Debbie:

When I read this post, it made me smile:-)  Your Avigayil sounds like a
real gem!!!

Crystal



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> From: Debbie Benstein <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: More on preschooler parties
> Date: Friday, December 19, 1997 6:03 AM
>
> Thanks for the general concern about sending our 4-year-old daughter
> alone to birthday parties. Here, by the way, it is the norm to send kids
> of this age and not stay with them.
>
> Perhaps with another 4-year-old I wouldn't feel confident doing this,
> but Avigayil is somewhat unusual for her age. She has no qualms
> whatsoever about checking and double checking to make sure she is
> understood, and won't take something if she isn't sure about it. Last
> week, for example, she was visiting a family which doesn't know so much
> about her allergies. She was offered a glass of apple juice and straight
> away asked the mother whether the cup the apple juice was in had ever
> been used for milk (she used to break out in hives if she ate from a
> plastic plate which had previously been used for milk products - so
> cross contamination is definately as issue for us, although now she
> seems to be less sensitive about this). Only after she was assured that
> it was a parev cup (ie had never been used for milk) did she start to
> drink. Ditto for cutting fruit with a knife - she will always check that
> the knife is parev.
>
> Of course, this whole thing is a bit easier for us, since it happens
> that we and all our friend in the neighborhood keep kosher anyway, so
> being sure that milk out of the picture is perhaps less complicated.
> Foods made in Israel are clearly labelled when they contain milk, or are
> parev etc. (We still have to be careful when we are looking at imported
> products thought.)
>
> The way I look at it, birthday parties are not any more "risky" than
> sending her to pre-school where forbidden foods abound and there are 35
> kids to deal with. We do what we can to keep her safe and help her learn
> as much as she can about her allergies, but she lives in the real world,
> and step by step (as and when she can deal with the complexities of
> being allergic) she will take on more of the tasks involved.
>
> Just my opinion. I'd like to hear from others too.
>
> Debbie
> [log in to unmask]
> (mother to Avigayil, who is unlikely to need classes in assertiveness
> training!)