I Want Candy.

by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor (Make Mine A Double)

I’ve been systematically pilfering Elby’s candy since we got home with her loot on Saturday night. Being that it’s now Friday, I’m sick to my stomach. I want to throw the rest of it out but then she’ll ask where it is and I’ll be outed as a thief. I certainly can’t have that. But, I’m not sure what to do. Just while I was writing those last three sentences I consumed a mini Baby Ruth, a mini Nestle Crunch, a red strawberry flavored hard candy, a vanilla tootsie roll and two small boxes of Dots. It’s all I can do to not go get more. I know candy isn’t healthy, you don’t need to nag me. Why the hell do you think there’s so much candy left over in Elby’s pumpkin? It’s because I don’t allow her to eat much of it. She’s only given two small pieces a night after she eats her “grow food” (a cloying term she picked up at school – but it’s stuck). She seems happy with this arrangement but I’m unable to enforce any such limits on myself.

I try to comfort myself in the knowledge that eating candy is certainly not as bad as say, drinking. At least you can’t get pulled over for driving under the influence of twelve Snicker bars, although it can affect your judgment. Ever try not giving someone the finger for cutting you off while hopped up on Pixie Stix? The bottom line is that large amounts of sugar are unhealthy and I’m a walking, talking hypocrite. I’m supposed to be all Captain Grow Food guiding my three children’s eating habits into healthy adulthood free of diabetes, obesity and other problems. If only candy weren’t so damn delicious!

I know better, people. I’m well versed in which foods are healthy choices and which foods are tough on our kids’ bodies.

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Raising preemie twin girls plus a sassy preschooler while trying to make a book deadline isn't for wussies. In her  Mommy Tracked column, Make Mine a Double, Stefanie Wilder-Taylor takes imperfect parenting to an art form. Each week she breaks the pristine laws of the mommy manuals as she reveals how she attempts to parent her three children through instinct, intelligence, and a lot of trial and error.  She is the author of Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay, Naptime Is the New Happy Hour, and It's Not Me, It's You: Subjective Recollections from a Terminally Optimistic, Chronically Sarcastic and Occasionally Inebriated Woman. She’s appeared numerous times on The Today Show, is a member of the Us Weekly Fashion Police and writes on her blog, Baby On Bored.