For my celiac, the start of this school year brought a new building, new kids, new schedule and different teachers for each subject as he transitioned from elementary to middle school.
That’s a whole lot of explaining to do about what he can’t eat and why. Celiac Disease just screams “different” when “sameness” is so desirable. But, after the first month, it has been okay.
In language arts, one of the first writing assignments was to compare paragraph structure to an Oreo. The teacher passed out Oreo’s to drive the lesson home and then asked my celiac why he didn’t eat his.
I was unaware of this lesson until my celiac came home and asked, “Mom, where do you buy gluten-free Oreo’s?” Instead of giving him the answer, I asked “Why?” He explained the lesson, and the good news here is that the sentence structure component of the paragraph lesson stuck, but added that his teacher wanted to get him some Oreo’s that he could eat since they would be reinforcing the Oreo concept in Social Studies.
I emailed the teacher and told her where to get them, but offered to drop off an unopened package at the school for her. She found the GF Oreo’s, the Glutino version, in her local Stop n Shop and all was fine…my celiac even got to bring home the rest of the package!
Our first little roadblock and we skirted around it with zero problem. I know there are many pizza parties, dinners out and Oreo type lessons in the near future and a lot more explaining to do, but the good news is that it’s like water off a duck’s back for this kid.
There will be lots of those moments when my celiac will be called upon to explain why he isn’t eating or drinking something that looks delicious, but contains gluten. I hope it continues to be no big deal for him to stay gluten-free.
Kendall Egan
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