Food Allergies, Sports, and Activities

We want our kids to be involved in activities.  But is there an activity without food?  Even with sports, there is always the snack brought after the practice or the game or the team get together at a local restaurant.  I am just not excited about sports.

There's also the added element of the outdoor sports.  With those we have to worry about the outdoor allergens and the heat.  Both of those factors can cause severe eczema flares in Bee.

So, I am concerned about the heat, bugs, pollen, dust, and food involved with most sports.

We've had to be a little creative with regard to our activities.  Right now, our kids are involved in 2 things - violin and ice skating.

Violin is indoors.  Yay!  You don't eat while you play!  You don't even get food near your violin.  Perfect!  Bee is loving violin lessons and she's slowly learning to play on her strings.  We have bi-weekly group lessons with our studio and all the kids play together.  Each week the kids have individual private lessons.  I love that they will have a foundation in music and will always be able to play an instrument.

Ice Skating is also indoors!  What I love about ice skating is that it's cold in there!  Bee can wear her warm and comfy clothes and can skate to her heart's content.  There is no food on the ice and everyone is covered up so that no one is directly touching Bee.  As long as we avoid the snack bar, we stay safe at the rink.

And we have swimming during the summer time.  Bee does well in swimming pools as long as she showers afterwards and uses lotion.  Swimming keeps her cool as well.  We try to go to the pool first thing in the morning so we avoid all the birthday parties and people who bring food to the pool area.

Can I admit that I'm glad we don't do soccer and baseball/softball?  I don't want to sit out at the fields every Saturday morning in the wind or the heat.  I don't want to be out late at night for practices or games. I don't want to battle the bugs!

Food allergies dictate our activities and the eczema limits us too.  But we can participate in a few things.  I've found that carefully choosing only a few activities is the best way to go for us.