Andrea Middleton

Another way to use up leftover ham

If you’re wondering what wine I’ll be serving this summer

Wrestling on the couch

Max stays close to make sure no one gets hurt.

3 year old stream of consciousness

All of these in about 4 minutes.

“What color is this?” (Pointing to his foot)

“What does two plus two make?”

“How old is Imogen?”

“Who is this?” (Points to the cover of a book.)

“Squirrel!” (Really — he spotted a squirrel in the tree outside.)
(Spots me typing) “Can I see a video?”

and nine

Amelia: “Mom, I woke up early this morning, and I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I just waited until it was time to wake up, and I counted to a BILLION. (Pause) Well, a billion and nine.”

I’m not a very permissive parent when it comes to sugar. I mean, I’m not a Puritan — my kids eat processed foods and sugary treats from time to time — but we don’t have a “candy bowl” household in which there’s cookies and candy available anytime someone under 4′ has a sweet craving. We have instituted “dessert days” — Monday and Friday — wherein if you finish your dinner, you may have a dessert. Usually this is a scoop of ice cream or something small. The kids are obsessive about dessert days.

But it was Easter this weekend (did you notice?), which my kids recognize as basically-Christmas-with-candy-but-no-gifts. And candy they got. We let them eat 5 or 6 pieces over the whole day, and now we’re observing Halloween Rules, which is 1-2 pieces a day until it’s gone. Luckily they’re not into counting the pieces in their stashes, so for the nonce I can still “help” run down the supply before cavities really start setting in.

Except. This year, Amelia actually seems to have eaten enough candy to give herself a tummy ache. I honestly thought that was apocryphal, even though I’ve used the dreadful prediction myself. Sunday night she couldn’t eat dinner because of her tum, and tonight right after her allotted two candies, she succumbed again to belly pain before bed. It’s giving her a really hard time, and I think I’m going to have to prohibit candy for a while until she can tolerate it again. But what do I do about Baxter? Giving one child candy while the other watches, candy-less, is clearly outlawed by the Geneva Convention. But it’s not his fault that his sis has a weak belly at eastertime, is it? These are the conundrums that drive parents mad.