Back to School | Starting Kindergarten!

Today was a day that I have been dreading for some time. Sending my child to school with a peanut and tree nut allergy.

I spent the Summer marking things off of my checklist, getting prescriptions refilled, filling out forms from the nurses office, buying new medical bracelets and working hard on educating my child about peanut allergies.

As this morning came, a lot of my anxiety was gone. We have been running scenarios all Summer long — “What do you say if someone wants to trade food?” “What do you say if someone offers you something you think is safe, like a banana?” “What if the bus driver offers you a piece of candy?” Anything I could think of, I asked him.

And the answer? Every single time he answered with “No, thank you”

I know scenarios are different then real world, but we had to start somewhere and hopefully all of my educating will help him in a real life situation.

My little guy woke up this morning, excitement was flowing through him from head to toe. He put on his clothes that we laid out the night before, ate breakfast, brushed his teeth and it was just like any other day.

As we stood out at the bus stop you could see how happy he was. My big boy was going off to Kindergarten – this momma was so proud.

I followed the bus up to his school and watched him walk in. As he sat down to his desk, I gave his teacher a bag full of peanut and tree nut safe snacks to give during snack time. I took some time to walk around his surroundings, talked to the school nurse and made sure that his medications were good to go and talked to the bus driver to tell her a little bit about Andrew and his allergies.

I won’t lie, it was hard to walk away. Being the only protection and advocate that he has had since we found out about his allergy at the age of 1. Now I’m putting his life in the hands of his teachers, nurses and the school.

I came home with his little sister and found things to do to occupy my time. Lunch time came around and I stared at the clock off and on for 2 hours hoping that my phone wouldn’t ring – and it didn’t.

As I sit here, waiting for the bus to drop my child off. I’m feeling proud of myself for getting through this, proud of him for being such a big boy and feeling a big sense of relief.

Many other moms with peanut allergy children have told me, everything will be okay and it will get easier. After the first day of school, I’m happy to say that it was a success – and everything was okay. I finally feel like things will get easier.