Sweet Tooth

I have a sweet tooth. A really crazy, out-of-control sweet tooth. As I get older, it can be satisfied much more easily, and I find myself eating sweets in much smaller portions, but it has not disappeared. Of all the things that I wanted to pass on to my children, this was not one.

Before R was eating solid food, I read somewhere that if you don't eat sweets in your first three years of life, you will never really develop a sweet tooth. You may like sweets, but you won't crave them, and that third cupcake will just make you feel ill. So, in an effort to keep it under control, we gave R no sweets the first year of her life. For her first birthday she didn't even have a gooey, icing covered cake to destroy. Instead she had a fairly healthy coffee cake filled with berries. (For the record, icing or not, it was really good and she loved it and ate it, rather than smashing it all over her face.) Throughout most of her second year we were even able to keep her away from sweets. She was allowed a lick of ice cream when we were out or a bit of cake for birthdays, but that was it.

Then her second birthday rolled around and all R could talk about was cupcakes. Birthdays were cupcakes to her. And as the fall went on, we realized she marked most events with desserts. Halloween was chocolate. Thanksgiving was pumpkin pie. We didn't know quite how bad the holiday = dessert association was until last week. My dear husband and R do all our grocery shopping, and they had gone shopping for our little family Super Bowl party. Although we don't normally eat dessert, they had purchased chocolate chip cookies to have as a special treat with our other munchies. On Sunday morning, he happened to say, "Super Bowl coverage starts at noon," to which R replied, "Chocolate chip cookies!" She spent all day asking about them. When she finally got to eat one, she was in absolute heaven.

And the sweet obsession doesn't stop with the holiday association. She is always scanning the kitchen counter looking for scrumptious treats. I can't even sneak treats any more when she is up. A few weeks ago I ate a Hershey kiss and then went to play with her. Upon smelling my breath, she demanded a brownie. (Ya gotta admit, her nose is good.) I told her quite honestly, that we didn't have any brownies. So she then asked for an M&M, the next chocolate product she could think of. Thankfully I could also tell her truthfully we didn't have those either. At that point she wouldn't give up without a treat, but thankfully, she settled for a raisin.