Sugar addiction
My daughter is addicted to sugar and I know that I am to blame. After all, I put on four and a half stone while I was expecting her due to my own sugar addiction so how could she not crave the white stuff after swimming in chocolate flavoured amniotic fluid for nine whole months. However, it is definitely getting out of hand.
The other day I took herself and Andrew to the local indoor playground so that I could sit and relax and let a few slides and a pit full of balls entertain them for a couple of hours. The children also get a free lunch in this place of either toast and scrambled eggs or toast and sausages so I don't even have to cook lunch when I go home. It's win,win!
However, the toast is made out of white bread and as we only have brown bread at home (due to my own eternal struggles to keep my weight below ten stone), Charlotte literally begins to drool the moment we enter the door and starts to shriek "Toast, toast, toast" until it is brought over to her where she starts to devour it like a child that has been starved for over a week. I used to get her lunch for her the minute we arrived (even though we might have only just finished breakfast) while Andrew went off and played but the problems would arise when he would arrive back looking for his lunch. Charlotte would then realise that her toast was all eaten whilst Andrew hadn't even begun and so would start to demand his toast to eat too. You can see how my lovely relaxing couple of hours would start to slip away.
This time I decided to stay firm and tell her that no, she had to wait until it was time for everyone to have lunch before she could have toast and as you can imagine, she objected fervently to this immediately.
She kicked and flailed and screamed her little heart out but I stayed impervious. I was with a few friends who were saying things like "Ah, God love her. Would you not just get her one slice?" "She's normally so good. Poor little thing". " Ah look, I don't mind getting her some toast". "No" I ordered in my strict Mammy mode voice "She has to learn that she can't just scream for what she wants. She'll get over it" and I proceeded to ignore her with a technique that is born from years of ignoring her older brothers tantrums.
After a while the yells of anguish started to die down and she began to wander off and look at some of the activities. "See" I said smugly to my friends, "You just have to be firm" and I sat back to bask in their admiration of me for keeping my cool under such pressure. After a while I realised that I hadn't seen or heard from Charlotte for quite some time so I got up to have a look around for her and just check that she was alright. I turned a corner and found her sitting at a table in between two complete strangers grinning her little head off and eating - yes, you've guessed it - a plateful of toast. She had actually gone up to these strange people and asked them for some toast and they had bought it for her. Oh the shame!
Cue mortified apologies from me and the removal of Charlotte from their company and the biggest tantrum that she has ever had to date. The amazing thing about all this is that anyone who knows Charlotte will know that she is the normally the most placid little creature and has never even had any tantrums up until recently and now every single one of her recent wobblers have all been related to food - or should I say forbidden food. The irony being that I can't get a bite of dinner into her usually and she can sometimes go a couple of days without eating anything with no adverse effects at all(God - how I wish I had her willpower sometimes).
I had a friend over yesterday who was giving her baby some Liga and Charlotte went ballistic when she realised that there was no Liga for her and actually smacked my friend on the leg. I mean, this is the same child whose idea of self defence is normally running away and hiding behind my leg.
She has taken to searching peoples bags when they come in the door and demanding sweeties using a plaintive pleading tone of voice as though we are starving her.
Am I raising the human equivalent of cookie monster or is she (as I fear) just a chip off the old block? Let me elaborate.
I too have an appalling sugar addiction. When I was younger I remember my mother buying fun-sized bars of chocolate and hiding them from me. I mean, there were six children in the house but she used to hide them just from me. I would be hurt except there was that one time when she chose the tumble dryer as a hiding place but forgot that they were in there so when she put in her clean clothes and turned it on, she destroyed all of her washing (mars bar flavoured t-shirt anyone?). Ha ha - that'll teach you mother!
Only recently I was tidying up after lunch and was kneeling down to put the ketchup back in the press when I discovered an unopened Easter egg.
How the hell did I miss that I thought before I realised that it must be my hubby's. Still, he wouldn't mind me having a little taste, would he?
I looked around and saw that the children were in the room so I knew that I would have to do it discreetly. I opened the box delicately with one hand and peeled back back the foil pausing only to inhale the rich smell of cocoa and then snapped off a giant chunk and stuffed it straight into my mouth. Delicious I thought with my eyes shut whilst savouring the chocolatey taste.
"Mummy what are you doing?" came Andrew's little voice behind me. "Ummmm, looking for something", I mumbled with my mouth full to the brim and then I snapped, "Go and play".
Oh my God, what am I like? Lying to my own child just so I could savour a stolen bit of chocolate in peace. I went to close the press but then stopped and thought to myself, I might as well finish off the first half of the egg seeing as I had already started it. It made sense. After all who just wants a 'piece' of chocolate? Most people would like to receive a full half of an egg and it seemed like such a shame to just leave it there and so before I could debate the point any further in my mind, I quickly gobbled the rest of it down before any other little person sneaked up behind to me to place more feelings of guilt upon my shoulders.
I was just about to close the press again when I spied the foil wrapper encasing the second half of the Eater egg and for a split second I could swear that it winked at me. I turned around to see if any of the children had seen it too but they were at the other side of the room playing and ignoring me. My eyes were drawn back to the spot where this poor egg had lain for weeks on end, forgotten and unloved by it's owner. If it had been a man I think it would have taken off it's clothes, done a dance and tried to entice me into bed. I just couldn't resist and ripped open the rest of the box, tore away the purple foil and gazed momentarily on the naked chocolate egg before before I consumed it with a passion that would have made Anthony and Cleopatra look like a couple of school children with a crush. Within minutes the egg was gone and it was quickly replaced by my sanity when I came back to Earth with a bump and realised to my horror that I had just eaten an entire Easter egg without even taking my head out of the press. Oh the shame! The greed! The mortification of it all! What would my hubby say when he found out?
So far he hasn't noticed that his egg is missing and that careless attitude to chocolate makes me feel that perhaps he deserves to have chocolate Easter eggs stolen from him from time to time if he continues to treat them in such a injudicious manner.
Still, it might be best not to mention it to him though...
The other day I took herself and Andrew to the local indoor playground so that I could sit and relax and let a few slides and a pit full of balls entertain them for a couple of hours. The children also get a free lunch in this place of either toast and scrambled eggs or toast and sausages so I don't even have to cook lunch when I go home. It's win,win!
However, the toast is made out of white bread and as we only have brown bread at home (due to my own eternal struggles to keep my weight below ten stone), Charlotte literally begins to drool the moment we enter the door and starts to shriek "Toast, toast, toast" until it is brought over to her where she starts to devour it like a child that has been starved for over a week. I used to get her lunch for her the minute we arrived (even though we might have only just finished breakfast) while Andrew went off and played but the problems would arise when he would arrive back looking for his lunch. Charlotte would then realise that her toast was all eaten whilst Andrew hadn't even begun and so would start to demand his toast to eat too. You can see how my lovely relaxing couple of hours would start to slip away.
This time I decided to stay firm and tell her that no, she had to wait until it was time for everyone to have lunch before she could have toast and as you can imagine, she objected fervently to this immediately.
She kicked and flailed and screamed her little heart out but I stayed impervious. I was with a few friends who were saying things like "Ah, God love her. Would you not just get her one slice?" "She's normally so good. Poor little thing". " Ah look, I don't mind getting her some toast". "No" I ordered in my strict Mammy mode voice "She has to learn that she can't just scream for what she wants. She'll get over it" and I proceeded to ignore her with a technique that is born from years of ignoring her older brothers tantrums.
After a while the yells of anguish started to die down and she began to wander off and look at some of the activities. "See" I said smugly to my friends, "You just have to be firm" and I sat back to bask in their admiration of me for keeping my cool under such pressure. After a while I realised that I hadn't seen or heard from Charlotte for quite some time so I got up to have a look around for her and just check that she was alright. I turned a corner and found her sitting at a table in between two complete strangers grinning her little head off and eating - yes, you've guessed it - a plateful of toast. She had actually gone up to these strange people and asked them for some toast and they had bought it for her. Oh the shame!
Cue mortified apologies from me and the removal of Charlotte from their company and the biggest tantrum that she has ever had to date. The amazing thing about all this is that anyone who knows Charlotte will know that she is the normally the most placid little creature and has never even had any tantrums up until recently and now every single one of her recent wobblers have all been related to food - or should I say forbidden food. The irony being that I can't get a bite of dinner into her usually and she can sometimes go a couple of days without eating anything with no adverse effects at all(God - how I wish I had her willpower sometimes).
I had a friend over yesterday who was giving her baby some Liga and Charlotte went ballistic when she realised that there was no Liga for her and actually smacked my friend on the leg. I mean, this is the same child whose idea of self defence is normally running away and hiding behind my leg.
She has taken to searching peoples bags when they come in the door and demanding sweeties using a plaintive pleading tone of voice as though we are starving her.
Am I raising the human equivalent of cookie monster or is she (as I fear) just a chip off the old block? Let me elaborate.
I too have an appalling sugar addiction. When I was younger I remember my mother buying fun-sized bars of chocolate and hiding them from me. I mean, there were six children in the house but she used to hide them just from me. I would be hurt except there was that one time when she chose the tumble dryer as a hiding place but forgot that they were in there so when she put in her clean clothes and turned it on, she destroyed all of her washing (mars bar flavoured t-shirt anyone?). Ha ha - that'll teach you mother!
Only recently I was tidying up after lunch and was kneeling down to put the ketchup back in the press when I discovered an unopened Easter egg.
How the hell did I miss that I thought before I realised that it must be my hubby's. Still, he wouldn't mind me having a little taste, would he?
I looked around and saw that the children were in the room so I knew that I would have to do it discreetly. I opened the box delicately with one hand and peeled back back the foil pausing only to inhale the rich smell of cocoa and then snapped off a giant chunk and stuffed it straight into my mouth. Delicious I thought with my eyes shut whilst savouring the chocolatey taste.
"Mummy what are you doing?" came Andrew's little voice behind me. "Ummmm, looking for something", I mumbled with my mouth full to the brim and then I snapped, "Go and play".
Oh my God, what am I like? Lying to my own child just so I could savour a stolen bit of chocolate in peace. I went to close the press but then stopped and thought to myself, I might as well finish off the first half of the egg seeing as I had already started it. It made sense. After all who just wants a 'piece' of chocolate? Most people would like to receive a full half of an egg and it seemed like such a shame to just leave it there and so before I could debate the point any further in my mind, I quickly gobbled the rest of it down before any other little person sneaked up behind to me to place more feelings of guilt upon my shoulders.
I was just about to close the press again when I spied the foil wrapper encasing the second half of the Eater egg and for a split second I could swear that it winked at me. I turned around to see if any of the children had seen it too but they were at the other side of the room playing and ignoring me. My eyes were drawn back to the spot where this poor egg had lain for weeks on end, forgotten and unloved by it's owner. If it had been a man I think it would have taken off it's clothes, done a dance and tried to entice me into bed. I just couldn't resist and ripped open the rest of the box, tore away the purple foil and gazed momentarily on the naked chocolate egg before before I consumed it with a passion that would have made Anthony and Cleopatra look like a couple of school children with a crush. Within minutes the egg was gone and it was quickly replaced by my sanity when I came back to Earth with a bump and realised to my horror that I had just eaten an entire Easter egg without even taking my head out of the press. Oh the shame! The greed! The mortification of it all! What would my hubby say when he found out?
So far he hasn't noticed that his egg is missing and that careless attitude to chocolate makes me feel that perhaps he deserves to have chocolate Easter eggs stolen from him from time to time if he continues to treat them in such a injudicious manner.
Still, it might be best not to mention it to him though...
haha don't let him read this then!
ReplyDeleteCharlotte is hilarious! Smart kid though. If you won't help she'll charm someone else. Fiona has discovered our "goodie" press here. She is rarely given a full packet of anything though so she thinks all sweets come in 3's. (Cos she's 3). Strangely though, for a half Corrigan, she will devour half a watermelon and a chunk of cheddar cheese in seconds but will say no thanks to a 2nd crisp or another candy. She was the only kid recently at a birthday party who picked all the fruit of her piece of cake and ate only that. I can't see it lasting...
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