Three long days

I haven't had any candy in 3 days. Three. Long. Days. It all started early last month...

Chad and Daniel were having a conversation while Chad worked on the bathroom. (You may already be aware that we have a year-long bathroom remodeling project underway.) Even though I was in the room, I don't know the details of the conversation they had. But I am quite familiar with the result of the chat. The deal is: if Daniel goes a whole year without eating any candy, Chad will replace the bathroom sinks (there are two).

That was 6 September. That was also the day that we busted open Daniel's pinata. (I haven't blogged about the pinatas yet. There's a little foreshadowing for you.) I thought this would create a bit of a problem, especially since Daniel had been after us for a couple of weeks to do his pinata. I was surprised that he didn't have a problem with not getting to eat any of the candy. He focused instead on the toys.

A couple of days passed and Daniel stayed true. I was so impressed that I told him if he made it a month, I'd join him (part of me was hoping he wouldn't make it). And then the weeks passed. Meanwhile, Chad joined him and left more candy for me. On 5 October, the day before my month was up, I binged on candy! I wanted to get as much as I could and hopefully make myself so sick that I would be glad that I wasn't eating candy anymore. I almost succeeded.

My first day of candy abstinence was difficult. I found other ways to satisfy my sugar craving. Pink marshmallows don't count as candy, do they? The next day was a little easier. Today was tricky, mostly after lunch and dinner. I think my blood is a medium syrup mixture! I know that this will be a good thing for me. Sometimes good things are hard.

Daniel's plan is to stock pile his candy and have pounds of it to himself come next September. Chad and I told him that after going without it for so long, he's probably not going to like it so much. He's already admitted that it's gotten easier. That is encouraging for me!

And what is just three weeks away? The biggest candy day on the calendar. Give me strength.

Tough Love

I love Daniel. He is my firstborn. He teaches me how to be a parent. He can be really helpful. And he can really get under my skin!

Tonight, Daniel made his customary disparaging remark about dinner. (He does it with a flair of 'wit' and thinks he's showing some sort of coolness.) I didn't even give him a warning this time. Up to his room he went, without a word (he does have some wisdom).

As I sat and chewed on my food, I mulled over in my mind what to do about him. I seriously considered letting him go hungry. It wouldn't kill him and I'd make my point (hopefully), but I wasn't sure that would do it.

And then I struck upon something that would satisfy my guilt over not providing him the food part of "food and shelter," but would not let him feel he'd won either. After the family was done eating, he got a piece of bread and a cup of water. Welcome to the hard life, kid! (Talk about the bread of life!)

And this is something I think we can keep up. Eventually, he's going to think before he opens his mouth and says something stupid. It may be a while, though.

Choices

Joseph wanted some Cheerios from the baggie in my diaper bag. When I told him, "No" and said they were for church, he didn't cry.

I soon heard a door close. I found him in a room by himself, leaning up against a chair, calmly eating from the baggie. He looked like he was completely at peace with the world, enjoying his Cheerios.

I took the bag and told him that was naughty. He followed me out of the room, bent over, swaying back and forth with a sheepish grin saying, "ah ha."

grrrr! I'm still trying not to laugh, though.

Keeping Creativity on its toes!

You may think you've heard all the excuses why a child can't eat their dinner. The more kids you have, the more likely that is to be true. But you don't have Rebekah.

Tonight, she couldn't eat because of her toes. I guess they hurt or something. I think she'd been kneeling and sitting back on her heels, toes flexed. Whatever the reason, Chad and I had to have her repeat her excuse because we were sure we'd heard wrong. We hadn't.

Kids! I shake my head in confusion.

I know! It's been over a week. I'm sure 2 of you have been going through withdrawals. The rest of the readership didn't even notice.

I have things to catch up on, but right now I just have 2 short stories about my perplexing kids.

Last night at the table, Daniel convinced himself that his dinner smelled like throw up. This is usually Leah's complaint about things. Anyway, he didn't want to eat his dinner because it had eggplant in it (I don't know what's wrong with him...it's only about the 3rd time in a week that we've had eggplant in some form.) So Daniel disappears into the bathroom for a little while. When he comes back he has tissue stuffed up his nose. I guess he figured that would solve the problem. Of course, I sent him back to the bathroom to remove it and told him if he couldn't get it all out, he'd have to go to the doctor. REALLY...I've heard of young kids shoving things up their noses, but not 9-year-olds! He never did finish his dinner and didn't get any apple pie afterward.

Second story:
Leah, Rebekah and Joseph had a bath Saturday and left their dirty clothes in the middle of the bathroom floor. They were still there last night. (It's a big bathroom, so it's easy to ignore a big pile of clothes - which we do.) This morning I was going to rescue Leah's pants from the pile because I didn't figure they were very dirty. I went into the bathroom and couldn't find the pile. I thought Chad must have gathered them up and put them in the washer, so I gave up my rescue effort. Later this morning, as I was getting clothes for Joseph, I started pulling out clothes that didn't belong...his sisters' dirty underwear was the most obvious. Apparently, Joseph stuffed them all into his drawer (his room is across the hall from the bathroom) during his 90 minutes of refusing to stay in bed and go to sleep. It was a little mind exercise trying to remember what all 3 of them were wearing Saturday to be sure I got it all out of the drawer again. Maybe I need to point out the washing machine to Joseph.

Lunch Time

It's never a dull moment on the Collett Farm.

I was in the middle of making lunch, with two pans simmering on the stove and trying to empty the dishwasher, when Rebekah started crying for me from the back of the house. She had soap in her eye. Laundry detergent.

Dare I hope that she's developing an interest in doing the laundry? It's more likely that she wanted to bury the measuring cup in the soap tub again. (I hate having to dig that thing out.)

So I took her to the bathroom and rinsed out her eyes/rinsed off her face. As soon as I get back into the kitchen, she's behind me saying that she has soap in her eye. I should have thought to check her hands. She had a long-sleeved shirt on that was full of soap granules and was rubbing soap back into her eye. So I took her shirt off and started over.

Eventually, everyone was seated at the table so I decided to get Joseph in his highchair for another attempt at spooning some food into his mouth. The boy is 6 1/2 months old and is showing very little interest in starting table foods. How little interest, you ask? Here is your answer:

It was applesauce. He's willing to taste it, as long as I don't give him any more than that. What trick does it take to get him to open his mouth? Put the food away.

As you can see, he's not suffering from his aversion to food. The same food that's making me fat is obviously doing the same for him!

Ix-nay on the ice-ray

Joseph does NOT like rice cereal. He's 6 months old. Time to start eating at the table sometimes. I've waited this long because Nathan did not adjust well to rice cereal 6 years ago. Now I'm a little reluctant to force new foods down my babies' throats.

But it appears that is the only way I'm going to get it into Joseph. We tried cereal made with water. That was a big NO! He cried and hollered, but didn't swallow. So I tried it with breast milk. That was a little better. He only whimpered, but still didn't swallow.

I learned that the kittens love it though. They were helping themselves to the forgot cereal bowl on the table this afternoon. Funny. I wasn't thinking I'd be feeding kittens when I pumped that milk 2 months ago.

So we're going to have a bit of a battle on our hands. Joseph is proving to be every bit as hard headed as his siblings. Why would it get any easier now? We already know what we signed up for, right? I did pick up some oatmeal cereal, apple puree and sweet potato puree in the baby food aisle today. We'll slowly offer him other things in an attempt to appeal to his sensitive palate. I'm not cruel, though. I won't make him eat green beans.

I have an Opinion!

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080102/D8TU08S80.html

That's a link to a story you can read on your own. The general idea is about an All-You-Can-Eat restaurant battling with a couple who could really put it away. It's mildly interesting. My opinion comes from a caption quoted at the end of the article. It's from a sign posted in the restaurant. The more I thought about it, the more my opinion formed.

It says,' "Food is for eating, not toys for your child," reads a sign posted on a wall in typewritten text. A handwritten addition reads "Or 20% added." '

Now, I tell my kids to "start eating" all the time. Do they listen to me? Hardly. How does this proprietor propose parents get their children to not play with their food?

"If you don't stop playing with your food, I'm going to be charged another $1.50 and that's coming out of your allowance!"

Maybe you could just starve them all day so that they'd be willing to eat the napkins once they get to the restaurant.

Has the restaurant under priced their food and is losing money on what kids are heaping onto their plates then into the garbage? I would assume that once you pay for it, it's yours and if you want to play with it, then go for it!

Personally, I hate to see my kids waste food that I've paid for. I don't let them get too much at a time, and if they are not eating what they have, they certainly don't get to go back for more. But I can't swallow for them. If they aren't eating their food, I don't want to be the one who gets punished!

Luckily, this particular restaurant is in Louisiana. I doubt we'll have to worry too much.

This reminds me of the sign Chad and I saw in a downtown Salt Lake City's McDonald's while we were still dating. It posted a food consumption time limit of 20 minutes. (Do you remember that Mom and Dad Collett and Pamela?) They just wanted to you to get your indigestion and get the heck out!