Holiday Detox
Everyone Gives Kids Candy.
Had to followup Deaon's post. What is with all the candy at school and everywhere? - not naming any names. Had to reteach the youngest how to eat real food again and the other two had to sleep off the sugar rushes after school.
Here's a picture of the handy stashes we have collected since bribing the kids, but it really makes more sense all double vision with floating confetti. I always thought the sugar rush was a myth and the truth would be more of a dizzy crash. Our kids, their brains turn off and and they wiggle-run-yell like in the movies. They can't hear, focus, or recover from an emotion after some friendly sap dumps candy in their lap. Replace one meal with the colorful treats, and they are enduring a full-blown hangover 45 minutes later.
Candy was entering our lives. We knew that going in. My fancy plans to melt and grind it into deserts for large groups proved good but naive. How many cookie crumbs can you really use on fresh fruit, cheese, and nuts? Not many, even shopping fruit at a local restaurant supply store 50 lbs at a time. I vastly underestimated the quantity of sugary processed hormone pills doled out. The milk has more sugar than sodas, candy canes with inch diameters (what is this for?). bags of candy themed to this week's holiday.
Farewell #Barbie It's been fun #elfontheshelf #goodbyparty #biggestlittlecity #lightupdancefloor
We've been eating lots of it. I've had more candy since May than the preceding decade. The weird part is that it is not even good - just easy. I'm having to reteach myself to get a spoonful of peanut putter after craving one of the ten types of peanut butter cups in the three Halloween pumpkins in my closet, or the disposable Christmas bag on the bookshelf, or the full mixing bowl with the paper plates. It's time for a new strategy. Nickels for candy is helping the kids pass up on some of the treats when they don't have us to help manage their intake. Now to get more real food back into the 'adult' snack time.
It's too oily and dyed to compost. Why am I eating it?
So back to the kids. They need their brains to learn to read and use their bodies. They need lots of calories to fuel growth and exploration. The sad reality is that many kids are getting this energy from the diabetes, anti-focus, disconnected from nature sweetened milk powder with wax concoctions schools are relying on to nourish. All outside the lunch hour which is another double down health catastrophe. Students are not getting the basic elements at home. Our grade school faces reality with meager but honest attempts to introduce their kids to different varieties of tomatoes, leeches, and purple broccoli once a week.
The menu is flipped. If only they pretended to be rabbits while munching down a whole carrot a few times a week, ate yogurt that wasn't mislabeled pudding cups, showed off their orange pealing skills, and enjoyed a marshmallow once a week instead.
So we started off the year with a break from both sugar and toys. Besides getting uninvited from Small's birthday party, they took it well and seemed to feel as refreshed from the week of simplification as I was.