One Sugar or Two?

Sugar is a big issue in our house. Back when we had all teenagers, we mostly just discouraged it. Stacie's family would give her, literally, grocery bags full of candy at every visit. This to a girl who'd had to have 75% of her baby teeth pulled because they were rotted from all the candy she'd eaten. (I was going to insert a pic of tooth decay, but the pictures made me ill. If you want to see them click here.) Also, Granny had read an article about caffeine making you crave chocolate, and from that day forward, she banned it for the girls. This was hard at first because they were all so used to junk food and Mountain Dew. But they started getting used to drinking a lot of water, and were feeling better, and stopped griping about it. Of course, any time they were at group functions with Health and Welfare the social workers filled them with junk (a concept I never understood) and they got some at school where there are at least two vending machines on every wing of every floor in every high school.

Then we got Annie. I started doing a lot of research on fetal alcohol, and found that sugar was probably what was causing her chronic urinary tract infections, and that her body just wasn't able to break it down and process it which leads to behavior issues, so we took it out of her diet. (Among other things like food dyes and whole wheat, some dairy, and have lessened red meat.) Anyway, it's become a rule in the house. Sugar is out. Now all the kids are sugar free. But there's still conflict with new kids. But when you get kids like our 7 year old, who we had to take to the dentist and have 13 teeth removed because they were so rotted they smelled, it only makes sense to limit or eliminate entirely the sugar they were getting.

Kristy has had a real hard time with this, and is sure we've infringed on her civil rights by not allowing her to have sugar whenever she wants it. I've overheard her yelling in the bedroom about what witches we are and that she has a right to sugar. You know, at the ripe old age of 10 she's a real legal eagle!! How dare us try to take away her God-given right to sugar!!

The thing is, it isn't like they don't get treats. I try to bake something sugar-free with Splenda once or twice a month. And we have a cookie jar full of sugar-free candy, and we let them drink diet soda once in a while, and we find sugar-free treats at Wal-Mart all the time! And honestly, from watching them devour whatever sugar-free treat we give them, they don't seem to mind the taste of Splenda. So what's the big deal? They aren't getting any fewer treats now than they would if we allowed them to have sugar, it's not like we'd keep the house stock-piled in cookies and candy and Mountain Dew!

What brought this up? I made oatmeal-cranberry cookies with sunflower seed last week, with Splenda, and Granny put them in their lunches today. On our way to day camp I got big thank you's from Annie and Cindy for the cookies and a "look" from Kristy. Sporting my new attitude, I smiled back and said, "I did it because I love all of you so much!" My new mantra to them is "with love in our hearts and a smile on our face." As in, we're about to go into church and every one's been fighting, and I say, "I'd like to have a nice family day today, so let's walk in to church with love in our hearts and a smile on our faces!" (I often say it as much for me as for them.) Anyway, my love you all comment melted a little of the ice and Kristy gave me a smile. So see, even though it's Splenda, it's still sweet!!

Thanks for reading!