Tuesday's Tip

When attending family functions, birthday parties, holiday celebrations, or at Grandmama's house, leave behind your rules about how much sugar your child can ingest. In these situations, it's nearly impossible to keep up with how many cupcakes or snowcones your child has. Surprisingly, our children seem to ask before they have a second snow cone or ice cream, but it lessens the worry and angst on your part if you just let them enjoy the situation, rather than turning it into a battle over sugar. Many children will show surprising restraint, and those that don't will never forget the day you let them eat 4 ice creams at the ice cream truck party. When our K turned 3 (and then again on her 4th birthday), we hired a real ice cream truck (like the ones when we were little) to come and let the children have ice cream. I had prepaid a certain amount, so everyone, even mamas and daddies, could have whatever they want. I had to pay a certain price even if I didn't hit that amount. Well, do you know what fun it was to encourage people to have whatever they want? It was so much fun! After the party, I found out our son, A, had had 4 different treats! He had been running through the sprinklers, and chasing friends, and he wasn't overly hyper at the end. He ate all of his dinner that night, and let me tell you something, that boy will never ever forget that glorious summer day when his little sister turned 3 and he was able to eat his heart's delight of ice cream! Instead of running after our 4 oldest at the party, demanding what they had eaten, and taking away ice cream from them, I too had a wonderful time. We had no awkward battles and no crying fits over what they were eating and it allowed us to all have a wonderful time! So, as summer rolls on, and you're in situations where your child might veer off a little from his or her normal diet, don't lose your cool, and just let them enjoy. One day of some red dye #7 hopefully won't kill them!