Glad to be home

Just got back from a wonderful week's vacation! But...

Vacation brings food allergies to the forefront of our minds in a way that they normally aren't present in our day to day lives. More restaurants, takeout, desserts, and caretakers are involved.

All went really well. I have no complaints about vacation. I'm just saying that there is a sense of relief to coming home to your own pantry and fridge after a week on the go.

While traveling with a child with food allergies, vacation for me now has this "character building" aspect to it that I'd rather it didn't. As in, it forces me to practice being brave enough to ask questions of servers, restaurants, and hotels that (for God knows what reason) I often feel embarrassed to ask. (Confession: I like to make my husband do it instead whenever possible.)

Anyway...vacation was great. But it's also really nice to be home and to not be thinking about food allergies so often! Maybe you can relate?

EDITED TO ADD: Okay, so I was going to be nice and wasn't going to mention it to protect the innocent, but since my sister brought it up in the comments... There was that 1 incident where a pizza slice with pesto (i.e., tree nuts) was offered to Georgia, and she was moments away from eating it. Thankfully, that was avoided, though we'll never know how she would've reacted if at all. While this incident highlights how easy it is to have a slip up even when everyone is trying their best to protect an allergic child, and how hard it is for those not in the everyday practice of thinking about allergies to pay attention to every single ingredient, it's also a good opportunity for me to thank my family for trying so hard. Learning about allergies has been an evolving process for all of us, myself included, and I really appreciate my family's efforts to go along with all of our requests. I am thankful that vacation gave everyone in my family a glimpse into what it's like to think about allergies at every meal.