The Holidays 2011-12

Well, Christmas, New Years and Valentines Day have all come and gone. Easter has arrived. And one thing I have learned about my child over these special days of the year is that she is obsessed with one thing:

CANDY.

We've tried to strike a decent balance with her - not leaning to the one extreme of forbidding any and all sugar in any form at all times...or the other extreme of just filling the kidddo up with corn syrup based crap all year long. We allow her to have treats - candy, cookies, cake occasionally. As in...she gets to enjoy the free bakery cupcake they give you at the grocery store once a week. She gets a lollipop after a doctor's check up. Girl Scout cookies inevitably make their way into the house in late winter. But we don't keep the place stocked with cupboards full of empty, processed carbs.

On holidays, though...all bets are off. I would probably approach this whole thing a bit more conservatively because, honestly, I have come to see sugar and ingredients that are 17 letters long and end in "ose" and "ite" and "ated" as bordering on poisonous. However, my husband seems to have some deep issues centering around "treat deprivation." I don't know if his brother stole his gummie bears when he was a child or if he was once at a birthday party where they actually ran out of cake and he was last in line. But whatever the case, fighting the battle of "can we please limit the number of Peeps that we stuff into that Easter basket?" just isn't worth it when I could choose "oooh, it's 5am - could you get up with her this time?"

So, it's Easter Morning 2012. My two year old has eaten: a Peep, 2 mini chocolate bunnies, a chocolate carrot, 3 large gummie bears and 10 M & Ms. It is 10AM. Her little sugar-fueled body is raging with a dark energy that makes me fear for us, the cats and anything that can be knocked over and broken or spilled. She is obsessed with blowing bubbles at the moment - thankfully with a battery operated bubble blower - otherwise she absolutely would have passed out due to hyperventilation. Although...her passing out right about now sounds pretty fantastic. I informed her a moment ago that there would be no more candy until after lunch (this is a generous offer since my preference would be: no more candy until 2013.) She broke down into a puddle of tears and then shifted to demonic screeching. After a time out she settled down but there is still a hint of crazy in her eye.

In other news, she continues to grow and thrive. Healthy as a horse, curious as a cat, sly as a fox and crazy as a monkey. Her vocabulary is amazing - she talks in "adult-length" sentences and uses words like "actually" and "seriously." She completely makes things up that never happened - which can be quite confusing, but also funny, as long as she isn't saying things like "Daddy pushed me." (Not amusing, at all.)

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