Nephew with celiac - what is fair/appropriate when visiting grandma?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound like my SIL, OP. My children have multiple allergies, including gluten and dairy. My SIL showed up at every single family gathering with a food that my child could not eat. She'd always say, "Oh, Larla can't eat the BUTTER on the green beans?" Everyone else respected my DC's allergies and brought food she could eat. But my SIL always wanted her kids "favorites."

My child could die if she eats certain foods. Everyone in the family understands and respects this, except for SIL., who found it a total PITA to bring an allergen-free food to a family holiday celebration.

My entire family eats GF foods. There are lots that are fine. They are indistinguishable from wheat-based foods: breads, pasta, cookies, cakes, etc.

As a PP said, it's really difficult to feed a child with multiple allergies. Be grateful you only have to feed your children GF foods for a few days. You have it easy, OP. Gratitude is the key to happiness.

deep sigh....eyes rolling

no kidding. Can't believe the sancimommies on this thread. Nothing OP has said indicates that she is like the SIL above, yet all these people are projecting every negative thing they can think of on her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sound like my SIL, OP. My children have multiple allergies, including gluten and dairy. My SIL showed up at every single family gathering with a food that my child could not eat. She'd always say, "Oh, Larla can't eat the BUTTER on the green beans?" Everyone else respected my DC's allergies and brought food she could eat. But my SIL always wanted her kids "favorites."

My child could die if she eats certain foods. Everyone in the family understands and respects this, except for SIL., who found it a total PITA to bring an allergen-free food to a family holiday celebration.

My entire family eats GF foods. There are lots that are fine. They are indistinguishable from wheat-based foods: breads, pasta, cookies, cakes, etc.

As a PP said, it's really difficult to feed a child with multiple allergies. Be grateful you only have to feed your children GF foods for a few days. You have it easy, OP. Gratitude is the key to happiness. [/quote

OP doesn't sound anything like your SIL. Stop projecting your issues onto other posters.

[Anonymous]

I still don't understand if the child is that sensitive and sickly to have to have an almost sterile GF environment, how they are getting to this remote cabin that OP and family have to fly and take a car for 4 hours.

Wouldn't the airplane be too risky then? Does the child go to the playground? Any stores?

It seems like the gluten family can't have it both ways: either the child is ok to fly, travel, go to daycare, go to playground, etc and is therefore ok to leave the house and have gluten crumbs around them, or the child is too sensitive and too ill to be around any gluten for possible contamination and can't travel at all and be around any food.
Which begs the question why in the world is his family risking this child's health to even leave the house and travel with a newborn to boot in the first place?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sound like my SIL, OP. My children have multiple allergies, including gluten and dairy. My SIL showed up at every single family gathering with a food that my child could not eat. She'd always say, "Oh, Larla can't eat the BUTTER on the green beans?" Everyone else respected my DC's allergies and brought food she could eat. But my SIL always wanted her kids "favorites."

My child could die if she eats certain foods. Everyone in the family understands and respects this, except for SIL., who found it a total PITA to bring an allergen-free food to a family holiday celebration.

My entire family eats GF foods. There are lots that are fine. They are indistinguishable from wheat-based foods: breads, pasta, cookies, cakes, etc.

As a PP said, it's really difficult to feed a child with multiple allergies. Be grateful you only have to feed your children GF foods for a few days. You have it easy, OP. Gratitude is the key to happiness.

Nope nope and nope.
It is YOUR responsibly to make sure your child doesn't eat the beans. It is on YOU to ask what ingredients are in the food, watch your child like a hawk, sit with her while he/she eats to make sure he/she only eats the food on the plate, spend the whole party keeping a close watch and entertain the child away from the food. Yes, that's what YOU have to do.
It is not on your family or friends to remember what your child's allergies are and figure out what foods they can eat. That's 100% on you.

My only rule as an allergy parent is no food my child is allergic to in my own home. It's the one zone I can control, and I want to relax in my own house. There is no way I would expect an entire family gathering's food (or play date, or restaurant visit, or park day, birthday party) to only serve food my child can eat. You are completely wrong on this PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sound like my SIL, OP. My children have multiple allergies, including gluten and dairy. My SIL showed up at every single family gathering with a food that my child could not eat. She'd always say, "Oh, Larla can't eat the BUTTER on the green beans?" Everyone else respected my DC's allergies and brought food she could eat. But my SIL always wanted her kids "favorites."

My child could die if she eats certain foods. Everyone in the family understands and respects this, except for SIL., who found it a total PITA to bring an allergen-free food to a family holiday celebration.

My entire family eats GF foods. There are lots that are fine. They are indistinguishable from wheat-based foods: breads, pasta, cookies, cakes, etc.

As a PP said, it's really difficult to feed a child with multiple allergies. Be grateful you only have to feed your children GF foods for a few days. You have it easy, OP. Gratitude is the key to happiness.

Wishful thinking and/or lies.

Nutritionally, also much, much worse than their wheat based counterparts as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound like my SIL, OP. My children have multiple allergies, including gluten and dairy. My SIL showed up at every single family gathering with a food that my child could not eat. She'd always say, "Oh, Larla can't eat the BUTTER on the green beans?" Everyone else respected my DC's allergies and brought food she could eat. But my SIL always wanted her kids "favorites."

My child could die if she eats certain foods. Everyone in the family understands and respects this, except for SIL., who found it a total PITA to bring an allergen-free food to a family holiday celebration.

My entire family eats GF foods. There are lots that are fine. They are indistinguishable from wheat-based foods: breads, pasta, cookies, cakes, etc.

As a PP said, it's really difficult to feed a child with multiple allergies. Be grateful you only have to feed your children GF foods for a few days. You have it easy, OP. Gratitude is the key to happiness.

Wishful thinking and/or lies.

Nutritionally, also much, much worse than their wheat based counterparts as well.

Not this PP. and while I agree that most GF *substitutes* are kinda crap, there are LOTS of delicious and naturally GF foods. Sometimes you have to work harder to ensure they are GF because of processing reasons (for example getting GF oats rather than Quaker Oats because oats can easily get contaminated with wheat during processing) but it's not like a GF diet condemns you to a life of unpalatable food. For example a meal of filet mignon and roasted vegetable followed by flourless chocolate cake - GF and delicious. I could go on and on.

Yes it was a difficult transition to GF because so many of our regular foods contained gluten and all of a sudden I had to spend a lot more mental energy thinking about meals. So I get where OP is coming from, especially with small kids. But this attitude that eating GF is somehow a sentence to sub-par meals is just wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound like my SIL, OP. My children have multiple allergies, including gluten and dairy. My SIL showed up at every single family gathering with a food that my child could not eat. She'd always say, "Oh, Larla can't eat the BUTTER on the green beans?" Everyone else respected my DC's allergies and brought food she could eat. But my SIL always wanted her kids "favorites."

My child could die if she eats certain foods. Everyone in the family understands and respects this, except for SIL., who found it a total PITA to bring an allergen-free food to a family holiday celebration.

My entire family eats GF foods. There are lots that are fine. They are indistinguishable from wheat-based foods: breads, pasta, cookies, cakes, etc.

As a PP said, it's really difficult to feed a child with multiple allergies. Be grateful you only have to feed your children GF foods for a few days. You have it easy, OP. Gratitude is the key to happiness.

Nope nope and nope.
It is YOUR responsibly to make sure your child doesn't eat the beans. It is on YOU to ask what ingredients are in the food, watch your child like a hawk, sit with her while he/she eats to make sure he/she only eats the food on the plate, spend the whole party keeping a close watch and entertain the child away from the food. Yes, that's what YOU have to do.
It is not on your family or friends to remember what your child's allergies are and figure out what foods they can eat. That's 100% on you.

My only rule as an allergy parent is no food my child is allergic to in my own home. It's the one zone I can control, and I want to relax in my own house. There is no way I would expect an entire family gathering's food (or play date, or restaurant visit, or park day, birthday party) to only serve food my child can eat. You are completely wrong on this PP.

Yes... it is 100% on her. But a gracious and loving family attempt to accommodate. It's not realistic to expect them to remain 100% gluten free. But a grandma making the main kitchen gluten free is not unreasonable. It's a very loving and caring thing to do. Also, providing the guest cabin to the people with a newborn makes complete sense.

In this situation, it is not reasonable to ask that OPs children not eat gluten at all. But PPs have provided many options for OP. Paper plates, gluten be kept in the room, etc, etc. Also, people are reminding OP that this is a 2 year old, and that this is family, and maybe she should get over herself for 2 seconds to realize that maybe it'll be nice to make this a little easier for her SIL, who is probably having one hell of a time right now. Sure, I don't expect strangers to care. But I would sure as hell want my family to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I still don't understand if the child is that sensitive and sickly to have to have an almost sterile GF environment, how they are getting to this remote cabin that OP and family have to fly and take a car for 4 hours.

Wouldn't the airplane be too risky then? Does the child go to the playground? Any stores?

It seems like the gluten family can't have it both ways: either the child is ok to fly, travel, go to daycare, go to playground, etc and is therefore ok to leave the house and have gluten crumbs around them, or the child is too sensitive and too ill to be around any gluten for possible contamination and can't travel at all and be around any food.
Which begs the question why in the world is his family risking this child's health to even leave the house and travel with a newborn to boot in the first place?

It's not an allergy. If you pack your own food for the plane, it's fine. You aren't eating other people's snacks at the playground. The child is 2; you are assuming a lot about whether he goes to daycare. (But that can be tricky.) It's not unreasonable to say "no gluten products" in the kitchen, however. The child will be eating food out of that kitchen.

Again, why would you wish to cause harm by refusing to accommodate the needs of a two year old family member?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound like my SIL, OP. My children have multiple allergies, including gluten and dairy. My SIL showed up at every single family gathering with a food that my child could not eat. She'd always say, "Oh, Larla can't eat the BUTTER on the green beans?" Everyone else respected my DC's allergies and brought food she could eat. But my SIL always wanted her kids "favorites."

My child could die if she eats certain foods. Everyone in the family understands and respects this, except for SIL., who found it a total PITA to bring an allergen-free food to a family holiday celebration.

My entire family eats GF foods. There are lots that are fine. They are indistinguishable from wheat-based foods: breads, pasta, cookies, cakes, etc.

As a PP said, it's really difficult to feed a child with multiple allergies. Be grateful you only have to feed your children GF foods for a few days. You have it easy, OP. Gratitude is the key to happiness.

deep sigh....eyes rolling

no kidding. Can't believe the sancimommies on this thread. Nothing OP has said indicates that she is like the SIL above, yet all these people are projecting every negative thing they can think of on her.

It's like this: when you hear about a two year old family member with a serious, chronic illness that requires special dietary needs, you accommodate those needs. It's a few days of dealing with it for your family. That kid is going to deal with it for the rest of his life.

Arguing about it makes you a selfish asshole. You haven't talked to the kid's doctors or specialists. You haven't gone through the patient education. You haven't read the bazillion pages of research that the kid's mom has read in order to understand the disease. If you argue about it, you are an asshole. That includes OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still don't understand if the child is that sensitive and sickly to have to have an almost sterile GF environment, how they are getting to this remote cabin that OP and family have to fly and take a car for 4 hours.

Wouldn't the airplane be too risky then? Does the child go to the playground? Any stores?

It seems like the gluten family can't have it both ways: either the child is ok to fly, travel, go to daycare, go to playground, etc and is therefore ok to leave the house and have gluten crumbs around them, or the child is too sensitive and too ill to be around any gluten for possible contamination and can't travel at all and be around any food.
Which begs the question why in the world is his family risking this child's health to even leave the house and travel with a newborn to boot in the first place?

It's not an allergy. If you pack your own food for the plane, it's fine. You aren't eating other people's snacks at the playground. The child is 2; you are assuming a lot about whether he goes to daycare. (But that can be tricky.) It's not unreasonable to say "no gluten products" in the kitchen, however. The child will be eating food out of that kitchen.

Again, why would you wish to cause harm by refusing to accommodate the needs of a two year old family member?

That's exactly my point. The child would be fine sitting on an airplane with people in the next row eating gluten, as well as sitting in the seat where someone had eaten gluten on the flight before. How is that different than OP's children eating gluten, then wiping up any particles. It's actually more clean and less possibility than the airplane! Same for a park table or bench someone was eating Goldfish on, or had just gone done the slide with remnants of sandwich on their hand.
My point is that if the child is able to tolerate these types of situations, including air travel, then it seems to be an over reach to say there can be no gluten on premises for a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I still don't understand if the child is that sensitive and sickly to have to have an almost sterile GF environment, how they are getting to this remote cabin that OP and family have to fly and take a car for 4 hours.

Wouldn't the airplane be too risky then? Does the child go to the playground? Any stores?

It seems like the gluten family can't have it both ways: either the child is ok to fly, travel, go to daycare, go to playground, etc and is therefore ok to leave the house and have gluten crumbs around them, or the child is too sensitive and too ill to be around any gluten for possible contamination and can't travel at all and be around any food.
Which begs the question why in the world is his family risking this child's health to even leave the house and travel with a newborn to boot in the first place?

This family will need to figure out a lot of things over the next few years. And it will be hard work! They'll need to balance their kid's health with what he needs for development. That will take research, and careful planning.

But the kid is two and newly diagnosed, and they've got a newborn so they're probably a little overwhelmed. You can't blame them for not having figured it all out yet. If mom is home, either long term or just right now because of the baby, they may not have figured out daycare yet.

In this case, they probably thought they had figured out a plan for the trip. Grandma offered to help by cleaning the kitchen, which was generous of her. They'll stock the house with gluten free stuff and go from there.

They've presumably figured out a plan for the airplane or whatever vehicle they're taking. Maybe they're driving, or maybe one parent will board first and wipe down the kid's area. Keep kid in carseat by the window and they won't be able to touch anyone else's food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound like my SIL, OP. My children have multiple allergies, including gluten and dairy. My SIL showed up at every single family gathering with a food that my child could not eat. She'd always say, "Oh, Larla can't eat the BUTTER on the green beans?" Everyone else respected my DC's allergies and brought food she could eat. But my SIL always wanted her kids "favorites."

My child could die if she eats certain foods. Everyone in the family understands and respects this, except for SIL., who found it a total PITA to bring an allergen-free food to a family holiday celebration.

My entire family eats GF foods. There are lots that are fine. They are indistinguishable from wheat-based foods: breads, pasta, cookies, cakes, etc.

As a PP said, it's really difficult to feed a child with multiple allergies. Be grateful you only have to feed your children GF foods for a few days. You have it easy, OP. Gratitude is the key to happiness.

deep sigh....eyes rolling

no kidding. Can't believe the sancimommies on this thread. Nothing OP has said indicates that she is like the SIL above, yet all these people are projecting every negative thing they can think of on her.

It's like this: when you hear about a two year old family member with a serious, chronic illness that requires special dietary needs, you accommodate those needs. It's a few days of dealing with it for your family. That kid is going to deal with it for the rest of his life.

Arguing about it makes you a selfish asshole. You haven't talked to the kid's doctors or specialists. You haven't gone through the patient education. You haven't read the bazillion pages of research that the kid's mom has read in order to understand the disease. If you argue about it, you are an asshole. That includes OP.

What if OP had posted this:

"Not sure how to handle this upcoming situation. My husband and I both work full time at pretty stressful jobs and because we have little kids and both our families live out of state, most of our vacations are to visit family. This summer we are supposed to visit his parents and his brother's family at their summer house on a lake in Maine, which is about two hours from where they all live (which is also the closest town with a Target, etc) but four hours drive from Manchester NH (the nearest airport with direct flights from DC). His brother and SIL have a newborn and a 2-year-old who was recently diagnosed with celiac. His parents lake house also has a small cabin with a kitchenette. We understand that because of the celiac thing that they want to keep the kitchen gluten free. However, they also want to stay in the cabin because of the baby--which means there is no space where we can make stuff like Eggos and PB&J sandwiches and hot dogs. Honestly, the thought of spending basically an entire day traveling with a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old to spend the only week I get to take off this summer with my in-laws already doesn't sound like much of a vacation, but whatever, its family, its what we have to do. But am I being unreasonable for thinking that since they have a completely separate kitchenette that we can keep my nephew out of, they should let us use it?"

I don't think that sounds like an asshole. I can't believe how judgy all you people are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound like my SIL, OP. My children have multiple allergies, including gluten and dairy. My SIL showed up at every single family gathering with a food that my child could not eat. She'd always say, "Oh, Larla can't eat the BUTTER on the green beans?" Everyone else respected my DC's allergies and brought food she could eat. But my SIL always wanted her kids "favorites."

My child could die if she eats certain foods. Everyone in the family understands and respects this, except for SIL., who found it a total PITA to bring an allergen-free food to a family holiday celebration.

My entire family eats GF foods. There are lots that are fine. They are indistinguishable from wheat-based foods: breads, pasta, cookies, cakes, etc.

As a PP said, it's really difficult to feed a child with multiple allergies. Be grateful you only have to feed your children GF foods for a few days. You have it easy, OP. Gratitude is the key to happiness.

Nope nope and nope.
It is YOUR responsibly to make sure your child doesn't eat the beans. It is on YOU to ask what ingredients are in the food, watch your child like a hawk, sit with her while he/she eats to make sure he/she only eats the food on the plate, spend the whole party keeping a close watch and entertain the child away from the food. Yes, that's what YOU have to do.
It is not on your family or friends to remember what your child's allergies are and figure out what foods they can eat. That's 100% on you.

My only rule as an allergy parent is no food my child is allergic to in my own home. It's the one zone I can control, and I want to relax in my own house. There is no way I would expect an entire family gathering's food (or play date, or restaurant visit, or park day, birthday party) to only serve food my child can eat. You are completely wrong on this PP.

Yes... it is 100% on her. But a gracious and loving family attempt to accommodate. It's not realistic to expect them to remain 100% gluten free. But a grandma making the main kitchen gluten free is not unreasonable. It's a very loving and caring thing to do. Also, providing the guest cabin to the people with a newborn makes complete sense.

In this situation, it is not reasonable to ask that OPs children not eat gluten at all. But PPs have provided many options for OP. Paper plates, gluten be kept in the room, etc, etc. Also, people are reminding OP that this is a 2 year old, and that this is family, and maybe she should get over herself for 2 seconds to realize that maybe it'll be nice to make this a little easier for her SIL, who is probably having one hell of a time right now. Sure, I don't expect strangers to care. But I would sure as hell want my family to.

So OP is ungracious, unloving, selfish, and uncaring? Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound like my SIL, OP. My children have multiple allergies, including gluten and dairy. My SIL showed up at every single family gathering with a food that my child could not eat. She'd always say, "Oh, Larla can't eat the BUTTER on the green beans?" Everyone else respected my DC's allergies and brought food she could eat. But my SIL always wanted her kids "favorites."

My child could die if she eats certain foods. Everyone in the family understands and respects this, except for SIL., who found it a total PITA to bring an allergen-free food to a family holiday celebration.

My entire family eats GF foods. There are lots that are fine. They are indistinguishable from wheat-based foods: breads, pasta, cookies, cakes, etc.

As a PP said, it's really difficult to feed a child with multiple allergies. Be grateful you only have to feed your children GF foods for a few days. You have it easy, OP. Gratitude is the key to happiness.

deep sigh....eyes rolling

no kidding. Can't believe the sancimommies on this thread. Nothing OP has said indicates that she is like the SIL above, yet all these people are projecting every negative thing they can think of on her.

It's like this: when you hear about a two year old family member with a serious, chronic illness that requires special dietary needs, you accommodate those needs. It's a few days of dealing with it for your family. That kid is going to deal with it for the rest of his life.

Arguing about it makes you a selfish asshole. You haven't talked to the kid's doctors or specialists. You haven't gone through the patient education. You haven't read the bazillion pages of research that the kid's mom has read in order to understand the disease. If you argue about it, you are an asshole. That includes OP.

I've argued pretty hard that I don't think that a gluten free kitchen is unresasonable at all, and that Grandma's need to not be woken up or have her work de-glutening the kitchen needs to be taken into account. But I'll also say that I haven't seen anything here that OP has posted that seems at all "assholish". She's been pretty clear from the beginning that she wants to keep her nephew safe, and has asked whether pb&j in her room is an option. She's not arguing, she's asking.

Now, some other posters on this thread have absolutely come across as complete assholes, but OP is not among them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound like my SIL, OP. My children have multiple allergies, including gluten and dairy. My SIL showed up at every single family gathering with a food that my child could not eat. She'd always say, "Oh, Larla can't eat the BUTTER on the green beans?" Everyone else respected my DC's allergies and brought food she could eat. But my SIL always wanted her kids "favorites."

My child could die if she eats certain foods. Everyone in the family understands and respects this, except for SIL., who found it a total PITA to bring an allergen-free food to a family holiday celebration.

My entire family eats GF foods. There are lots that are fine. They are indistinguishable from wheat-based foods: breads, pasta, cookies, cakes, etc.

As a PP said, it's really difficult to feed a child with multiple allergies. Be grateful you only have to feed your children GF foods for a few days. You have it easy, OP. Gratitude is the key to happiness.

Nope nope and nope.
It is YOUR responsibly to make sure your child doesn't eat the beans. It is on YOU to ask what ingredients are in the food, watch your child like a hawk, sit with her while he/she eats to make sure he/she only eats the food on the plate, spend the whole party keeping a close watch and entertain the child away from the food. Yes, that's what YOU have to do.
It is not on your family or friends to remember what your child's allergies are and figure out what foods they can eat. That's 100% on you.

My only rule as an allergy parent is no food my child is allergic to in my own home. It's the one zone I can control, and I want to relax in my own house. There is no way I would expect an entire family gathering's food (or play date, or restaurant visit, or park day, birthday party) to only serve food my child can eat. You are completely wrong on this PP.

+1000

I have a severe food allergy as does one of my kids.