Working Momma Win: Post-Holiday Lunches

Recently we hosted my husband’s family for Easter dinner at our place. My big kitchen, his big family, their big personalities. That place got loud, it got crowded in a hurry and kids were everywhere. My counters were covered in food, wine and mimosas (which I may or may not have been drinking since noon. Happy Keaster!) and I was in my element. My heart soars when hosting a big meal and I get wrapped in the tradition and the flow of it.

There were eight kids running rampant around my house, with enough Easter candy to keep them plenty occupied. Well…imagine our surprise when one by one the children came crying to their parents that someone had eaten their chocolates. Upon further investigation we found pieces of bright tin wrapping scattered around the house. No chocolate. Distractions at an all-time high, Maelle had ingested approximately thirteen pieces of chocolate. The girl weighs 26lbs, folks. D’oh. Fast forward to 9pm and that girl’s belly decided it was through with the torture, and an entire baby stomach full of too much chocolate came up on my kitchen floor…and on her aunt…and on her cousin…and on the table. People, I’m talking PUKE…volcanic eruption puke.

double it, that's how many she ate.

Are you worried this is a post about puke?

So far, you’re right. But hold up…things might just get better for you in a minute…

After a nearly similar incident in which she snuck upstairs the following Sunday at my parents’ house and blasted through another sixteen Hershey Kisses (where are this girl’s parents?!??), we decided that Mae could no longer be trusted around Easter candy and all must be banished. But how? Do you throw it away? FOR SHAME! No…no one throws away chocolate in my house and lives to tell about it. Do you bestow it upon the remaining children in some kind of let’s-piss-everyone-off experiment? Not unless you have a death wish by way of toddler drop-kicking. This left only one option…

Mother must ingest all the candies, nomnomnomnom.

I mean, it’s for the children, folks! If I loaded up that little Ziploc baggy full of chocolate eggs, Hershey Kisses, fruity Rockets and chocolate bunnies and brought it to work with me, I would almost literally be preventing a significant gastrointestinal episode from befalling one of my offspring. It’s like…science…or something. So off I trudge to work every day, bringing home the bacon while smuggling out the calories. My lunches were stuffed full of Easter candy for weeks to come! All hail Sir Easter Bunny! I was on a constant sugar rush for weeks, taking full advantage of my parenting ability to remove the candy from the house and place it directly on my desk…for 23 seconds until it found it’s way directly into my mouth.

…most of all you’ve got to hide it from the kids…

Touche, Simon & Garfunkle. Touche. {burp!}