back to my life.

It's Easter For Peep's Sake!

My kids happened to have spring break the same weekend as Easter, so we’ve had a little extra time for our holiday activities. Thursday afternoon we colored our eggs. We only spilled one bowl of dye and only cracked one egg. That’s a pretty successful dye session if you ask me.

Everyone’s schedules were extra crazy this year, so instead of doing an extended family egg hunt we did it here at home with just our little posse. That meant that all the plastic eggs were Matthew friendly which is highly unusual. Matthew thought it was just about the best thing ever. He was so excited that he barreled out the door as soon as it opened, not allowing Malia the couple minutes head start she deserved due to her age. After a few minutes we had to tell him to slow down because he wasn’t leaving any eggs for Nathan and Malia. He was pretty bummed, but by then he had nearly all the plastic eggs in his basket and Nathan and Malia only had a couple each. We made him share.

 Remember way back at Christmas when I found some fabric that would be great for Malia’s Easter dress? The previously mentioned dress has been completed and Malia loves it. I tried it on her at various stages in its completion and the first time she tried it on after the skirt was attached, she immediately started spinning and exclaimed, “It turns!” When I took the dress off her to put in the finishing touches, she came to snuggle me and said, “I love you.” I responded with an “I love you to.” Then she had to clarify: “I love you making my dress!” That kind of appreciation makes me glad to do it. And working with a little bit of tulle is just fun and makes the dress “turn.” Plus then we had to shop for shoes that matched and Malia was in little girl heaven. And I was in big girl heaven. What can I say? I have a thing for cute shoes. And apparently it is a genetic trait that I've passed on to my daughter.

My choir sang in Sacrament Meeting, I planned a kind of rowdy activity for singing time knowing that the primary kids would be all sugared up, and since we have 9 o’clock church we even had plenty of time to make our hot cross buns after church was over. It was a nice change from the hectic pace that happens when I try to get a nice dinner ready after getting home from church at 4 o’clock. So we had a nice day. Hopefully y'all enjoyed your holiday as well.