Die dye!

Where has the week gone? Where has March gone? What do we DO ALL DAY?

Seriously, I cannot remember one day from the next. Everything blends together in a missmash of playdates and school drop offs / pick ups and squeezing in work and trying to feed my family healthy foods.

We have absolutely positively given up on giving Emma any food that contains dye. If you buy her something that has red dye 25, or yellow dye 6, etc etc etc, just know that I am going to toss it in the trash before she can get her teeth into it. Daddy and I have been observing some wild mood swings in her the past 6 months. A friend of mine has two kids with 100 different food allergies - one of them being food dyes. Her children turn into screaming whining fighting horrible monsters when they consume dye. It's surreal! Em rarely gets "crap", but she has been attending lots of birthday parties as of late where she gets goodie bags filled with junk - toys and snacks/candies. Her worst episodes come after we get home from these parties. We honestly thought she was simply exhausted from the play, but we have since come to realize that that may be part of it, but the CRAP she eats from these bags afterwards flips a switch in her brain and she becomes an absolute beast.

So, no more food dye. No more high fructose corn syrup. I am sure I will add to this list as time goes on but for now we will keep vigil and see if the behavior improves.

On a happy note, she continues to excel on the vocabulary building front. It never ceases to amaze me the words she comes up with! But I especially like the sincere mistakes, like yesterday when we were playing in our friend's backyard, "Mommy, can you help me get up on the hampick?" (As in hammock - but I think she was thinking hamper as I am always requesting she put her dirty clothes in the laundry hamper!)

Ben has become quite the artist. The other morning when he and Daddy were playing he requested, "Dad, can we play arfs and crabs?"

Arts and crafts! It never gets old.

Ben has also become Stewie from the Family Guy in that episode where he follows his Mother around everywhere saying, "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy..." for hours on end. He does not need anything. He simply wants my constant attention. Thanks for loving me so much, little man.