Who ARE You?

 

So, I set myself up for disaster again: I had a booklet made from 2022's "Blog For One" posts and Santa gave it to the family for Christmas.  We've been reading from the booklet in spurts, usually with me at the kitchen table shouting each post to Bee (preparing dinner) and Mr. C (lounging with a cat in the living room).

Captions are at least with the photos this time . . . but still look like part of the main body.  Sigh.

The good news:

1) I don't hate re-reading most of the posts as much as I thought I would

2) Bee -- who hasn't heard most of them -- is generally-almost always-usually-pretty tickled by them

3) Mr. C seems quite proud that he made this golden family moment happen

The bad news:

1) The boys are currently off sledding.  I have the house to myself.  I could be watching Netflix right now, and instead I'm struggling to keep this blog going for the sake of The One.

2)

 

Well, that's pretty much all the bad news.

Sigh.  The things I do for my child.

"It doesn't matter what you write," Mr. C reinstated.  "I just want to know what you're thinking."  Which, once again, proves that he needs to know his Ice Queen of a mother has emotions beyond

• thrill because of chocolate
• irritation at having to share said chocolate
• despair when that same chocolate is gone

"Fine," I grumbled to Mr. C.  "If I'm going to keep blogging, you need to give me topics to write about."

And so we're entering an interesting phase for 2023's blog: one where a middle-aged woman writes inane posts with prompts supplied by her 14-year-old son.   So let's settle in for some fun!

Speaking of chocolate, prompts, and posts, Mr. C suggested I discuss a horror that has come up in recent years: his ability to walk away from sugar.

I personally, don't understand this: if there is anything sweet in the house, my apparent mantra is that it must be consumed post-haste.  And not just immediately, but fully and mindlessly.  Like: even if you're not enjoying it; even if you're not tasting it anymore; even if you're tasting it and it tastes bad and you now need to eat some other sugar to wash that first taste's essence from your mouth . . . just eat the damn sugar.

And there's no saving it for later, either: that's for the weak.  Bee will often take a bite from a square of chocolate and then leave the other half sitting on the coffee table because "it's too much for me right now".  And I give him the look of confusion and disdain that he so rightly deserves for this transgression as I try really hard not to just grab that last morsel and stuff it in my mouth right now.  

You know it's just going to go stale if you don't.

I've tried for years to figure out why I can't leave sugar (or fat, my other favorite food group) alone.  I sometimes wonder if it stems from my childhood (because it's always more fun to blame your problems on your upbringing):

1) My formative years were spent overseas, where sugar does not have nearly the same space in daily life as it does here in America.  (Really, 'Mericans: I understand gifting your honey a box of chocolate aphrodisiacs on Valentine's Day . . . but why are 2nd-graders expected to do this for their classmates now?  And woe to the young one who hands out just the cartoon-character-of-the-moment card with nary a Hershey's or lollipop in sight: that child will be snubbed for the rest of the school year as the thoughtless cheapskate he is.)  At any rate, when we'd come state-side every few summers and have greater access to it, perhaps I grew to associate "sugar" with "hominess"?

2) Regardless of #1, no matter what locale we were in -- even a place as foreign as northern Virginia -- my parents rarely allowed plentiful sweets.  Case in point: the treats in my Christmas stocking consisted of tangerines and nuts.  Like, nuts still in their shells: ones you had to struggle to open with a nutcracker and a hammer, and then you'd occasionally still get the delightful surprise of a sharp bit of shell in your gum as you tried to eat that hard fought-for bit of rotten walnut. To my 10-year-old self, this was tantamount to child abuse.  My current self does not disagree.  Just give me the easily-peeled, easily melted, foil-wrapped chocolate Santa instead, OK?

3) And then there's that pinnacle of guilt, that greatest of shames: those Starving Children In Africa.  One must not waste a morsel of one's food, as doing so -- when one has so much  -- can only magnify the injustice of there being people in this world with so little.  Now, bear in mind that any guilt my parents may have placed upon me over an uneaten dinner had more to do with the broccoli left on my plate than the apple pie.  However, I have always been an overachiever: therefore, if you're going to shame me for any part of my food-waste, I shall internalize it as shame for all.

As I grew older and was able to buy bags of mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with my own babysitting money and no one could stop me, I added a 4th consideration to the "why I can't leave sugar alone" debate:

4) If I eat it all today -- like, the whole bag right now -- it'll be gone and there won't be any more sugar in the house and I'll just eat vegetables for the rest of the week.  That'll work, right?

Bee has none of these problems.  He doesn't eat mindlessly, or eat because he's hiding his feelings, or eat because he thinks that his consumption of the rest of that box of Russell Stovers is somehow going to have an impact in any way on an 8-year-old in Mozambique.  If he is done eating something, he is Done.  He might save it for later . . . or he might just throw it in the compost.

Mr. C is an interesting mix of the two of us.  There are times he'll disappear into his room with an unopened box of Ritz crackers and Bee and I will be shocked, upon going to retrieve it an hour later, to discover that 2 full sleeves are gone.  And then there are times when Mr. C will announce that the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cake (with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting) that I made for my birthday is "too sweet" and he can't eat the entire slice he got.

Get. In. My. Mouth.

 

Quite frankly, I'm rather insulted.

Perhaps I'm looking for a partner in crime: if someone else is over-indulging, then it's OK if I do, too.  Perhaps I'm looking for connection: I need to know that my child is truly mine, and am therefore baffled by the ways in which he may differ (see: Far From The Tree, a book I read back in those looong-ago Intelliquest days).

Whatever the reason, I just know that I am completely perplexed when my child uses "too sweet" as an excuse for anything.  Bee might proudly pat him on the shoulder and declare, "I totally understand, Son," but -- to me -- it all just feels wrong somehow.