Taste the Rainbow

I'm kinda crunchy. I mean, not totally over the top crunchy. We eat Doritos. And McDonalds. And yeah, I drink way too much diet Coke. But I try to avoid refined sugar. It is a quality of life thing for me. Yes, I know it is delicious and I could probably eat a whole bag of Starbursts, Twizzlers or pretty much any kind of chocolate out there. But I haven't eaten refined sugar in over 5 years. (Not on purpose, anyway.) My kids go bonkers when they eat sugar, and I do too. We get mean, mouthy and impulsive. We fight with each other and everyone around us. We lose focus, have night terrors and pretty much turn into monsters. It just isn't worth it.

Now that the older boys are homeschooling, it is a little easier to keep them on the straight and narrow. But the Big O is another story. For some reason, his teachers (and all teachers) seem to LOVE giving candy as rewards. This year I specified that the Big O was NOT to have refined sugar. Especially not Skittles. For whatever reason, Skittles are like crack for my kids.

But if you were 8 years old and you were in a classroom full of kids eating Skittles every day, would you be happy with fruit snacks? No, I didn't think so. And yeah, the fruits snacks have sugar too. The teacher and I conferred and she really really really wanted to give the Big O Skittles as a reward. I figured that since she was giving him garbage fruit snacks ANYWAY that a few Skittles wouldn't hurt. Right? Right ? Ummm ... right ?

WRONG. Since our conference, The Big O has been getting Skittles as a reward during his one on one Discreet Trial Training. We're only talking about 5 or 6 Skittles a day. Almost every day since, I have gotten notes from the teacher about him having an "off" day and just not doing well. Of course, she denies it is from the Skittles, but nothing else has changed.

I have also noticed that his obsession with Skittles has gotten worse. He comes home and looks up Skittles commercials on You-Tube. He prints out Skittles posters he finds online. He draws little pictures of Skittles and writes the word over and over and over and OVER again. And in the store, I can hardly control him. He bolts for the candy aisle and grabs the biggest bag he can find. Crappy camera phone picture submitted as evidence below:

Guess what? Mama is gonna have to have a talk with the teacher. And just wait until we try the Gluten Free Casein Free diet. She is going to really have fun with that.

I'll end this post with a note from The Big O, because it sums up exactly how I feel about Skittles right now. This is one of his obsessive notes, one of MANY, but the only one that he mis-spelled. Taste the rainbow.