Warning: Rant Ahead

SERIOUSLY, what is the deal with everyone wanting to feed other people's babies?

Maybe this is just a problem we have, but it seems like every time we share food with anyone, they want to feed E things from their plates.  Sometimes without asking.  When she was six months old, my father-in-law tried to give her root beer.  ROOT BEER.  Another time, I had to fish oranges out of her mouth when another relative gave them to her, without my permission and while I was in the restaurant restroom, before E had been exposed to citrus.  Even last week at church, the lady who holds E while I sing in praise band (and who knows of her dairy allergy) tried to give her a butter-soaked biscuit before church.

And maybe I am just being an irrational bee-otch about the whole thing, but this irritates the HELL out of me.  It annoyed me before we knew E had food allergies, and now it really pisses me off... especially because the offenders are almost always people who KNOW she is allergic to dairy and to whom we have repeatedly explained that we have to be hyper-vigilant about what we feed her because dairy is in everything.  It also makes me super paranoid that if I look away for a second, someone will sneak her food that she shouldn't have and she will be sick for days, all because someone thought they knew better than S and me.  

This rant has been bubbling under the surface for awhile now, but was prompted by dinner last night with my in-laws.  Once again, we spent the entire first half of our meal fending off their attempts to feed E random things (chocolate chip cookies, bacon off of FIL's cheeseburger, breaded chicken strips...) and repeatedly explaining that no, she can't have that, it has dairy in it, while they continued to push the issue and with S's mom shooting increasingly less-subtle dirty looks to FIL from across the table.*  Good times!

I seriously don't know why my in-laws (and everyone else) have such an issue with this.  Does E look like she is starving and needs you to feed her?  She has ranked in at least the 90th percentile for weight pretty much her entire life, so I hardly think that is the reason.  Do they think we are just crazy over-protective parents?  (Probably.)  That we are abusing E by denying her chocolate/butter/etc.?  Or that we are doing this just for fun-sies?  I really don't get it.  Even before having E, I would never offer a child food without asking their parent's permission first.

And I'm sure everyone means well, but SERIOUSLY!  Lay off the baby, she is not starving.



* side note:  MIL hates me and frequently shoots FIL dirty looks any time she disapproves of things I do and say.  Oh, and she hasn't spoken to me since before E's birthday party in November.  But that is another story for another post...

House fire/smoke alarm PSA

While I was literally writing my last blog post, this segment came on the Today Show about home smoke alarms failing to go off soon enough to alert you of a fire.  Of course, there was a heartbreaking story in the segment about a mother who escaped a house fire, but whose four children died of smoke inhalation.

Their smoke alarms never went off.

I can personally attest to this.  When I was in high school, we had a fire and our house nearly burned to the ground.  I never once heard a smoke alarm.  I woke up to kick off my blanket because it was so warm in my room, and only then noticed the smoke.  At the exact same moment, my mom burst into my room to get me out of the house because our house was on fire.  We escaped unharmed, but it could have been much, much worse. 

THANK GOD my mom and I were the only ones home...  I have four siblings who were at various other places that night.  And I also thank God that my mom had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room that night, because otherwise, we easily both could have not made it.  (My mom's room was in the basement, and if she had been down there, I don't know that she would have ever known there was a fire until it was too late.)  The fire started in our kitchen -- they later determined the wiring behind our refrigerator had caught fire -- and my mom had been sleeping on the couch only feet away.  She never heard the smoke alarm; it melted off the wall before it ever went off.   Thankfully, she smelled the smoke and woke up in time to come check on me.  But I still shudder to think of how much worse it could have been.

Since surviving our house fire, fire safety has been a huge thing for me.  I make sure the batteries in our smoke alarms are working, even though I don't put as much faith in them as I used to.  (I am seriously going to look into the photoelectric alarms mentioned in that Today Show piece.)  I am so anal about making sure the stove and other heating elements (my straightener, etc.) are turned off when we are done using them.  And I am so paranoid about other fire-prevention upkeep:  keeping the dryer lint trap empty -- dryer lint buildup is a common cause of house fires -- and of course, making sure nothing gets stuck behind our refrigerator. 

All of that said, please, just be aware that a fire really CAN happen in your home.  I always like to think these things only happen to other people and it could never really happen to me, but sadly, I now know better.  I just want to encourage everyone to do what you can to keep your family safe, should it happen to you!