One of the many things that have blocked my writing is that we learned that one of our sons has food allergies.

Sigh.

He has the fearsome peanut allergy, but he is also allergic to tree nuts and eggs. We'll see an allergist next month, but I suspect there are other allergies lurking. (Hopefully not milk.)

On the one hand, it's a relief to know that there is a reason he was breaking out in rashes after every meal. So crazy as it is, I'm sleeping better knowing that I have to carry an epi-pen at all times. The enemy you know and all that.

On the other hand, food allergies suck. They change your life. They change the life of everyone in the family.

I'm not going to lie -- I went through a period of mourning. Denial. One night, I went to grocery store alone and almost started crying from the frustration of reading food labels. I've always read food labels, and I avoid processed food whenever I can, and I my eyes still went cross-eyed from reading the small print.

The worst part of the peanut allergy is the cross-contamination. Do you know how many things are made on equipment shared with nuts? A lot of things. And one of those things is chocolate. My poor baby can't have chocolate! Woe.

I had visions of the entire family feasting on granola bars and Thai food and chocolate while little M. stared at us with his big eyes while chewing on some tofu cheese.

(I hate fake food, even if it's healthy.)

Then after a few days I realized that there are worse things. (Duh.) We're taking another son for an EEG later this week (never a dull moment!), so this should have been obvious, but I can only freak out obsessively about one thing at a time. Last week it was food and restricted diets. Then I realized that people <em>choose</em> restricted diets. On purpose.

And then I decided that while the rest of the family need not cut eggs and nuts from their diet, I can do it in solidarity of little M.

And then I started researching with a vengeance. Vegans don't eat eggs -- so I'm surfing the vegan blogosphere and buying books. I've been taste testing nut-free food -- even chocolate! -- and am going to share my findings at The Frog and Snail.

It still sucks, but at least we have a plan.