Terrible Two's and Why You Shouldn't Hold on to Candy Too Long

Lennon has officially entered The Terrible Two’s! Selene texted me last night about his first tantrum. I’m sorry, I laughed out loud. Really.


This morning he didn’t want to put his pants on. Again, screaming-mimi fit. I laughed again. And I apologized for his behavior. You see, I wished this on his mother about 29 years ago. “I hope you have a child who acts just like you.”

I read books and magazines to see what to do about her temper tantrums. It was suggested to “just walk away.” I went to the kitchen, she followed and through herself down on the floor; I went to her bedroom, she followed and through herself on the bed, I went into the bathroom and closed the door, she continued in the hall, etc.

“Throw a glass of water on them, that will shock them.” No, it just made for a wet, screaming child; something like a wet hen on a tear.

“Go outside.” Great, now the neighbors get the whole treatment.

A call to Mom got this reaction: Hysterical laughter, snorting, and more laughing. Seems she was delighted in Grand-daughter’s behavior.

Oh well, it will last less than a year before the Terrific Threes. But just wait, in about 10 years he will be heading for the pre-teens.

And yet again, Desiree at The Happy (atheist) Homemaker got me thinking. Seems she is a sugar addict. I do understand. There are sugar addicts on both sides of our families. I’ve seen Scott finish a quart of ice cream by himself, eat a ½# candy bar, and finish with a giant bag of M&M’s. I’d rather have a bag of potato chips with Dill, Onion, & Garlic Dip or some Nacho Doritos.

Not to mention, but since I have been depressed, almost 12 years now, I have found that most chocolate tastes like wax. No flavor. I’ve taken to eating dark, darker, darkest chocolate and that in just a square or two after dinner.

I still buy Snickers and Baby Ruth bars, but they can sit for weeks before I get to eating them. Which brings me to a story from way-back-when………………………………………….

Every few years our family loved to go camping for our vacation. Well, everyone but Mom. She was not your happy camper. She preferred a motel in Reno and sitting around a slot machine to a cramped travel trailer and sitting around a campfire.

These camping trips necessitated a lot of preparation to get six people (that’s four girls and two parents) into a travel trailer and ‘rough it’ for a week to ten days.

We bought our food ahead and stored it all over the trailer. (Don’t know why, there were always stores where we could have stocked up with no problem. Just the way we did things.) So, you never knew where that bag of chips was hidden. Then Mom would pull them out for lunch and we’d be surprised since we thought we had searched every cubby hole.

This time, Mom had found a buy on some candy bars at the Five and Dime. This was a couple of months before the trip. She was ‘saving them for vacation’ so no snacking on them until then. She packed them carefully and resisted our pleas for them for several days into the trip. Finally, she said, “Yes.”

With glee we ripped open the packaging and found………………………………little worms (catapillers) and lots of webbing where they were beginning to pupate. Four crest-fallen faces. One of us said, “Mom, that’s why you don’t want to save food too long, it gets infested.”

After that, Mom always let us eat the candy sooner rather than later. We just needed to remind her of the ‘worms’ and she would sigh and break down.