Saturday, March 29, 2008

Too much of a Good Thing?

So when I was growing up, I ate more candy than almost anyone in the world. I would even have eaten more than Jon (brother) except that he had more money and could drive, so he could go to Smart and Final and get the 78 pound tub of Whoppers and such. I often (constantly?) had these little blisters on my fingertips which my mother told me were some kind of bacteria from eating too much sugar. I spent every penny I earned on candy. I started babysitting at age 10 and I believe the first available half hour after every babysitting job I took the money I had earned down to Bingo and walked around and around that gas station store trying to figure out how I could get the most candy for my money. It's really a shame that you had to go through the weird part of the trailer park and cross a major street to get to Scott's Market, because they had all kinds of penny candy up there, and plus Scott was very nice, whereas the workers at Bingo never seemed to appreciate my patronage. In my defense, I remember that I finally settled into always getting a "fresh baked" giant peanut butter chocolate chip cookie and then whatever candy I could get with the change from that. See, I started learning at an early age the wonders of lots of baked goods in the diet. What wonders, you ask? Mostly that they taste really, really good and are very enjoyable to eat.

So the only thing I ever remember about the amount of candy I ate was that I never got as much as I wanted. I don't remember any negative side affects of the candy eating itself. Which brings me to my point. So the kids got their Easter baskets (okay, Easter bags. We were at Greg's parent's house and I had forgotten to bring along the baskets, as well as the paper grass and interesting treats I bought on our last trip to the Land of the Free so we used plastic grocery bags.--Gone are the days when I would have helped the kids make and decorate their own out of paper) and we let them eat the candy at will. That night Evie started feeling sick when she was in bed and eventually vomited. During the night David woke up and did the same. (I'll add here that I am grateful for clean vomiting kids. We always get it in the toilet or a bowl--no, last Easter when I was in the hospital with Aaron, Evie threw up in the hallway, but that's 'cause Daddy was in charge for the first time. Oh, and once in America when David was vomiting every 7 minutes...) Okay, so I spoiled this, but we thought at first that it was Greg's parents amazing food we had been eating (so delicious, but not always refrigerated before the bacteria gets going on it or thoroughly reheated the next day). Then Evie started saying, "I'm so mad at myself! Why did I eat so much candy? The same thing happened last time!" (see above reference)

So my question is, what's the deal with my kids not hacking the sweets? They didn't get that from me. I suppose I'll just be glad that they can't and hope that they won't end up addicted to sugar like I was...

Monday, March 17, 2008