Can you go to the allergist and get a scratch test done? If it were positive, then you'd need to avoid lentil or have a supervised food challenge, but if it were negative, you'd have 95% certainty that you can tolerate lentils.

This would mean a complete revocation of Internet privileges in my house. I would (and have) password-protected every Internet-capable device in the house. If she needs the Internet for school, a parent will enter the password and then closely supervise until the device is turned off. If she wants to strengthen her creative writing, give her a pencil and a stack of paper. In my house, this would continue until said child demonstrated trustworthiness.

I use a little on my milk - allergic son's pizza. That's pretty much the only thing I use it for. Personally I think it tastes gross and nothing like real cheese, but since he's never had real cheese, he's happy with it. To make the (very expensive!) bag last longer, I weigh out small portions of it into plastic baggies and freeze them until needed.

I order stuff that I can't get locally (mostly allergy-friendly breakfast cereal, snacks, soy milk, etc. for my allergic son) or that's cheaper than I can get it locally (my daughter's favorite Annie's snack crackers, k cups, etc.).

Celiac and wheat allergy are completely different. Celiac would not show up on a skin prick test for wheat allergy. If your market doesn't have egg replacer, try Amazon. (When your kid eats the weird foods that mine does to avoid 8 different allergens, subscribe & save is your friend!) You can also google how to make egg replacer--it's mostly baking powder.

In that case, I think you're right to be strict, at least for a while. Like I said, highly recommend the So Delicious products: they make "milk", coffee creamer, yogurt, and frozen goodies. To sub for egg in baking use Ener-G egg replacer or you can make a "flax egg" by soaking flax in water (we use King Arthur brand). I like Earth Balance vegan mayo and their shortening sticks in baking because they're non-hydrogenated. Many Applegate products (hot dogs, bacon, lunch meat, pepperoni) are dairy free. (You do have to be careful with deli meats because cheese is frequently cut on the same slicers. Buy the prepackaged kind.) As for chocolate, Hershey's has very good labeling and that includes their Scharffen Berger brand. Enjoy Life is also good. Life is stressful enough with a food-allergic child, a girl needs her chocolate! Highly recommend cookbooks by Cybele Pascal and books about food allergy by Dr. Scott Sicherer (on the board of directors of FARE, formerly FAAN, and we're very fortunate in that our son is his patient). I think the previous poster meant to say that Fleischman's unsalted *margarine* is dairy free. Butter is definitely not dairy free! And be careful with goat's milk--many, if not most individuals allergic to cow's milk will be cross-reactive to goat's milk. Maybe have a skin test done before trying it.

Are the egg & milk in your diet causing problems for your baby? The reason I ask is that my son stopped nursing at age 3.5 and during that time I kept eating almost everything he's allergic to (very severe allergies and history of anaphylaxis to egg & milk, plus wheat, barley, rye, peanut, tree nut, and sunflower seed). I kept peanut / tree nut out of my diet because it was giving him eczema. But if I just stayed away from the nuts, he was perfectly healthy with porcelain skin. My allergist said that so little of the allergenic protein makes its way into breastmilk to worry about unless it was causing a problem. (It's way too small of an amount to cause a significant reaction.) I think I probably wouldn't have nursed him as long as I did if I had had to live on such a restricted diet. And I think that for a child with a severely restricted diet, the breastmilk was so beneficial to him! And now that he's nearing his 4th birthday and starting to outgrow some of his allergens (even ones his drs. said he probably wouldn't outgrow) and his IgE numbers are falling, I wonder if the tiny amounts of allergenic protein he received through my breastmilk actually "taught" his immune system to recognize them. Experiment and see what you can get away with, foodwise. If regular milk and egg in your diet bother him, try baked egg and milk. I think there is also a rotation diet out there that allows you to eat the allergenic foods on occasion, making sure that the proteins can't build up too much in your milk. Eat all the dark chocolate you want--there's no milk in that! Also try the So Delicious coconut ice cream--the chocolate flavor is so rich and creamy! Good luck!

We school for a portion of the summer so that we can take all of December off.

They start after Labor Day here, too--I'm in upstate NY.

Can you look for a wedding band with some small diamonds set into it so that you can still get a little sparkle?

Salzburg

:iagree:

Here it is Dec. 1st and my daughter (Aug. 10 b'day) was still the youngest in her Catholic school K class. Everyone redshirts here.

If you're in the wrong generation, then so am I, because neither can I stand this. And I see it mostly in teens, but also surprisingly often in adults! It's kind of ironic that homeschoolers are so frequently asked how they will "socialize" their children, because I notice that the homeschooled teens I know have far better manners/social skills than the ones who attend school!

What about a Magnificat or MagnifiKids subscription? Sharon

:iagree: Couldn't have said it better...

Let me say straight out that I don't have as many children as you do and my 2-year-old is unusally placid and easy-going (this would have never worked when my older one was a toddler, she was just way too active and rarely napped longer than 45 minutes). But in case anything from our routine can benefit you, here goes: -I feed my 2 y.o. breakfast while I teach math to my 8 y.o. If he's strapped into a booster seat at the kitchen table and getting a mouthful of oatmeal every few seconds, there's a limit as to how disruptive he can be. He's probably capable of learning to feed himself at this point, but I'd rather try that when I'm not simultaneously trying to teach fractions. I figure I have enough on my plate without having to wipe down oatmeal-spattered walls! :) I manage somehow to stretch breakfast out for an hour and a half-long math lesson. Some fruit will follow the oatmeal, maybe a rice cake with jam on it after that. Hey, he's a growing boy! -During spelling, grammar, writing and maybe penmanship if we get to it before lunch (cumulatively about an hour), my little guy will play on the floor in the playroom (really a formal dining room that we haven't gotten around to purchasing furniture for, but it's right off the kitchen where dd and I homeschool, so I can easily keep an eye on him). When dd has independent work, I might have a few minutes to read a board book or two to ds. If he wants to be at the table with us, crayons, paper and a sheet of stickers can buy me half an hour. I've never turned the tv on for him because I fear he'll quickly forget how to play by himself. -We do reading while I'm nursing/rocking ds down for his nap. Dd will get a pillow and a throw blanket and snuggle up with her book on the floor next to the rocking chair where ds and I nurse. We generally do a half hour of "required" reading and a half hour of independent reading. I read aloud any of the required reading that is beyond her reading level. -I'll put my ds down in his crib, then go back downstairs to fix dd and myself some lunch. DD will have a few minutes of "recess". -We are usually able to get most of our afternoon subjects (typically either science or history, then German and religion) out of the way while ds naps. I'll usually prioritize subjects that would be difficult to do with a toddler underfoot (science experiments, art projects, etc.) If ds wakes before we're finished (3 or 4 pm), I'll put him at the table and feed him again, since he'll be hungry after his nap and then he'll play happily, since he's fresh from his nap. -Dd and I do more read alouds for around a half hour at bedtime (right now it's the Anne of Green Gables series) while dh changes his diaper, gets him into his jammies, brushes his teeth and reads to him. HTH and good luck!

Just wanted to chime in to say that I'm sympathetic. We also do not/will not own a gaming system. This isn't an issue with our 8 y.o. daughter, but can definitely foresee it being an issue for our toddler son at some point. (Only because this is what we hear from other parents.) We don't do tv other than good quality documentaries and classic movies (we don't have cable or an antenna), dh and I don't do Facebook, etc. It is indeed a very sad state of affairs that this is hindering your son socially. Nor do I think that you're just trying to be different, as a pp suggested, because I also genuinely believe that video games are detrimental to developing little brains and I know that I'm not just "trying to be different," either. Is it possible that these aren't really the kind of friends you want for him anyway??? After all, you could cave and buy him an XBox and the hottest new games and have a steady stream of boys coming through your living room to play it and your son might (rightly) perceive that it's the video system, not him that they're after. He deserves friends that want to be friends with *him*! I'm personally of the opinion that kids don't need legions of friends and playmates, one good buddy is all they need to feel accepted and appreciated. Perhaps if you tap into his hobbies, check with the library, local science museum, etc. for groups that meet there? If scouts isn't meeting his needs, maybe something else will. Are you near a university town? You might have better luck finding like-minded families there. One last thought, where do you stand with regards to something like Lego Mindstorms? That could provide some of the coolness factor that would help your son break the ice with other boys, yet be more educational and less passive than video games. Good luck! Sharon

Thanks! :)

Just wanted to introduce myself: I am Sharon, first time homeschooling mom to Sophie (age 8) and Oliver (age 2). My screen name stands for the meanings of my children's names. I haven't the foggiest notion how to go about making one of the siggies you all have with the curricula your children are using, but here's what we're doing: Saxon Math 2 FLL 1--just about ready to start 2 Spelling Workout C WWE 2 Reading: WTM reading list for 2nd grade Peterson Handwriting SOTW 2 WTM-inspired science for 2nd grade German reading Bible stories for religion Since we came to HSing late, I wanted to try and get through each of the four time periods before moving onto the logic stage, so we're "double timing" it. We did the Ancients and all the 1st grade recommendations last semester and are now starting the Middle Ages and all the 2nd grade curricula. We'll do 3rd and 4th grade next year so that we can land in fifth grade having caught up. This board has been a great source of info. and I thought I ought finally to come out of the shadows!