Facing Fears (even when they're silly)

As I've mentioned in the past, I can tend to be a bit of a hypochondriac.

Sometimes I feel like germs are out to get me (especially when raw poultry is involved), so if I can avoid possible adverse medical mishaps (food poisoning, possible allergic reactions to certain foods, catching a cold from the sneezy not covering her mouth child at baby and toddler group etc), my knee jerk reaction is to do so at all costs.

However, the cost proves to be extremely expensive:

Become home bound vegetarians.

And let's be serious, I'm from Texas, so that surely isn't going to happen.

Taylor is very grace-giving with me in these situations.  He doesn't push me.  He bought the Costco-sized hand sanitizer after Seth was born and made everyone use it if they were within 100 feet of the baby. He gently reminds me that sharing slobbered on toys in the church nursery builds immunity, and that if we don't have food allergies, Seth probably won't either.  And we all know with the raw meat neuroses, he is a genius.  He handles all raw meat passed his way without complaint.  This is a man who over the past five years has learned quickly to pick his battles.

So today we are celebrating a milestone that most of your children reached at one year old:

Eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

It may not seem like a big deal to you, but I have been carefully calculating how to go about this for the past 6 months - since Seth was cleared to try my long time nemesis. Don't get me wrong; our mutual dislike isn't because I'm allergic; I'm not.  But as a former teacher, you are taught to fear peanuts in all forms.  School is a nut-free zone People!  (At first I accidentally typed "nit-free" - don't we wish that were true?!) Plus, I was the kid that talked my mom into making me one peanut butter only half and one jelly only half because I couldn't stand having the flavors combined.  And truth be told, I threw away the whole un-eatened peanut butter half nine times out of ten.  

Taylor on the other hand is in LOVE with peanut butter.  And to his credit, he never pushed me to make Seth try it sooner.

So I've been trying for the past 6 months to get the courage up (and to get my darned baby brain to actually remember to implement the plan) to do this.  The plan came to me in early September.  At 15 months, Seth finally was ready to join our baby and toddler group at church now that he could stand missing his morning nap once a week.  It was perfect.  The group ended right around lunch time, and our church is steps away from the children's hospital in town.  My plan was to bring the PBJ sandwich with us to the group, drive home an alternate route so we'd pass the children's hospital, park in front of it, and feed it to him there. Just. In. Case.

3 months went by and I would forget every week to make the sandwich ahead of time.  This week, I realized would be my last chance, and I was bound and determined to find out once and for all if my fear of peanuts was founded.  Especially since we are going on an airplane soon - and we all know there are peanuts everywhere in airplanes!

Here are the results of my very scientific study:

It was love at first bite!

And I have to say, I walked on the wild side and didn't bother driving in front of the hospital while he ate it.  Progress!