Food Allergies

My poor nephew Cooper has severe food allergies... anything with red dye (like ketchup or anything tomato-y) and peanuts are the worst. (He has more.. but these are the most severe) This poor child has been subject to my pregnant memory on more than one occasion. I had him for a week in March and gave him spaghetti-o's one day for lunch.... severe rash resulted. A few days later I gave him a peanut butter sandwich... this is when they discovered the peanut allergy and blood work was done to see how serious his allergies are. He now carries an Epi-pen in the event he has peanuts again and goes into anaphylactic shock.

Anyhow... I've had him again for the past two days (seriously.. I can't believe they still trust me with him). Today my neighbor came by with a cookie for the boys... I didn't even LOOK to see if there were any peanuts in it and handed it over to him. As soon as they ate them I realized my mistake and frantically called the neighbor, then my sister, then my brother-in-law. It was hours later when the neighbor finally confirmed there were NOT any peanuts involved. (Travis told me it would be an immediate reaction if there were nuts, but I was still stressed about it.) Very stressful. I hated myself for not checking. Poor Cooper. I came up with a solution.. pulled out my handy purple marker and wrote it right there on his forehead. NO NUTS. It sounded better in my head. I think tomorrow I'll specify... NO peaNUTS.