Monday, April 13, 2009

Sugar Babies

Raise your hand if you think sugar makes your kids crazy. (I'm raising my hand!) My husband doesn't think it does. He says that is a bunch of bull that health nuts believe. Riiight honey. Obviously you don't spend all day long with the little guy. I see a noticeable difference in my son's behavior when he eats a bunch of candy. He acts like a crazed Tasmanian devil instead of his normal Tasmanian devil self.
So this leads into today's adventure. We just finished the 3 day Easterpalooza, and my toddler had WAY too much sugar and too little sleep this weekend. I decided to go shopping today. So I put the kids in the car and drove to Wenatchee. (About an hour and 15 min trip.) We have no malls in our town, all we have is Wal Mart. So I wanted to get some variety in our wardrobe. I just bought my son one of those Kid Tough DVD players for a trip that is coming up, and I thought it would be a good idea to take it along. Unfortunately, I didn't realize the batteries were dead, so that lead to tantrum #1. Then he starts in with a case of the NOs.
"Byron do you want some of your milk?"
"NO."
"Do you want your cars?"
"NO."
"Do you want a snack?"
"NO."
"Look at that big truck over there!"
"NO!"
You get the idea. I just tried to remind myself that he had too little sleep and too much sugar this weekend...oh and that he's 2. At this point we're about half way there. He starts thrashing around in his car seat, swaying from side to side, and knocking anything off the seat he can. I was trying not to let my blood pressure go up, but he came pretty close to hitting his 2 month old sister with his detachable cup holder. So it was my turn to yell "no."
Then a stroke of genius came over me. I started scanning through the radio stations looking for a classical one, and VOILA! NPR! I can't believe how well it worked for about 10 min. It really did calm him down. Then he remembered he didn't want to be in the car, and the whining started. I started mentally rolling my eyes at my husband..."No honey, sugar doesn't do anything to him!" HA!
By then we were almost at our destination. A destination (Fred Meyer) that has in-store child care. Just what the doctor ordered! I would sell my left ovary for a Fred Meyer in this town. Whoever came up with the idea of letting a mother shop in peace is a saint!
The trip was totally worth it too, because I went to Fred Meyer, Old Navy, and JC Penney and never got less than 40% off! It was so awesome. I love finding surprise sales. Both the kids slept the whole way home. The silence was golden!

1 comments:

Steph said...

Well since i have one child who is adhd. Yes i belive sugar makes them crazy. My kids are not aloud to have any kids of sugar on a road trip. Or carps for that matter. the worst thing in thee world to give a child then to take a road trip is a PBandJ. unless you do it on whole grain bread and sugar free jam. oh we go to wenatchee to take my oldest to a behavorial specialest guess what they give the kids has you walk out the door. Yup you guessed it CANDY. Classical music is a god send. We use it on all our kids to calm them down.