A Holiday Trojan Horse

I'm coming to realize that things that previously brought our family joy and delight now cause huge fractures in our family unity. Case in point:

Andy received a huge Christmas basket of home-made sweets from one of his subcontractors. Wow! We dug in with glee, consuming white-chocolate covered pretzels and triple-chocolate cookies with relish (meaning we relished them, not that we added pickle relish). Of course, we shared with Will and Sophie, but there comes a time when you have to break the news to a three-year-old that he simply can't exist on Magic Bars and Chex Mix alone, especially not in lieu of the following morning's breakfast. It's not easy to be the bearer of such bad news. In fact, I found myself being howled at with indignation most loudly and disrepectfully, and at a distance of about three inches. This resulted in a small swat to the bottom and a three-minute timeout for both parent and child, which in turn resulted in many tears and much wailing.

Thankfully this kind of meltdown, while not unprecedented, is not the norm for us, so I found myself reflecting on whether the sweet roses of the candy were worth the thorns of the tantrums. Also with thanks I note that three minutes is the perfect amount of time for the tears to (mostly) dry and Mom to recover her temper and eat the remainder of her cereal in peace (discounting the faint wails coming from the bedroom).