sweets frenzy and other things

I packed a lunch for Rich yesterday and snuck in this special treat. It's a candy bar with a love poem inside. Isn't that a wonderful idea?

He said it was a bit too much to eat after a full lunch so he shared it with his co-workers announcing to them first that he wanted to "Share his love". Can you imagine the expressions of these staid engineers?

Are you watching "The Truth About Food" series on Discovery Health? They are scientifically proving and disproving myths about food, dieting, etc. Last night was about kids' health and one experiment in particular has been on our minds since we watched it. A classroom of preschoolers were asked to taste dried mango slices and raisins and then asked to rate their appeal. They liked them about the same. A bowl each of the snacks was set out for snack time but the teacher restricted the raisin eating until after the whistle was blown. They could eat the mango slices anytime. The restriction ended up putting an emphasis on the raisins, as you can imagine, and by the end of the week, all but one sweet little girl was crazy about raisins. And I mean crazy! They were pushing each other to get at them and then eating them by the handfuls. They were even putting their whole heads in the bowl to eat as many as they could. It was insane.

It makes me think of Seth and his insatiable appetite for sweets. His well-meaning parents restrict his sweets intake constantly. And I can see it building his anticipation to the point of obsession. He even said to me once that when he grows up he wants to be a candymaker but he didn't want to sell it. He wanted to keep it all for himself. He went on to say that he'd build his house of candy and all the furniture too.

I'm not judging my brother and his wife. I know they are just trying to control his sweet tooth. Oh, and keep his teeth in his mouth. But I wonder if they might be more effective if they made it less of an issue.

Meanwhile, my brother, his wife, and Seth and Shelby are all living under my parents' roof while their house is built (not of candy, much to Seth's dismay). Seth is enjoying kindergarten very much although he likes to keep that business to himself. He has homework every night, which is a bit foreign to me. What kind of homework does a 5 year old have, you might ask? The other day he had to come up with pairs of rhyming words. And he had to bring an example of two rhyming things to school. He loved this assignment, so I'm told, and brought a rock and block with him to school the next day.

Update on dear ol' dad: He's feeling loads better. He has more energy and sounds like himself again. The diagnosis changed many times and is now settling on Hyperthyroidism. He goes next week for a test which entails taking a radioactive pill. One of the restrictions of this pill is that he has to stay away from Baby Shelby for 2 days while this pill is in his system. Radioactive Man. Maybe he should hold off on the test until closer to Halloween so that he'll have his costume all set.