Day 16: Candy and Fajitas (not at the same time)

Part of me is absolutely amazed that we have gone more than two weeks without giving either of our children a single piece of candy. I have just always thought that kids and candy kind of go hand in hand. And I assure you that a few months ago I would’ve been unable to fathom the idea of not handing out a sucker to calm one of my fussy kids, not packing a convenience store selection of sugar-filled snacks for an airplane ride, or even completely doing away with our treat basket. Luckily, “out of sight, out of mind” does help with the little ones. And somehow we have managed to make it this far, and we have honestly been perfectly fine with our selection of homemade and sugarless “treats.” Again, I am just amazed.

At the tail end of this two week success with our kids I suddenly felt extremely worried and fearful about what might happen at my 5-year-old’s dance rehearsal and recital this weekend. She would be back stage for 2 hours with CANDY! And without ME! I tried to speak to the dance studio about this “special dietary need” and they could not guarantee me anything since so many different people would be helping out with the hundreds of kids backstage. So that left me with only one person that I could rely on…my 5-year-old. Realize this is the very same 5-year-old that recently spawned the “donut incident.”

What the dance studio did offer was a good suggestion that I should give my daughter some sort of “reward” if she does not eat any candy while back stage. We do already have a reward system in place where our girls earn pennies for listening and good behavior. They can then “buy” little toys and gadgets out of a treasure box with their pennies (which they love to do). So I told my daughter that she would earn 2 pennies for not eating any candy at the rehearsal and 2 more pennies for doing the same at the recital – 4 pennies is a lot around here! So last night, after praising her for doing such an amazing job on stage, I asked the dreaded question. Did she eat any candy? No! She also said that she wished she could have eaten it and mentioned that a lady helping with her tap shoes actually said “eat this candy, it will give you energy for your dance” (which I find very interesting – maybe she needs to read this blog too!). And even after that my daughter said she still didn’t eat it. I am so very proud and was happy to dish out the promised reward as soon as we got home. I will still be holding my breath on Sunday evening though hoping for similar results at the recital.

On another note, I absolutely love it when you eat a meal that  is so good you are still thinking about it hours later. That happened to me last night when I did not care one bit that I had a fridge full of fresh CSA veggies and instead of trying to use any of them I just made exactly what I was craving. You see, ever since my green bell peppers started growing in my garden I felt like I was waiting for the day to harvest them and make some fajitas. And oh were they good. In addition to the bell peppers I threw in some mushrooms and caramelized onions. Anytime you put your fajita ingredients inside a homemade whole-wheat tortilla and top it with some fresh avocado, cilantro and lime there is just no question that it will taste fabulous. And oh did it. Can you tell how passionate I am about this dish?