Allergy Friendly Halloween

Growing up I was lactose intolerant. If I had a speck of lactose from chocolate or milk in something that wasn’t baked in I was up sick all night with tummy troubles. The only thing I could eat that contained milk was hard cheese. I have an older sister that is four years older than me. She remembers this and how we would do a candy swap after trick or treating every year. I would always be upset because I would get less candy after the swap because almost everything was not allergy friendly for me. I would be left with what had no milk. Everyone seemed to like to hand out chocolate at Halloween. My sister was always so sweet about swapping me.

So my sister text me this year that she has non-dairy, allergy friendly candy this year to pass out. She has called me every year to tell me this. She is very proud that she is a house that only hands out milk-free, allergy friendly candy. My youngest daughter had some food sensitivities for the first year herself. In that first year it caused us to be much more aware of what we eat. Not such a bad thing to know what you are eating. But, I can only imagine a life long true food allergy or multiple food allergies. Amazingly, I noticed a lot more allergy friendly foods being available in supermarkets. We had fruit snacks to pass out ourselves. They had no artificial colors and none of the 8 common food allergies. I felt good about having these to hand out. However, we did not get a single child trick or treating.

In our town there is a community event that takes place at a local park that everyone including us went to. But the candy was there just incase someone didn’t get the memo on the top-notch event to go to. Local businesses including the one my husband works for sponsor the event and hand out candy. It is great times had by all.

My oldest daughter was dressed as a hospital patient this year for Halloween as she has been in the hospital for ten days now with tummy troubles herself. She had surgery on Sunday to revise her J-tube and place a G-tube (again). My son was Buzz Lightyear which I was surprised to only see one other last night. My daughter was a giraffe and she was the only giraffe I saw there. My friend and her son trick or treated along with us and her son is just a couple of months younger than my daughter. He was a sock monkey. He was also the only sock monkey I saw. I saw a bunch of pirates, must be the recent movie release of Pirate’s of the Caribbean. We all had great fun taking the kids trick or treating and I can’t wait for next year to do it again. Next year we will still stay with having allergy-friendly candy to hand out just incase someone knocks on the door.