And Now I See

If you have ever read this blog or talked to me, you probably know that Grace?  Grace is a hypochondriac.  From the first 2 weeks of kindergarten when she went to the nurse’s office 14 times in 10 days, to the time she threw up in the summer school parking lot to avoid going to karate to pretty much every other day of her life when she “just doesn’t feel well and can’t go to school” – Grace is acutely aware of her physical limitations.  One year, she came home and said she heard someone talking about some terrible condition called “spring fever”. She was quite concerned.  She already felt a little dizzy and was sure she had caught it.

So last year, at my wits end, I took her to the doctor and asked her to run blood work and examine Grace – anything to put Grace’s little fretful and overactive mind at ease that she would, in fact, live to see another day EVEN if she went to school.  The doctor looked at Grace for about a minute and a half and said “this girl has allergies.”

She is allergic to (drum roll please…):


Cats (even newborn farm kittens)


DOGS (including foster puppies like this one):


And all the TREES by this lake (or in our yard, or in our city or on her playground):



I feel like a real heel.  Now, to be fair, even Grace admits her drama masks her true ailment and that it would have been difficult for me to know when she was sick and when she was faking.  So today I did something I never dreamed I would do, even though I read about it in every parents magazine I ever got.  I vacuumed all the stuffed animals.  A little tedious, but it seemed like a fair punishment, and something I could do every 9 years or so.  I am, so far, not moving the cats out or putting Grace in a bubble, but I suppose I can clean all her clothes and bedding, vacuum the stuffed animals and shampoo the carpet.  I suppose I can pay a fortune for some designer anti histamines and decongestants, and next time she doesn’t feel good I will still make her get up and go to school but I will try not to yell while I do it.

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