Nuts! Whole hazlenuts...

...and brazil nuts, walnuts, almonds, macadamia, pistachio, and pretty much any other nut you care to mention - I love them all. Which leaves me with a bit of a nutty problem, since nearly two years ago now we found out that Boy #1 is allergic. To all of those I already mentioned, and a few other beauties as well.

A period of intense research followed this discovery and we found - much to our dismay - that a lifetime of home-baking awaits, since unless they can prove otherwise most manufacturers find themselves legally required to include three little words - 'may contain nuts' - on all their packaging. Can't blame them, really, but it does somewhat limit our choices in pre-prepared food. Consequently I have become adept at producing home-made biscuits and muffins to keep Boy #1's sweet tooth satisfied, and have had to re-educate my husband on the ingredients commonly found in shop-bought goodies (yes, carrot-cake does usually contain walnuts; no, isn't it terrible that it isn't called carrot and walnut cake; yes, isn't all this checking of ingredients a pain in the backside; and so on). Luckily we've had relatively few incidents so have managed to avoid the dreaded culmulative effect that we've been warned about (repeated exposure to nuts for nut allergy sufferers can often make the problem worse rather than better). Now all I have to do is wait until he's 3 and then find out if Boy #2 is also allergic (have been warned it's a strong possibility), and then wrap them both in cotton wool. For the rest of their lives...

There have been some positive side-effects to this discovery, however. The afore-mentioned home-baking (although perhaps not so positive on my waistline). The increased understanding of how to work the NHS system - and that in amongst the red tape and jobs-worths there are some people who are truly amazing. My recent discovery of Pig in the Kitchen's fabulous blog full of 'free-from recipes' and amusing musings. And the fact that I can no longer have peanut butter lurking in the cupboard to mug me when I'm searching for what would otherwise be only a healthy rice-cake...(in my dreams, at least).

Enough self-indulgent bleating though - I know you only read this for my Potty training hints...


August 18th 2006

‘The mind is willing but the flesh is weak’… that pretty much sums up the impasse Boy #1 and I have reached on the potty training front today. Finally, he’s telling me he needs the potty – hurrah! However, he tells me this as he needs it, which is about 30 seconds too late for me to catch the torrent. And I mean torrent; when he wees it’s rather like watching a horse relieve itself…. Where he keeps it until that moment I just don’t know. Which is of course fine when he makes it to the potty in time (which happened twice today), but when he doesn’t (which happened 3 times), it’s all hands to the pumps, quite literally. Am starting to worry about the effect on the electrical cables under the floor-boards…

To top it all have now run out of kitchen roll (vital for clearing up the copious quantities of wee) so short of getting Macro to send a lorry with a bulk delivery overnight, may have to make a midnight flit to the mini-mart on the corner to deal with tomorrow mornings’ floods. Either that or will have to resort to using the unread copies of the FT that have backed up since Husband has been away. Should probably do that anyway as at least then I won’t have to own up to not having read them… (My husband thinks reading the FT would improve my knowledge of world markets. No potty training hints in there though, I’ve noticed. Or reviews of the latest chick lit novels. Or lists of summer activities for potty-challenged children. Or articles about carb-curfews helping you lose weight… Need I go on? Will let you draw your own conclusions about my usual response to those comments…)