Traveling with my Food Allergic Kid
I wasn’t going to let our disappointing trip to the nut free ice cream parlour get me down! We traveled back to Toronto with a new goal – to find Richman’s 100% Nut Free Bakery!!! Located at 4119 Bathurst Street , Toronto, ON, M3H 3P4, (416) 636-9710 http://www.richmansbakery.ca/ , they offer everything a peanut/tree nut allergic family could want!!!
About 1/2 an hour drive from the Blue Jay’s stadium, located in the Jewish section of Toronto is an modest store front with the words 100% NUT FREE on their sign! Excitedly I whisked the boys into the bakery & to my surprise my little peanut allergic child broke out in frantic tears, chanting “I can’t be in here!” It was both a proud and sad moment, he understands his allergy, but lives with it too. The next 20 minutes were a challenge, but soon the wonderful ladies behind the counter made him feel at ease, offering free samples of frosted & sprinkled cookies! What did this mommy do next, but spend over $40 purchasing at least two of each item. We began with the chocolate chip cookies, larger than their heads. We also purchased muffins, bagels, croissants, smaller cookies, bread, cake slices, cupcakes – Never have I been so excited to step foot in a bakery!
By the time we returned to the hotel I really wished I had packed my dust buster. My minivan was trashed!!! The boutique hotel was very helpful tidying their car seats. It’s an extremely clean, new & familiar hotel, although we cannot eat any of their room service they did offer to purchase items from Richman’s Bakery for us and have them waiting on our next trip. As a city, Toronto really understands food allergies and makes every effort to accommodate them.
After a short nap we took a walk to the firehall on Adelade Street. We took pictures of the trucks and the firemen made balloons out of latex gloves for each of my boys!
For dinner we settled on McDonald’s for the kids. They were tired & starving. We snuggled in bed and watched Bugs Life.
The next morning we made our journey to the Toronto Islands & the Centreville amusement park. If I have not mentioned it before, I personally feel Toronto is the most friendly city on the continent. Of all things we lost a shoe on our journey to the ferry. A wonderful young man ran up to me to tell me but I couldn’t find it. I panicked and began looking for a place along the way to purchase flip flops. He kept an eye out to make sure I found the shoe & when he realized I didn’t find it he ran back & grabbed it for me. I was so grateful for that shoe!
The distance from the hotel to the ferry was rather great considering the heat, the weight of the double stroller and kids and…we took the wrong ferry! The Toronto Islands are broken into 3 sections. Centreville houses the amusement park and has the most crowded ferry. The other two islands are more park-like with paths and places to sit and stop along the way. I guess my map was upside down and we took the ferry that was the absolute FURTHEST from Centreville – this must explain why there was no line for this boat. We walked for over an hour to arrive at Centreville.
On our journey we found fire department for the island. We stopped and took pictures, sat in the trucks. The boys had a great time! Forever and a day later we came upon the boardwalk & the amusement park. I purchased a sheet of 50 tickets for $40 http://www.centreisland.ca/default.aspx and we proceded to the rides. They were cute, child size rides – boats, antique cars, antique firetrucks, and a few bigger rides for the kids & adults together. We had a great time, however from a food allergy standpoint there was nothing we could eat. I had plenty of wipes. But I was rather surprised seeing as Canada is so conscious of their food allergies. And wouldn’t this be the trip I forgot to throw a handful of Quaker Canada Peanut Free Granola Bars in our bag! We got caught without our favorite snack or a McDonald’s. It was definitely a learning experience.
Before we crossed the border back into the US we stopped at Wal-Mart Canada to stock up on Quaker Canada Peanut Free Granola Bars, a little more Nestle Canada Peanut Free Candy, Dare crackers…and next door at the No Frills – Chapman’s Peanut Free Ice Cream!
We had a great time! Things I would change on the next visit: maybe the hotel, cab it to the ferry, take the correct ferry & have plenty of snacks in our bag!!!