One of the first things I made plans to do after getting canned from work was to go visit Ginny and Nina. I knew we had a short window of overlapping at-home time between the end of my job, the start of her job, and the holidays. It was super-easy to get down to Brooklyn Heights, an hour door-to-door which is pretty good, in my opinion--that's how long it takes to get to see sister via subway and bus on the Upper East Side! It was great to see Nina (remember--rhymes with China) in person again; the last time was when Ginny came up to visit and Tashi mauled Nina. Now I am pretty sure Nina can give Tashi a run for her money. Baby is strong.
We did a brief walk around the hood, Nina in her monkey hat, one that Tashi tried out in April at Ginny's baby shower.
I also got to be present while Nina tried her first banana. She's clearly interested in food, just hasn't quite gotten the whole eat/swallow thing down. She made the classic 'what the heck?' face for us too.
Andrea asked me a very good question about Tashi's allergies--what's the risk of anaphylaxis with the other commonly highly allergic foods? The allergist said:
I can’t say there is zero risk of anaphylaxis to egg or other legumes. But the odds are 1) low that a reaction will occur, and 2) that if a reaction did occur, it would not be a severe one. So, those are the criteria I would use to say it’s fine to try these foods at home.... With egg, the purpose of the gradual intro is to lower risk. I would not be comfortable with her trying scrambled egg at home this morning. But if/when she demonstrates tolerance of increasing levels of egg, it makes the likelihood of the next level being safe, higher.
What's perplexing about egg is that we definitely gave her scrambled egg after her peanut incident. But supposedly that's the thing about allergies (I'm still waiting for the Dummies book)--she could eat it nine times and be fine, but the 10th could spark a reaction.
We got our allergy blood test results back this morning. The allergist said he wasn't very surprised. Peanut scored 32, which is high, meaning she is unlikely to outgrow it. But, the good news is that she scored negligible for tree nuts (except pecans), sesame, and eggs. So we can give her foods with eggs baked into them, and hummus. But we still need to be cautious about tree nuts and giving her eggs straight. This is because, as the allergist said:
Tree nuts are a food group associated with development of new/worsening allergies through the first 3-5 years of life. This [negligible score] is a reassuring start, but we will need to see how Tashi’s immune system progresses.
Chickpea is one of the two most allergenic legumes, lentil is the other. Soy and green pea are the next level down. All the other beans are below that. So it seems like she should be fine with any. You may want to be cautious with the lentil intro in terms of giving a small amount the first couple times. But I would expect her to be fine with these.
For eggs, for the next month or so, you should consistently give her baked products containing egg (couple times per week at least). If fine, the next step would be pancakes made with egg. If fine with this for several servings, French toast made by dipping bread in egg batter. If fine... scrambled egg. This is different from tree nuts because the natural history of egg allergy is not the same.
Of course, Tashi will be over the moon about a prescription for pancakes and French toast! Here she is flying high:
She is wearing a size-18-month Baby's First Birthday onesie from Frida. What a perfect thing to wear once and pass along--we'll give it away, too (once the food stains come out!).
Meanwhile, the layoffs at work continue. People who thought they had escaped the ax find out, in fact, they hadn't, given the rolling cuts that have been happening for the past month. It's kind of (tree) nuts.
It was pretty clear this was going to happen, but the majority of my immediate group at work became part of the 6 percent the company is laying off across the board. This wasn't a big surprise and, for better or worse, not the first time it's happened to me (nor even the first time by the same company). At least it'll be an easy transition back to freelancing and being at home, given it's what I've been doing the past year. I keep wondering if there's a meaningful part-time job out there that doesn't involve making people buy stuff they don't particularly want. But then I realize that buying stuff makes the world go round. At least this makes moot the issue of what to do during the daycare's upcoming winter holiday breaks. Tashi will stay in daycare--she seems to love it, so much so that when I come to pick her up early, I feel badly dragging her away.
These days I seem to arrive during afternoon recess. Since it's chillier out now, the kids have been having recess in the rec room or library, which basically means they and the older infants are in a big room with music blasting like some peewee sock hop. (It's very cute.)
Tashi's naps are still erratic at daycare, though--sometimes no more than half an hour for the entire day. She fell asleep on the way home last week, and again this afternoon. I can count the number of times she'd fallen asleep in the Maclaren before--a grand total of once. Now it's almost becoming a habit. It must be a combination of the no-nap, warm (Nina Ping) coat, and early darkness. Here she is completely out while we wait for the elevator in our building. Then even after we're inside our apartment, she's still completely out, which I have to admit is super-handy while I put everything from daycare (dirty diapers, food cubes, bowls) away. The late half-hour power nap also means she's able to stay up long enough to see Daddy.
Here's a quartet of recent videos. The first three are very short and from Waipo, who is a little bit of the Lars von Trier school of filmmaking. (Rohan might need his motion-sickness pills.) First, Tashi goes to town on her banana and Cheerio breakfast, and then the next two display how Tashi figured out her limited set of upper and lower teeth solves the problem of getting from place to place with a toy. The last one I shot (I'm also a little Lars): Tashi chases a birthday balloon around the front hallway and kitchen, and figures out how to hold onto it.
(By the way, I want to rave again about Vimeo. They do have a weekly free upload limit, but other than that, it's genius. I just altered the video player size and then updated the stills for each of these and it couldn't be easier.)
Tashi skill-o-meter: Clucking her tongue, a new favorite, and using a spork, a nifty skill also recently acquired by Tashi's blog pal Leo.
This morning we drove down to Mount Sinai Hospital's Jaffe Food Allergy Institute. One particular doctor, Scott Sicherer, got recommended to me a couple of times, and while we weren't able to get an appointment with him (he's booked till May 2009) we did see a young colleague of his.
Both sets of grandparents (and maybe us, too) were still hoping that maybe somehow Tashi was choking, not having an anaphylactic reaction, but after talking to the doctor he said it was pretty unequivocal that it was a severe allergy, especially since it was peanut butter, not peanuts, and such a small amount.
He took our history and agreed that the research on what effect maternal diet has (to peanut or not to peanut) is evenly split. He allowed his own wife to eat peanuts while pregnant. He said most peanut-allergic kids have backgrounds like ours, with slight allergies only--one parent gets hay fever in the fall (me) and the other has a little eczema in the winter (husband). Parents who are both peanut-allergic are unlikely to have a peanut-allergic child. It sounds like there's just a cocktail of triggers and factors that can set off a reaction, with seemingly no rhyme or reason. It's like a perfect storm of allergy.
Tashi did a skin test for soy and egg, which took 10 minutes. The good news is that soy isn't a problem. The bad news is that she seems to have a slight egg allergy (to the whites). The blood test that we also did and which we'll get results for next week will let us know how strong it is--if, for instance, we have to restrict her eating baked goods that contain eggs. We'll also find out how bad her allergy is to peanuts and tree nuts. If she starts out super-allergic, chances are she will remain so the rest of her life; only one in five kids grows out of it. Sesame is another potential allergen. If you have one food allergy, you're more likely to have another, even though there is no outward connection among nuts, eggs, and sesame. Fortunately milk seems to be fine, especially as she loves her string cheese. While Waipo was here, she'd take a bite, give it to Waipo to further unwrap, take another bite, and hand it over again.
The institute under Hugh Sampson (who is constantly quoted about allergies) is currently testing two peanut vaccines on adults and they will next be tried on children age 12 and above. Speaking above the din of Tashi being wailing upset (it was a rough morning for her), the doctor said there's a chance there could be a vaccine trial for younger kids by the time she is of school age. The more I poke around researching (I have been trying to restrain myself, it's just too scary) the more I see news like this: that food allergies have risen 18 percent in the past decade among U.S. children. Peanut allergies have doubled.
We got a lot of handouts to read, and some recommendations for additional reading. Until this happened to Tashi, I had never really believed that peanuts could be so deadly--from inhaling the dust or kissing someone who just had a PB&J sandwich. It's a huge learning curve to make people understand just how serious it is. (I will also fully admit right now that this whole thing has just exacerbated my control-freak tendencies. Watch out!) It'll get tougher as she gets older, too, and is sharing food with other kids. We plan on getting the Food Allergies for Dummies book and having our families read it, too.
UPDATE: I appreciate Ahgong's comment about the eggs maybe being a false positive or extremely mild--he's right that we've experienced no problems with any vaccinations, including the two-part flu shot we just did. That would be a relief, so fingers crossed. The other thing I wanted to mention is that in response to my own questions and from Ginny and others about how Tashi became allergic to peanuts--the short answer is they, the science powers that be, have no idea. That's what's so scary, and unfair-seeming. I wouldn't wish my worst enemy the experience we had.
Peanut allergies, while they have doubled, are still relatively rare, at nearly 1 in every 100 kids. My advice to parent friends is to take that infant CPR class and, to be 100 percent safe, give your baby peanut butter at the doctor's office when you're ready, during a regular well-baby visit. Even if you have no food allergy history... look at us! It sounds crazy and paranoid, but why risk it?
Since being back at work, I've had less time to update the blog, but I did want to share this photo from yesterday. Trish and I had gone at lunchtime to see the Haunch of Venison show right near the office on Sixth Avenue, and at midday the sun hitting the maple trees made even the Fox News ticker look pretty.
Daycare was closed for Veterans' Day yesterday, so Waipo looked after Tashi all day but didn't seem any worse for wear. Waipo said, She's very polite with me, smiling and easygoing. It only seems like she gets cranky when Mom's around! I would love to know why this is. Tashi's new thing is placing items in your hand and then picking them up again. She also is fascinated with the balloons we hung up in the apartment for her party.
Otherwise being back at work has definitely gotten me out of Inwood. I've managed to go out to Caselulla with my boss and an ex-colleague, the MOMA, the Haunch show, and a Bret outing at Paris Commune all in the past two days, which is more going out and culture I've had all summer.
Work itself is still odd, sort of a holding pattern while the powers-that-be figure out stuff. It's a little like The Office--corporate PR emails that make no mention of impending layoffs, oddly chipper farewell emails from people who were fired, generic group emails about lost cell phone chargers or reminders to turn off the overhead projectors in conference rooms, etc. I'd forgotten how much meetings often are about sitting in a room watching someone type on an overhead projector screen, and how much work generally is about socializing. After a summer of navigating playgroups, classes, and different nap schedules for Tashi and her pals, it's definitely an alternate reality.
This video captures a little bit of the melee that was Tashi's first birthday party. We had about 45 people (8-10 of them shorter than 2 feet tall) in the apartment, so it was pretty crowded, hot, and loud. Tashi was fine at first but then as more people arrived, she started to complain, which made me wonder if she disliked sharing her toys... but I think it was just all the people. At one point she seemed so unhappy I was questioning the wisdom of having a party for her, period, but I guess the flipside is she won't remember either way, good or bad! Andrea mentioned that her and Alex's Annabear didn't much enjoy her first birthday party, either, which made me feel better. It must be the crowds, though lately Tashi's been particularly mom-clingy, to the point where she'll be happily playing or eating or crawling around with Waipo or Daddy, then sees me, and starts to seriously howl. I guess it's like some weird sort of compliment?
For us parents it was fun to have all the kiddies together rambling all over the apartment. The many toys we have (every single one a hand-me-down, mainly from sister) got a workout. I very purposely didn't invite anyone with kids who had to travel from outside our immediate neighborhood, unless they were family (or recently moved from the area). Given the lousy weather we had I'm impressed how many made it. Thank you! (Especially to Tashi's cousins Rohan and Arjun for the birthday video.)
Waipo has been here since Wednesday helping out, thus proving once again that the optimal parent-to-child ratio is at least three to one. Though I managed to make the (panda bearish) cake, both sets of grandparents took care of the rest of the food--bocaditos, pastelitos (both carne and guava), and chunks of pineapple. We also went to our favorite meat market and got a big spread of cheese, soprasetta, and prosciutto, which the birthday girl loved.
Outside the apartment in the hallway we set up parking for strollers, shoes, and umbrellas, and Waipo had the very good idea of having everyone write name tags. Brother was in charge of the coats, we had plenty of beverages, and husband figured out music so Tashi could do her dance. Today, the day after the party, Tashi has seemed like she's trying to recover from all the activity and has been cranky and out of sorts, with a runny nose besides, but she sure enjoyed ripping apart some gift wrapping.
It's Tashi's birthday! In approximately 1.5 hours one year ago, I managed to finally push Tashi out and we welcomed her into the world. It's astounding really--it went by superfast, and everything is still changing every day. She may have even done the sign this morning for cereal (which along with banana she devours every morning for breakfast, post-boob).
We (Waipo and I) have Tashi home with us today. Fridays, generally speaking, is my work-from-home day, but I'm making a cake before the work day really gets started. Tashi has already celebrated her birthday by sleeping in to the late, late hour of nearly 730am (!).
Okay, not really, but she's long been pretty good at ba-ba-ba and ma-ma-ma; it's just a matter of time before she strings it together. And now she has a reason to do so.
Tashi came with us to vote yesterday and watched mommy pull the levers. I thought belatedly (while in the booth) about getting her out of the stroller and having her to do it herself, but I also didn't want to make the line any longer.
We're thrilled that Tashi gets to grow up with this sort of unifying, history-making president, someone who makes us proud instead of embarrassed. I think we're all still pinching ourselves. It's the only time hearing fireworks in our neighborhood wasn't an annoyance!
Today was my first day back at work, and as I thought it would be, it was distinctly odd. Not just because I was back at work, wearing normal clothes and in Midtown--that was the easy part--but more because the fate of our department seems to be up in the air since our division head is leaving the company. That's something that's still unfolding. Also, I was a little nervous about Tashi being back in daycare after missing it for a week, but she was completely fine, smiling at Miss K when we got there and reaching for Miss A by the time husband and I left. We left an EpiPen in her cubby (she is the fourth child at the daycare to have one handy) and learned pretty much all the caregivers know how to use it, as well as CPR.
Today also happened to be Picture Day, and in the morning I gave husband a choice of three outfits: one lilac, one pink, one dark pink. He chose the regular pink outfit, so that's what she's wearing in the photo.
We'd been giving Tashi a couple of meds since last Wednesday and were lucky that she happily swallowed them down twice a day. One is grape, the other mint, and she was a good sport about both being squirted down her throat via droppers. I guess the daily Vitamin D (also grape) conditioned her to take liquids this way.
Tashi skill-o-meter: I can't remember if I mentioned that she's discovered her tongue--she likes sticking it out and pulling on it. And now she's also discovered her right nostril--she can stick a little finger right into it, and then likes to breathe out through her nose to make sounds. She cracks herself up. She's also got this new complaining cry that's like a low-pitched huh-huh-huh. But most importantly skillwise, she stayed up tonight till 730pm! (Or 830pm pre-Daylight Savings this weekend.) When I arrived to pick her up at daycare this evening at 545pm, she was still napping, but this allowed her to stay up later and even see husband. If her new schedule is 730pm to 7am I'd be over the moon.
