The SS Goober has sailed

By and large, my wife Caducey and I follow the advice of doctors, especially where little Asterius is concerned. From our own pediatrician all the way down to the unlucky MD stuck on the overnight shift at the ER when Asterius wakes up with a 105 fever and all the way up to the American Pediatrics Association, if a piece of health-related child-rearing advice comes from the mouth of a medical professional, we tend to treat it with a fairly high level of respect. We are also, perhaps somewhat contradictorily, believers in the instinctive parenting powers of the individual, so we’re not completely beholden to external forces when it comes to raising the little guy, but I have to be honest: sometimes it is a relief to simply be able to consider a matter settled because there is an APA guideline on it, and not have to debate it myself. (I’m an overthinker by involuntary compulsion, not because I like it or anything.)

One of these settled-by-medical-establishment-fiat matters was food allergens. I do not, to my knowledge, have any food allergies (I tend to think of myself as having a cast-iron stomach, although it may very well be that I have some mild food allergies and am too dense to notice), nor does Caducey, but of course we both could not help but notice the marked rise in food allergies among small children in the past several years. Deep down I believe that this anomaly will eventually have a satisfying explanation (for the same value of “satisfying” that could be applied to the historic discovery of the link between smoking and cancer) but for now it seems to be medically mystifying and the experts can only make recommendations which err well wide of the boundary demarcating the Side of Caution. Fine by us. We introduced solid foods to Asterius very slowly and one at a time, just like we were supposed to. We completely avoided the products that doctors think might – MIGHT – lead to severe food allergies if consumed before the age of two. We played by the rules and, as usual, didn’t think much about it. Or on the rare occasions we did think about it, what we thought went along the lines of “This is probably overkill, but it’s no big deal, and better safe than sorry, right?”

All well and good, but the wall between Allowed Foods and Verboten Foods was starting to show some cracks. Now that he’s so far past baby-mush and basically just sharing food with us, occasionally we might feed Asterius something that may have been produced in the same equipment that occasionally handles peanuts. Or could have traces of peanut oil in the recipe. Or, yesterday, unambiguous, unadulterated peanut butter.


I picked Asterius up from daycare yesterday and went straight to the grocery store for a few essentials, including some packages of peanut butter cracker sandwiches that I like to have on hand as a go-to no-effort lunch I can pack for work when I’m running late. Asterius saw the package and started demanding “Cah-cuh! Cah-cuh! Beeeeez?” (Translation: “Cracker! Cracker! Pleeeeeease?”) Lately it’s been hard enough keeping him in the child seat of the shopping cart even when he’s in a good mood, and denying him food is a straight shot to Crankytown, so I caved. I was able to finish the shopping in relative peace while he went to town on an entire package (six silver-dollar-sized sandwiches) and I’m happy to report that Asterius made it through the night without going into anaphylactic shock, so it would seem that the floodgates have been opened and the peanut butter may now flow freely. As an added bonus, I got to hear him ask for more (“Muh? Beeeez?”) with a mouth full of cracker crumbs and peanut butter which was adorable and hilarious. I’m sure it will stop being hilarious when he gets a little older if I don’t impart some table manners soon, but he’s already got please and thank you (“duh-doo”) down pretty well, so how hard could that be?