Valentine's Day. I've been dreading it for weeks now. Not for your normal reasons, though. I'm going to spend the day with my lovelies and I never frown on holidays where flowers and chocolate are practically mandatory. Nope. I am stressed because my sweet little boy has a preschool party where there's bound to be nothing but pink and red food.

That probably makes no sense to most, but in our household that is a recipe for disaster. Less than a year ago we were having a lot of trouble with our son. Crazy mood swings, uncontrollable screaming fits, night terrors, two parents for sure they had ruined their sweet little baby....You get the picture. Then one day after his very own bowl of bright red sherbet his face broke out and he went all Mr.Jekyll. A light bulb finally went off. Red food dye. I'd heard of kids being sensitive to it before and it all kinda fit the bill.

So we dropped it cold turkey. We started reading labels and purged our cabinets of all violators. You'd be shocked at all the ridiculous things they add red food dye to. Look sometime for yourself. I scoured the Internet for alternative food ideas and proof that it was a real allergy (well, more like a food sensitivity, but I'm not a doctor). We had plenty of people think we were crazy, but we held our ground and things got a lot better. Not that he's an angel or anything. He's probably the most stubborn little human on the planet, but we've noticed a complete difference. And we haven't been 100% successful keeping it away from him. The other day he accidentally got some crackers with the yucky stuff and let's just say at one point he was on top of a public toilet while I tried to hold onto a wiggly toddler and simultaneously coax him down. Like a really weird hostage situation. It was super.

Anyway, back to this preschool party. His teachers are aware he can't have the stuff, but I feel like that's an awful lot to ask of them. The poor guy's going to be surrounded by all kinds of awesomeness that he's not allowed to have. Usually he's a real trooper at parties, telling the host or hostess that he "can't have red", but he struggles with understanding that red is in lots of colors. And I'm afraid that EVERYTHING will be off limits. I mean, when was the last time you saw a Valentine's treat that wasn't pink or red? And he definitely doesn't get that most cookies and cake have it lurking in there somewhere. Don't ask me why white frosting and cake need to include red. It's apparently something only the food industry can understand.

So tomorrow I get to play the bad guy and hope he's not too disappointed when I take away all of his goodies. Yes, I know there are mistreated, malnourished, unloved children out there, but he doesn't know that. And I just hate the thought of him being sad. :(  I guess that's why I bought him one of those stupid, singing, dancing stuffed animals for a Valentine's gift.  Which really just adds to my dread of tomorrow. Sigh.