I get a lot of people who don’t quite understand why I try to keep Kayla away from certain situations. The prefect example is ice cream. Her school this year is having ice cream at their annual end of year picnic. Last year they tried Rita’s. This year, because, from what I am told, other parents complained that their precious kids were denied Mr. Softee (give me a break!), they went back to ice cream. Although I still am furious in many ways, I did not make a huge fuss over it. The main reason being is I know I have it good there. The bottom line is they keep Kayla safe and they make her feel safe. And they do this while including her in everything. The director did, after talking to me, offer to have all the kids eating popsicles to sit at a separate table. But I will still bring Kayla her own safe popsicle. I have thus far tried unsuccessfully to obtain the ingredients for Mr. Softee’s popsicles and giving her something that sits amongst ice cream is a bit beyond my comfort level.

Before I get too far off track, I know some, probably the director included does not quite understand why I am so concerned about the ice cream factor. The bottom line is ice cream is messy – ESPECIALLY when being eaten by a bunch of preschoolers, outside on a hot June day. And now I have a perfect example as to what risk being around ice cream poses for Kayla.

Saturday, J’s work had their annual open house (pictures to follow later). His boss does it up with a petting zoo (with goats, bunnies, hedge hogs, birds, chickens, etc); baby chicks to hold; face painting and pony rides. The girls were super excited about going and had a blast. This year, for the first (and thankfully last time – it was apparently very expensive), his boss had the ice cream man come. Before we left to go home, Alysa very much wanted her face painted. So we waited on line – for well over a half hour. Surprisingly she was patient and waited and actually got her face painted. After, I was doing something for Kayla while Alysa meandered around in circles by me with her blue butterfly face. The next thing I know she came up to me showing me her hand. She had a blue streak across it. My first thought was she wiped her face and had paint on her hand. Bust as I was wiping her hand off with only a tissue, I looked up and there standing next to Alysa was a boy holding some blue ice creamish pop in his hand. It then hit me that it wasn’t face paint on her hand, but ice cream dripped from his pop. Thankfully I noticed this and I was able to wash her off with wipes. But had that been Kayla, we most likely would have had a reaction, or a strong possibility of one.

The drippage factor of ice cream is the EXACT reason it puts me into a tailspin. Thankfully her schools ice cream eating will be done at tables and as contained as it can be (with hand washing afterwards). But it still is not something I consider fun. I’m dreading the picnic and can not wait for it to be over.