And the 'Mother of the Year Award' goes to...

Anyone but me. You would think that three years of careful food observing would make me a pro. Apparently, even the seasoned pros can slip from time to time. At least twice a week, we have 'peanut'-butter and jelly sandwiches on our play dates with Mandy's kids. I still use soy-butter because of our little past peanut testing issues. Now, I was so inclined to believe that it was purely a fluke and that Alex's 'reaction' to peanut-butter was more along the lines of getting some stuck in his mouth that felt funny. So, according to the doctor, I was to loosely avoid giving him peanuts. Meaning...don't give it to him, but I shouldn't worry about residues or 'may contain' warnings. Wesley, being blessed with no food allergies, gets a peanut-butter sandwich. The real deal. So Mandy brings his sandwich to our house just as I bring Alex and Abby's to her house. Well, lately we have been cutting the sandwiches into dinosaurs with a handy dandy sandwich cutter I found. I cut our sandwiches first and then move on to Wesley's sandwich so as to avoid cross contamination. His sandwich not only has peanuts, but also milk in the bread. Today, I merrily chopped the sandwiches into their fun dino-shapes and put them on the plates. Peanut-butter and soy-butter really are too similar to notice much of a difference. So I quickly checked to make sure it was the right one with a good whiff, gave them their food, and...

...I was wrong.

Alex took a big bite of the sandwich in front of him and promptly told me his tongue hurt. I thought he just bit it so I just said, "Well, don't bite your tongue, silly." After checking his tongue for the bite mark, (fully expecting blood due to his loud complaints) and not seeing a mark on there, a small thought burned brighter into my mind. My world slowed down around me and I could hear my heart beat pounding in my ears. I tasted his sandwich and ran to the kitchen in a full state of silent panic. I dumped some juice into a cup to try and wash down the residue while I busted open the bottle of Benadryl and rushed to medicate him before more damage was done. I swear to you that in my mind, things were happening in one of those slow-motion dramatic movie moments that, at the time, don't seem realistic. Anyways, after he was medicated and no longer crying, my body started to catch up to my brain. I felt the oxygen levels rise and could see the world spinning in front of me. No, I didn't pass out. But I sure felt like it. Adrenaline. That stuff is dangerous, I tell ya. In the end, he had ingested milk and peanuts at the same time. So I have zero idea what he reacted to. For an unplanned food challenge, I totally epic failed. From now on I will have a special plate that Wesley will have to eat off of. It will be the one plate that I will always place his sandwich on before I do anything else so that I know exactly what plate of food not to give Alex. Purely in my head, I'll be calling it the 'poison' plate.

*whew* What a day.