All is lovely in parent land. One minute you're quite content with being one of the more "relaxed" parents and the next minute you're spiraling down into Horrible Parent Hell.
Since moving back to California, I was reminded from the second I put my feet on our new home soil that this place is a lot more health conscious than say, Indy. But the thing is that some people go way overboard and I've met kids who've *never* had sugar. One just the other day got to try Coke for the first time. She's almost 8.
Yet lately I've been more aware of exactly how much sweet I am allowing my children to have and have had to make a drastic change, compliments of my own mouth. I had been more relaxed about the whole sugar intake thing because I would use my old "Oh, I used to eat such and such, and I turned out alright" adage until one day I was having a mental breakdown and put two and two together.
So I can deal w/the fact that maybe the sweet road I traveled was sweetened so much by processed, refined sugar that it might have had something to do with slight problems in my childhood, although the problem was never obesity, as many say. Aside from the homemade caramel/sugar/Nesquick Chocolate Bombs I frequently made for myself in a big bowl, I particularly remember these little liquor candy chocolate bottles I used to buy at the kiosk and eat with much pleasure. Obviously they held liquor inside, but more importantly, the bottles were made of sugar and coated with dark chocolate, which, to me, were heavenly.
Heavenly. Maybe because after eating them I would be flying higher than a freaking kite. Not recalling this, I had my sister send me some of these little bottles, and yesterday I received 15 of them. I quickly and excitedly opened one up to have my first bite. I didn't remember the liquor being so strong, nor that there was so much of it, but lo and behold I ate ONE and felt very happy. To top it off, I'm such a moron (just sometimes) that I couldn't wait to get home and thinking these things were harmless I ate my first one in the car. Nora, sitting next to me could smell the liquor as could the kids in the back. Thank God and everything wonderful that I did not get pulled over, as the stench from the alcohol was intoxicating enough and although I wasn't anywhere near drunk, how would I explain? Fortunately, I soon stopped to go grocery shopping and then it hit me. It took me hours of pinball-like aisle shopping to get done. It was fun, not so much for those waiting for me...
Right, so what do we make of this? Was anyone watching me when I was little? We're talking from age 7 on up, drinking liquor and happy about it, since I was never told it was a bad thing. I also wasn't told "no" when I had a little swig from the bottle of "8 Hermanos" anissette liquor every day after school. My mom said that a little bit wasn't harmful, but my guess is she didn't know about the little bottle that could... Then I remembered the New Year's day when I woke up with a headache and my mom said I overdid the cider. I think I was 8.
So that's what happens when you're the youngest of 5 in a family where the father is a doctor and the mother is overwhelmed by too many offspring. I no longer say "I did that and I turned out alright" because I didn't, I'm not alright.
But thanks to things I wasn't supposed to do I'm sure I enjoyed my moments of happy here and there............
G
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