Junk for the Mind and Body

All is going well in our family of four, though Graeme has been acting a bit out of control the last few days. He's fabulous with Ian, but a pain in the ass with Steve and me. Graeme has always been a bit obstinate, but the last few days he's been almost unbearable. EVERYTHING is a battle (getting dressed, eating, playing, walking, bathing, talking). We are trying to be patient, but feeling a bit short-tempered ourselves.

Last night Steve and I did a bit of psycho-analysis and decided to tweak some external factors in his life, as opposed to modifying our parenting. (Not that our parenting doesn't need modifying, but it's easier to start with the external stuff.) We've fallen into a not-so-great habit of letting Graeme watch videos or TV in the morning while we get ready for work. Sometimes this bleeds over into a "show" (as he calls them) in the evening. It's always age-appropriate, but TV nonetheless. In addition, we've been the lucky recipients of nightly meals from our family, friends and neighbors, all of which include a fabulous dessert. We have much more sugar in the house than usual and hence Graeme has much more sugar in his belly than usual. We thought we would try to reduce his intake of both the TV and sugar to see if this made a difference in his behavior.

Well, I certainly know better than to draw conclusions from a single datapoint, but Graeme had no TV today and only one sweet and his behavior was so much different than the last few days. Only two meltdowns...one almost immediately after eating a banana chocolate chip muffin (damn you, Daddy for giving it to him). In fact, the change in his behavior was so immediate after eating the muffin (homemade with wheat flour, but still) that it would be almost impossible not to attribute the sugar surge to his screaming meltdown. It was such a pleasure to have my good natured, sweet little boy back for most of the day.

So, we will continue the restrictions tomorrow to see if it helps deflect the meltdowns.