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...
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.
ReplyDeleteI 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!"
ReplyDeleteI 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.