Chocolate Ban

One night, as a reward for Marina eating more than just condiments and loose mozarella cheese, I gave her chocolate-covered pretzels for dessert.

Ella, however, did not eat as well and I thought I had to make the difference in dessert-getting way super obvious. So Ella got one chocolate pretzel while Marina got three. Right before bedtime.

An hour later Marina was not sound asleep like her sister, but SCREAMING. And then, she woke up, like, four times that night. And while it may seem obvious to all you health freaks, it finally became clear that chocolate turns my kids into lunatics.

So now there's a chocolate ban in this house - at least after 3 p.m.

I was all proud of myself that we left my grandmother's house last week - a place with mini M&M tubes and candy bars and brownies- without eating a single piece of it. I don't know how I did it, but I convinced them that apples and strawberries were SO YUMMY and that was that.

But today I was all, yay! Birthday party! And the first thing they said was, "Yay! Cake!" And then they brought out this Carvel (Hi, Alex) ice cream cake with a crumbly chocolate bottom. At 5 p.m.!

Marina sat in her little chair and ate the entire piece that was meant to be shared with her sister. She only stopped to say things like, "mmm, cake" and "I love cake."

I think you can guess how things ended. But you're wrong. This time, Marina fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Stupid chocolate thinks it can win its way back into this family but it's going to have to try harder than that.