One thing I won't miss from nursery are the bags of goodies (or should I say baddies) that the children get when it's somebody's birthday. It's a very sweet gesture (in more ways that one) but it is a real headache trying to hide this dietary WMD from J as he pesters me for it on the way home.
All the usual offenders are there - sweets, crisps, soft drinks. It's not that I'm a snob (oh, okay. Guilty), but most of this stuff I wouldn't eat myself and I've got a taste for trash. So why should I let him eat it?
This evening's offering was something called Calypso Spring Water Drink, which sounded relatively healthy, so I popped the straw through the foil lid and took a sip before giving it to him. Big mistake! It tasted like liquid saccharin - disgusting. Unfortunately by this point I was committed to handing it over to an expectant toddler, which I did, feeling a bit like Dr Crippin. As it was, the drink was so horrible that even J couldn't manage more than a few sips.
At least it makes me feel less bad about his preference for OJ over good old fashioned water. Of course, he only gets watered down OJ...
2 comments:
Sweeteners are the devil's work. I spend at least half of any shopping trip obsessively scanning ingredients for the little blighters, convinced they'll give Martha ADHD or cancer, or something..., muttering curses to myself as I put back on the shelf anything I find them in. You know, quite apart from their inclusion in just about every kid's drink under the sun, it is nigh impossible to find a tonic water without them. Plays havoc with my gin and tonic drinking, I can tell you.
I know what you mean Melanie, although I have to say I'm less uptight about it than I used to be. It's hard when you have as sweet a tooth as me to deny the kids what you're having unless you just flat out lie: "No it's not a chocolate Hobnob, it's an oat cake!"
I did hope at one point that we would keep J as untainted as my wife when she was a kid. Apparently the first time she was given jelly babies, she was so unused to sweets that she thought they were toys and started playing with them.
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