I blame the yogurt... maybe

I’m trying to remember what I’ve heard about food dyes causing behavior problems in kids. Maybe adults. Can’t really remember exactly what the story is on that and I’m a little hesitant about doing a Google search in light of my recent Googling on scabies and the all-out cleaning assault on my house that ensued...

But I’m very interested if any of you have any wisdom to share on that topic.

Suffice to say, today has been one of those days where it takes putting the kids to bed and sitting comatose on the sofa for an hour to remember that I actually like my children.

I’d like to blame their behavior today on the Trix yogurt that they wheeled and dealed into our grocery cart yesterday. At the time it seemed like a small sacrifice to make, and yogurt is generally a very healthy snack. But then I opened the little buckets today and discovered that TRIX yogurt (or at least the flavor I bought) comes in vibrant shades of green, pink, purple and blue that are actually half and half in the tub.

I’ve never seen anything quite like it. After getting past my revulsion to the extreme colors I tasted a dab and I’m pretty sure that my sugar-sensing taste buds died in ecstasy.

So, with that in mind, I’m going to blame the hyper-yogurt for the juice stain on the sofa and the fact that Mia & Maggie took the Goldfish crackers and scattered them throughout the living room in order to “feed the birds.” And the encounter with OxyClean that Mia had where she drenched her hands in the soaking tub and chased Maggie around the house, dripping chemical water all the way, in order to splash her. And the various other little peccadilloes that we encountered throughout the day.

But there is a slight chance it might not be the yogurt...

Because maybe I was awake until 3 am last night trying to warm my legs and feet up after sitting in shorts on a park bench for 2 hours talking to a student about why we didn’t select them as an RA. (In my experience nurses have had trouble finding my pulse... Apparently my blood flow is so skimpy that I don’t actually warm my body in a logical, natural process. It was also VERY windy.)

And maybe when I woke up this morning I was so full of “nesting” and 36 weeks of pregnancy that I swept the floors of my house with a handheld miniature broom, completed five loads of laundry, reorganized the closets, and pulled out all of the baby clothes to wash and prepare for Mikayla.

Or maybe (don’t tell my husband!) I rearranged every tub in the storage shed three times while trying to find the baby clothes and acquire some empty tubs to put the 24 month/2T clothes, maternity, and post-pregnancy clothes away.

Maybe I’ve actually lost sight of my ankle bones for the remainder of the pregnancy (and a few weeks after). I do know that I’ve got a nice pair of cankles attached to the end of my legs that I don’t think anyone would want to insure to enhance my modeling career.

There’s also a chance that maybe I regularly utilized my most effective parenting skill today: the Threat. My children always respond so well to that particular little tool in my toolbox.

But since that’s all in the hypothetical...

... I blame the yogurt.


JJ