Good Intentions Gone Bad

In my attempt to be a good mom and teach my daughter some better eating habits (which is funny, because she actually eats really well) I over did it and failed miserably.

Lover Boy and I weren't hungry for dinner Tuesday night, so I asked Little Princess what she would like to eat.

"Macaroni & Cheese!" I should've known that would be her answer, that or spaghetti. I have no problem feeding her good ole Mac and Cheese, but thought that I'd throw in a veggie as a side dish for her.

Little Princess always fusses when we eat peas. She loves corn and broccoli and we can always get her to eat a little bit of beans. I decided that maybe if I give her peas more frequently she'll learn to like them too.

So I dished her Macaroni and put four spoonfuls (about 1/4 cup) of peas on her plate. That's really not that much and figured she'd be able to eat that amount. She ate the Mac & Cheese just fine, but when it came time to eat her peas she of course started to put up a stink over it. I told her she wasn't allowed to play or leave until those peas were gone!

I ended up feeding her the peas, all of them. Way to go Little Princess!! We did make a big deal out of this and told her "see it wasn't that bad no was it?"

Within 30 minutes this is what she looked like!




I guess it was worse than I could've ever imagined for her. :( She had a major allergic reaction. Luckily her throat didn't swell and her breathing was fine. Lover Boy ran to the store (this is one of those times that I absolutely love living right across the street from the grocery store) and got her some Benadryl. Within 20 minutes she was out cold. I carried her to bed, then headed to bed myself. About 30 minutes later I could hear screaming on the baby monitor, it was obvious it wasn't the baby, it was Little Princess! I ran upstairs and she was hysterical. Her arms and legs were just shaking and she wouldn't open her eyes. I put her in my arms and carried her down stairs to grab my phone.
~side note: I had called my mom when we first saw the reaction to make sure I was safe in just giving her Benadryl and not taking her to the dr. My mom had asked if I would like my dad to come up and give her a blessing, I told her that if the Benadryl didn't do anything then it'd be nice but I'd let her know.

So I called my mom to see if my dad could come and give her a blessing. He wasn't home yet from his bishopric meetings, but she said she'd run to the church and get him. Then I realized that I had better call her dad, despite it being his birthday and him being out with his wife. I called him and he said they'd be right over.

I carried Little Princess back upstairs so Lover Boy could hopefully get some rest. Little Princess couldn't stop screaming, she jumped out of my arms and just ran in circles waving her arms and kicking her legs. It was awful for me to watch. I tried to ask her what she was feeling, but she didn't even recognize that I was talking to her. I tried to comfort her, but again it was like I wasn't even there. Finally she started to calm down. I told her that Papa was coming over and so was her daddy, she rested her head on my chest and was out again.

Everyone showed up to my house around 10:00 p.m. My dad annointed Little Princess, then her daddy gave her a beautiful blessing that she would fight this reaction and get better. She never flinched or woke up or anything. I put her back in her bed and we decided it'd be best for me to sleep with her in case anything happened again. She slept wonderfully (I wish I could same the same for me).

When she woke in the morning she was still a little swollen. I told her if it didn't go down by noon, we'd run to the dr. and have her check out.

We ended up at the Dr. and he said that sure enough it looked like a food allergy. He said her reaction was to the Benadryl, some children have a reaction like that to something in it mixed with the red dye, so he gave us another anti-histamine.

Today she's practically back to beautiful. No more "Rocky" as her dad called her, or "Quasimodo" as Lover Boy called her.

Lucky girl, I will never force you to eat your peas again!!