What I Do Now:
It’s Food Allergy Awareness Week!
And I've been reading so many insightful and inspiring posts in the online allergic community. At "Please Don't Pass The Nuts" I learned that FAI's Steve Rice isn't eating eggs this week. And resource sites like Food Allergy Buzz are truly buzzing with updates and activities. Looking back, it was one year ago that I posted "Seasonal Allergies Take One Mother's Breath Away" on The Huffington Post and four years since I've been to the emergency room with my son.
But I wouldn't be in the midst of all this energy and support if I hadn't had my children and become the mother of an allergic child. We all seem to have found ourselves battling allergies for different reasons. Mine is LOVE. And in that spirit , this week, I'm re-posting this:
Cyber Yenta
Sure. You promise yourself that you won't be one of those annoying mommy bloggers who goes on about their kids, showcasing schematically unimportant moments like some preening Cyber Yenta ever ready with kiddie accomplishments thinly disguised by "ha ha" humor and photos of upturned, smudgy faces. Nope. Not you. You won't loose your cool preening across the Internet just because you can. You can blog about Parenting for god sakes without being that kind of parent.
Then. You're walking down the street, your children's voices barely registering above the thrum of four o'clock traffic heading uptown on a crowded avenue, mentally slapping through the dinner preparations, contemplating that filthy patch of sidewalk and why no one cares anymore?
Your daughter notices some small thing, the kind of thing you haven't noticed for maybe thirty-two years. So unremarkable it's not even worth naming. She
understands that you won't hear her joy over the tick tick of your monkey mind, but is equally certain that her brother will. So, calmly she informs him of this miraculous detail of life as she points. He looks over, sees it and then they look at each other glowing like softly rubbed amber with the promise of more such wonders.
You see them, your children, their joyous faces, and then, snap, clap, the sun emerges. You hear the opening lyrics to the Beatles's Love Love Love where there was noise and grit and suddenly, The King has come; he has arrived unannounced and humble in their gazes. And even after the entirety - after the waves of shimmer and sound - settle back into pavement, fade behind the skyline of gray, a patch of your brain remains warm and breathless from dancing with itself.
That happens sometimes. But you don't have to tell about it.