1 Mother 2 Another

We had a fantastic Halloween on Saturday
night, thanks to a couple things: first off, we threw our usual
sugar restrictions out the window and let the girls have probably a
half-dozen pieces of candy each. For us, that’s huge. Second,
we had the whole daylight savings thing, which meant we could allow
the girls to eat sugar and then stay up late until it wore off. The
girls were in amazingly good and obedient moods, and our Saturday
night, blessedly, had absolutely no meltdowns and no temper
tantrums.


Those were saved for Sunday morning.

Cora woke up singing with the birds a good
hour before she normally gets up - this in addition to the fact
that she was kept up an hour later than she normally does. I
stumbled blearily into her room and snuggled for exactly ten
seconds before Cora wriggled out of my arms and said,
“Let’s go downstairs now! I want to finish eating all
my candy!”


One apologetic explanation later, and Cora was a sobbing wreck on
the floor of her room.


I let the girls have a couple pieces of candy on Sunday –
gotta step them down off that ledge gradually – so they were
pretty good-natured most of the day, even as I went out of my way
to explain that there would be NO MORE CANDY after Sunday for a
REALLY LONG TIME. Sure, sure, the girls would nod absently, sitting
in a circle on the floor surrounded by their loot – their
Precious - and fondling it proprietarily.


Monday morning rolled around with a homework assignment for Maddie:
bring in a Ziploc bag full of candy for a special math lesson. Cora
and Maddie’s buckets had already been put out of reach and
obediently left, and it was with a bit of trepidation that I
approached Maddie’s one more time. We were encouraged to put
names on the Ziplocs so the candy would come back, and I
accidentally on purpose left Maddie’s off.


Sure enough, the candy was the first thing Maddie mentioned when I
picked her up, bag-o-candy safely returned to her backpack despite
my fervent prayers. “Um, Mommy, I noticed some really
yummy-looking candy in my backpack and during school today, and I
know you said no more candy, but it looks really good, so I thought
maybe you’d let me have just one piece or two or something if
I promised that this would really really be the last piece for a
while?”


One loving-but-firm explanation later, and Maddie was a sobbing
wreck on the sidewalk.


Both girls have complained grumpily that their candy baskets are
too far out of reach – “I just want to look at it all
and count it!” – and still bring it up as often as they
dare. So we’re having a bit of a hard time coming back to
that reality where Mommy doesn’t let the girls eat a Hershey
bar after lunch any more. Thank heavens for Trident and Tic-Tacs,
both of which are helping my girls ease off the high-fructose corn
syrup by quenching their “sweet” cravings.


If only they made Tic-Tacs as a patch.