Waffles and more ...

First of all ... I know I am slowing down in posting on my blog. I look at other people's blogs and see how often they post ... WOW! They post every day. I give them a lot of credit. I can't keep up with it that often. I enjoy posting, but every day is too much for me. And I have been reading lots of blogs. It is unbelievable how many are out there ... very overwhelming!

Anyway, we had a busy busy weekend so I haven't been able to blog. Of course the weekend revolved around eating ... we ate a lot of turkey, mashed potatoes (with Miracle Margarine and soy milk), etc. etc. We also saw a lot of friends and I thought it would be interesting to see what the boys ate (and what they couldn't) during the holiday weekend. If your kids have food allergies, you know that people are always wondering what they actually can eat ... here is a sampling.

Wednesday -- dinner with friends and we ordered pizza ... Big Guy can tolerate more milk these days (hurrah!) so he got to eat a couple slices. Little Guy can't eat pizza so I brought leftover Meatcakes for him.

Thursday -- breakfast with friends ... homemade waffles!!! I learned something new--you can make Bisquick waffles with just milk, no eggs!!!! I have stayed away from making pancakes and waffles because of the need to include eggs. But my friend pointed out that the package says "egg optional." We made them with soy milk I had brought over and they were delicious. The kids never even missed the egg.

The big dinner ... the boys ate turkey, mashed potatoes, beans. Neither of them could eat the rolls (they had eggs in them), but they were okay with that and they could eat the yummy cran-apple pie. It was from Market Day.

Friday -- post-Thanksgiving casual dinner with my brother and his family. My hubby made hand-ground hamburgers. They were delicious and everyone could eat them up. We also had waffle fries and green beans. The boys could eat it all!!

Saturday -- more leftovers ... nothing too exciting.

Sunday -- Big Guy and I went to see Happy Feet and since he is able to tolerate some dairy, he could have buttered popcorn.

Dinner at friends while watching the Bears game -- most of the kids had chicken nuggets. It can be tricky to find nuggets that don't have any dairy or egg, so I brought dino nuggets from the 3 lb. bag I got at Costco. Turned out Little Guy preferred the Beef Bourguignon (good taste for a two-year old) that the adults ate. (Thanks to hubby for making it!)

So, let's sum it up: Did I have to make allowances for the kids? Yes. Were they able to eat every single thing their friends ate? No. Did they care? No. Did it add a lot of extra stress to my life? No.

I was more stressed out by the Bears loss, figuring out what to bring as an appetizer Thursday and Little Guy's intense interest in his binky (aka pacifier).

Faux-giving

Yesterday, my family and I had Faux-giving ... Fake Thanksgiving ... because my parents will be out of the country on the real Thanksgiving. The family event consisted of myself, hubby and the two boys; my brother and his wife and their two young'ins; and my sister and her boyfriend.

One of the things that really struck me about this year's family gathering (other than the fact that all four kids were actually old enough to play on their own for longer than 5 minutes before they started wreaking havoc) was how easy it was to feed the kids. All the food allergies, pretty much a non-issue.

I attribute this phenomenon to the fact that my family know "the products." My mom doesn't even give it a second thought when she makes the mashed potatoes ... she uses the Miracle Margarine (along with soy milk). And she uses it in the carrots, green beans and sweet potatoes.

On a related note, Little Guy LOVED the sweet potatoes (probably because they are soaked in margarine and brown sugar). But jeez, he could not get enough of those. I was seriously afraid to give him too many, I mean, would he turn orange??? He could be the orange version of Violet Beauregarde.

Anyway, my mom also bought soy ice cream for the boys to eat while the rest of us pig out on French Vanilla. And Big Guy can eat the apple pie. Both boys could eat just about everything on the table. This is probably not a big deal to other moms, but it is pretty cool to me.

It wasn't that long ago (2 or 3 years) that I was quizzing my mom about what was in all the food so I could figure out what Big Guy could eat .... answer: not much. With all the hullabaloo with the holidays, my mom forgot to use miracle margarine and used regular butter. I felt bad Big Guy couldn't eat much, she felt bad she forgot. Overall, not a great scene.

But, you can see that with time we don't even think about it. What used to be a stessful big deal, has turned into a nonevent. A regular happy dysfunctional Faux-giving.

I have a LOT to be thankful for in my life and what I am blogging about today just represents one small thing on that list.