Here we go again...

I might as well just copy my old posts because it's the same old story every week. No matter how many times I put it in writing or call, someone forgets and gives my kids food they are not supposed to have.

I picked Lindsey up from Preschool and she was literally spinning in circles and shrieking. That 's not how my daughter usually is. Her routine for the past year is to run up to me and hug me sweetly. Even the teacher commented that she didn't know why she was so wound up. Hmmm, I know what that looks like. My immediate thought was that she had some sort of food dye. There was not supposed to be anything on the menu that day. But her regular teacher was out so who knows. They probably forgot to substitute my cheese crackers for the off brand dye-added brand they serve.

Alex had "puppy chow" for his after school snack. He is only supposed to eat foods I provide. He had 2 healthy snacks in his bag. Instead they gave my lactose intolerant/gluten free child something that probably has both milk and wheat. At least they've insisted before that there is no artificial dye in that snack. The poor little guy was so sick to his stomach he barely ate a few rice crackers for dinner and was in bed an hour early at his own request. How sad is that?

Ben had chocolate cupcakes at school this week, so 50/50 chance he had red dye. What happened to the alternate treat I sent in? Who knows, but it absolutely was not offered to him. At least he was on the ball and scraped off the sprinkles.

If I had met a parent who talked about this stuff a few years ago I would have written her off as a total nutcase. I just don't know how to make people understand how important the link is between children's food and their behavior. Not to mention the links to cancerous tumors and other health problems. I've sent emails to both Oprah and Dr. Phil. Maybe they'll get interested and do a story some day.

Sometimes I could just cry!

The director of my preschool/daycare called me today. The box of Little Debbie snacks that I provided as a safe alternative for colored birthday treats, the one I thought I had screened for all forbidden substances, actually contains red #40. UHHHHHG! Of course my boys both ate them yesterday. It figures, I really thought I was getting ahead on the food dye battle. Sometimes I just want to give in and let them eat whatever everyone else eats and who cares about the dye. But then I'm back to hyper, impulsive or argumentative kids whose personalities change and that's even worse, way worse.

If we follow trends of the past 2 years, Alex will be louder than usual (actually he was loud at breakfast and I reminded him 3 times use a quiet voice.) He's usually more distracted, and will probably throw things around more. I hope he can keep it together in school. Ben is usually fine the first day but around day 2-3 he usually blows up over homework or piano practice or both. I'm not going to tell them they've even had the dye and see if that helps.

This is exactly why I started this blog. It should not be so hard to keep your kids on a healthy diet. But the reality is, it is hard to read every stinking label of every darn food product that enters your home. It is so defeating to try and try for months only to get distracted in the grocery store with 3 kids along for the ride "helping" you shop. So I missed the crucial ingredient and actually encouraged people to feed it to my kids. I think it stings more to mess up and have someone else call to point it out, not that I'm not glad they did catch it, it just gets me feeling so defeated.

This is why I want food standards to change. It just shouldn't be so hard to keep track of food dyes. I wasn't even focusing on preservatives as much as I want to or I wouldn't have bought the Little Debbies. I wanted something with a shelf life of a few weeks to keep on hand for unexpected events so my kids wouldn't feel so left out. I guess what I should do is make my own cookies from scratch and send them in to the school/daycare to keep in the freezer and pull out whenever there's a birthday. Then I'm free of preservatives and colors. That's more like my mom and grandma would have done it anyway. I guess I can't get around the fact that good nuturtion takes a little work and planning.