If you know me or our kids or have read this blog for any length of time, you know that David is a very spirited young man. He's very VERY. (You read that right.) We know he can't handle sugar like his sisters can, and that he is naturally wound up and ready to go. While that can be good, most of the time it gets him into trouble. So, we had a theory that maybe David was one of those special ones who becomes very calm with the introduction of caffeine into the system. I had discussed this with a friend of mine who suggested we try Mountain Dew because her son would not drink coffee. We thought, "What the hay?" and before Aubri's birthday party on Sunday we gave David a shot of MD. He rather enjoyed that.
We let him know it was a special experiment and not to tell his sisters (that was a fail too) because he knows he's got more energy than all of us put together already. So, anyway, he lost his marbles at least 3x times during the party and was totally inconsolable at the beginning of the party. I can't recall what it was that didn't go his way, but he was in his chair in the fetal position crying about it while his cousins tried to console him. It was ugly and I had compassion because it's the first time I've ever witnessed someone of the opposite sex experience full on PMS. Poor guy!
And Monday at school he was "difficult" after having a bowl of sugary cereal for breakfast. Now, we know about diet and behavior and ADD. My family consisted of 5 kids very close in age and we were put on the Feingold Diet instead of meds in order for us all to have a chance at survival. (We were also put on cod liver oil instead of health insurance but that's a story for another day.) I still don't know how my parents got through it all but I'm sure there was some collateral damage. But we are busy parents and sometimes a bowl of cereal is better than nothing, right? We are not entirely convinced that David has a syndrome/disorder because he CAN be good after having sweets...
After the fail with Mountain Dew (seriously, what did we expect?) we decided to try coffee. A quick shot of coffee (with milk and a tiny bit of sugar) before class to calm the nerves. This morning Scott administered the caffeine to the boy and he had a record - nay - banner day at school today. He was very good at transitioning and when things didn't go his way, he said "Ok" and went about his business. (!)
We are amazed and happy with the outcome of the 2nd experiment. I think we'll try coffee with Vanilla Coconut milk and or xylitol to get rid of the sugar altogether. We're not suggesting the boy never get sugar, but if you happen to be the one pushing the sugar (I'm looking at you, Grandma Babe!) then you will need to sit with him until he comes down from his bad trip!
The 2nd epic fail involved the baby. The night of her birthday party, about 6 hours after David lost his ever-loving "Do the Dew" mind, she claimed her tummy hurt. I had her try to poop to see if that helped and then put her to bed. Just prior, I had put her mattress pad protector on David's bed to protect his mattress (obvs) and proclaimed loudly that Aubri is a champion of her bladder, like a camel and she "never had accidents" and so her mattress was left unprotected. We watched a couple of episodes of The Walking Dead and then I checked on Aubri to make sure she wasn't choking on vomit (the things that go through a mom's mind) and she was sleeping like a baby around 11pm.
At 1:20 am Aubri knocked on our door and then came in asking Daddy to wipe her. I thought she asked him to wipe the blood off of her (stupid zombie shows). He got up to help her in the bathroom and soon realized the horror of the situation. She had obviously suffered from the Human Brew and soiled her bed in the worst way possible. She had to be hosed down and I found it difficult to snuggle with her afterwards knowing what unholiness had occurred. We actually put her in a PullUp leftover from long ago.
The bed was a total loss. There is no way to clean up that much excrement when it's soaked in. We dropped the mattress, sheets and a couple of rugs that had likely absorbed a fair amount of pee/poop over the last year - at the dump. Oh, so funny now that I've typed it out.
We had needed to get Aubri a full sized mattress as the bottom bed where she sleeps in the bunk bed configuration is a full sized frame and she's had a twin bed. It was on the list to get and it moved way up in priority Monday morning.
We traced back the probable cause to the green onions that were in her mid-afternoon bowl of Baked Potato Soup. Big sister failed (she had her part in this too) to rinse the onions before chopping them and garnishing her little sister's bowl. Aubri had serious onion breath after that snack and still, the next morning as she snuggled up with me.
So, to recap:
- rinse off your veggies/onions (especially if you are eating them raw)
- no Mountain Dew for kids, anywhere, ever...(but it's ok for mom and dads)
- always use a pad
- never say "never"
My heart jumped at the mt dew! My niece was just abouta year old, my sis in law & I felt that my ( older) brother ( her husband)was responsible enough to watch Carissa while we went shopping. We came back to a very hyper babe, holding an empty bottle.... it was full of mt dew! Needless to say,she was very entertaining at my grandmas funeral!
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe he gave a baby MD! It's funny sometimes when a kid is buzzing from sugar and they are entertaining. It's very different when they become distraught and inconsolable.
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