"Did you read the gredients?", spoken by a little voice from a four year old boy that looked more like he was only two. Those were the words my son Robert used to say every time someone would hand his something new to eat. Those were the words a boy who was diagnosed at 8 months of age with life threatening food allergies to milk, egg and peanut would use to remind the grown-ups in his life to read the label and keep him safe.
I read the ingredients the other day when I shopped for bread but I didn't have to. That little boy is now 18 years old and has moved 400 miles away to college. It doesn't matter what the ingredients are in the bread. He won't be home until Thanksgiving and the bread will be long consumed by my other three children.
I wonder if I will ever stop turning over a package and reading the ingredients. I wonder if I will ever not realize when I just cross contaminated a knife or a cutting board. I think, after 18 years of doing everything I could do to keep this child safe, that these habits will be hard to break.
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