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I ran across Panhandle Premium two years ago during a particularly bad allergy spate.
Big Guy had just been diagnosed allergic to garlic, thus eliminating many favorite foods. He definitely mourned the loss. I eventually …

Let me first say I’m not in favor of kids walking around hopped up on antihistamines like junior meth addicts.

Let me also say that the guys rarely take over-the-counter cold medicines. We’re big fans of saline nose drops, and humidifiers are such a constant in their lives that they remind me to refill them. We never use cough syrup — Big Guy can’t take it because he’s asthmatic, and I’d just as soon let Little Guy hack it up on his own.

However — and this is a huge however — there are times when Little Guy in particular is so obviously suffering that the only humane thing to do is hit him with Dimetapp and let him breathe freely for a while. And he has to be really sick before I do that, because I’d just as soon not have him walking around buzzed up for hours.

Which is why the Food and Drug Administration’s latest move on medicines for the under 6 set really ticks me off.

There’s a certain irony in the fact that when I clicked on the Kellog’s SpecialK Web site tonight to see what I might have missed in its ingredient label, a popup appeared asking me to complete a customer satisfaction survey.

Oh, I’d love to!

Turns out they wanted to know how well the Web page worked for me, not how satisfied I was with the product.

Since they weren’t interested in my input then, I’ll put it out here now.

Simply put, a Special K Chocolately Drizzle bar made Big Guy very sick Monday. It might have killed him if his teacher hadn’t rushed him to the school nurse after she noticed tell-tale hives march across his face roughly 10 minutes after he ate one.

We’ve finally found the substance so vile, so disgusting that Little Guy won’t go near it. And he’ll eat anything.
It’s L’il Critters Omega 3 Gummy Fish, which claims on amazon.com to have won a “best …

I’m a big Cincinnati Reds fan, so a baseball analogy for Big Guy’s allergy tests is an obvious comparison for me.
Going in for the tests is like spring training. There’s a bit of pain …

“The only thing we have to fear is the fear of fear itself.

OK, so that’s not exactly the way Franklin Roosevelt put it. But he would have if he’d met Big Guy, who learned a lesson last week about fear feeding on itself.

I’d promised Big Guy he wouldn’t have to go through allergy testing again until the fall, but under the “”three barfs, you’re out”" rule, his bout of birthday sickness earned him an early trip. It was the third time he’d thrown up after eating hamburgers, and since nausea is one possible sign of a food allergy, I wanted to have him checked.

He’d actually looked forward to the trip, figuring the early testing would be worth it if he could go back on his burger binge. Plus, during our last visit

I try to teach the guys to accept responsibility for their actions, so I must accept the blame for today’s misadventure.

Trouble started when I annihilated the 11th Commandment — thou shalt not go to the grocery store hungry. I paid for my sin, to the tune of $56 for items I could carry into the house in one trip.

And for that sum, I slaughtered a dance company of ants and damn near killed Big Guy, too.

It started as a quick trip for essentials: Milk, two gallons for $6.19; orange juice, two cans of concentrate, $1.89 each; bananas, two pounds at 78 cents a pound.

Then I moved to the “”pricey these days but important”" aisle: Coffee beans — French roast on sale for $6.99 a pound; strawberries, $3 a pound; Nestle Quik, industrial

“I won’t say it’s always unfair to be sick on your birthday.

I’ve had my share of sick birthdays, the most notable being my 24th. My roommate had made shrimp scampi — this was before my seafood allergy had fully emerged. I took one look and hurled.

That was my fault, though. I don’t think Big Guy had near as many whiskey sours yesterday as I’d had the night before my 24th, so that makes what happened to him today officially unfair.

Unofficially, it makes it frightening. It’s the third time Big Guy’s lost his lunch when lunch has been hamburger or steak. And the third time wins him a doctor’s appointment. I’m praying it’s not another food allergy.

The day started out bright and sunny, as a birthday should be. Not that today was Big Guy’s actual birthday, but it was

Long before the guys came along, I’d dream of the moment:

A freshly scrubbed 5-year-old trudges up the sidewalk on a crisp September day. He reluctantly loosens his death grip on my hand and heads for the classroom door. He turns and waves hesitantly as I flick aside a delicate tear. My baby’s first day of kindergarten!

I’m not capable of dreams wild enough to conjure up Tuesday’s reality:

Four-year-old Big Guy bounced out of bed on a 96-degree July morning, cheering, “”It’s time! It’s today!”" I swiped at the chocolate milk on his face, but he was half-way down the block on his scooter before I could catch him.

As we waited outside his classroom, he did his “”ants in his pants”" dance and incessantly asked how

Little Guy was having a happy-go-lucky day today until he slipped past me and bounced into the back yard bare footed. He had almost reached the promise land of the swing set when he dropped …

Originally publish Dec. 10, 2007, thehive.modbee.com
I’ve added a new step today to my monthly Epi-Pen fire drills – practicing on the potential patient.
For about six months now, Big Guy has had his own emergency drill. …

Big Guy “helped” bake his daddy’s birthday cake, dumping flour in the mixer and spooning sugar into measuring cups. He licked the bowl afterward, smearing batter roughly from eyelashes to toenails. He watched me ice and decorate it, picking colors and testing frosting repeatedly, to “make sure” it was all right. He begged for cake all afternoon.

When it came time to dig in, he eyed his plate suspiciously. “This looks like an egg cake,” he said. “I’m not going to eat it.”

I’ve never been so proud and so heart-broken in my life.

Big Guy, you see, is allergic to egg. Deathly allergic. The last time he had egg – roughly three bites of a shepherd’s pie that had one egg in the recipe – he was 10 months old. We called an ambulance.

He’s also deathly allergic to peanut. When he was about 14 months old, a girl at day care who had eaten peanut butter an hour earlier touched his teddy bear. She didn’t even have peanut butter visible on her hands. Big Guy in turn touched the bear, then touched his face and broke out in hives.