catherine aceto

One for the "they'll never eat anything but junk" people -- yesterday evening after we got back from trick or treating and I walked past my 5 y.o. sitting with her basket of candy at the table and noticed that one of the first things she had eaten was the apple she got from our next-door neighbor.

-Cat



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zenmomma2kids

>> One for the "they'll never eat anything but junk" people --
yesterday evening after we got back from trick or treating and I
walked past my 5 y.o. sitting with her basket of candy at the table
and noticed that one of the first things she had eaten was the apple
she got from our next-door neighbor. >>

I love it. :o)

I've got one for "they'll never DO anything if you don't MAKE them."

Casey (9) came back from trick or treating and immediately set out to
sorting her candy. She sorted them incredibly precisely by exact
candy type and name, about 40-50 categories. Then she got a piece of
paper and wrote down each type and the number of each that she had.
Then she totalled it and announced to us that she had 168 pieces of
candy. She adjusted that number down as she ate a few.

The next day we were sitting with her candy (we like to just look at
it sometimes to marvel in its glory ;-)) and we started playing
around with the sorting again. We did it *my* way, chocolate vs. non-
chocolate (like there's any other distinction!), by texture, by
sweetness, and talked about all the different ways we could
categorize and count those same pieces of candy. We figured out which
type of candy was the favorite to distribute and some possible
reasons why, which had the longest shelf life, and WHY someone would
want to give a kid a "God Loves You" tract on Halloween.

THEN we ate a piece or two. <g>

Life is good.
~Mary

[email protected]

In a message dated 11/2/2003 7:48:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:
couldn't have that until the next day because she didn't want him to eat the
candy in the late evening. How frustrating!! He just got all these
interesting, colorful little packages all thrown together in a bag and now
he can't LOOK at it?! So, I told her to let him look at the stuff and show
her what he got, etc. She reluctantly let him and guess what? He looked it
all over...showed everybody...ate HALF of a little candy bar and was done.
My sister is a very controlling person and she was quite amazed that he
didn't eat everything. I explained to her that he didn't WANT to eat
everything...he just wanted to see it!
Why are some moms so controlling? I find it sooo frustrating. With my
sister, I could just butt in <bg> but with others, I just watch in dismay.
**********************************
Why? Well, some people are just jerks, and want to control everything. Most
people aren't though. So...why?

Because they're scared and want to do what they think is best for their kids.
Candy is bad for kids. It's important that kids get enough sleep, so they
have to have a bedtime. There are germs in that. Educating children is something
professional do. Parents get controlling because they're afraid if they don't
keep things under control, Something Terrible Will Happen.

Face it... you're presented with this little being who's all cute and
vulnerable and you realize that suddenly you're in the Person-Making Business. That's
why we read all the books. How the hell do you make a person????

Unfortunately, even if you're in control, Something Terrible STILL might
happen. And when you let go of control, it really works out okay.

So, try to be patient with those people. I believe it's much harder to BE
those people than to be around them. And you can keep helping your sister.

Kathryn


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