Over at the larger families blog, we’re discussing gratitude throughout the month of November. What are the things in our lives that we’re grateful for? How can we become more grateful for what we have? How does a sense of gratitude help cultivate a sense of contentment in our lives? Always good topics to dwell on even when it isn’t November, though of course it helps to have Thanksgiving as a reminder.

So I have an issue, wait, not even an “issue”, because that makes it sound more major than it is, and this is merely a hiccup–nay a sneeze–in comparison to a true ISS-YOO. Basically the minor issue is this: I did a survey that would put me in the running for a week-long test drive of a brand-new minivan. To my surprise, they contacted me for a further interview, and I was eventually selected to participate in the test drive. There’s no obligation, financial or otherwise, and the vehicle…well, it looks pretty sweet.

Yet, I’m hesitating. And here’s why: I don’t really need a brand-new minivan, especially not one with as many bells and whistles as this one has (though of course I love me some bells and whistles!). Even in a year or two, when we start looking to replace our current minivan (it’s a 1999 with well over 180,000 miles on it…sooner or later it’ll be time) do I need one with seats that swivel around, satellite TV in the back, tables that pop up out of the floor?

Even if we could technically afford the tricked-out model–and not having done the numbers on paper I don’t know if we could do so comfortably–do I need a vehicle that costs more than our entire combined current debt (including student loans?) That costs the amount of a good downpayment on a house?

And even IF we decided that the price tag was worth it…that our family would benefit enough from all the bells and whistles and gadgets to make it worth while (after all, those swively seats might make road trips way more survivable)…or maybe if we decided to opt for a more affordable stripped-down model…well, the fact is that our current minivan is still alive, kicking, and quite functional, and we don’t expect to be looking for another car for at least a year. Wouldn’t trying out a newer, nicer car for a week just put it in my head that I “need” something I don’t really need?

I could convince myself that it would just be fun to drive around in a car that’s not yet marred by the scent of stale french fries and bits of paper everywhere, and play with all the gadgets and features. And that’s true. But somewhere it would allow a small, discontented voice to take hold in my head and tell me that what we have isn’t quite good enough…that we’d be happier with something newer, better, or flashier. I have nothing against new or flashy things. In fact, I quite enjoy new and flashy things. But if I’m happy with what I have right now–and I’ve never been anything but happy with our current vehicle–then why risk putting it in my head that I “need” something else?

Or maybe I’m just wayyy overthinking this and I should try the darn thing out and get over myself. I don’t know. What do you think?

Last weekend something momentous happened.

Jon and I were on our way home from Toni’s 40th birthday party. I’d had a couple glasses of wine, a couple pieces of pizza, and some cheese; and maybe some chips and crackers and possibly a pretzel, and suddenly the salt and alcohol kicked in and I was desperately thirsty. I looked around my husband’s car in vain for some water (unlike me, he doesn’t drive around with half-empty water bottles getting wedged under the brake pedals just in case you need them in just such an emergency!).

“Here, take a drink of this,” he said, offering me his bottle of Mountain Dew. A years-old instinct took over as I grabbed the bottle of Dew and took a mighty swig….and nearly gagged. It was warmish, and syrupy, and disgustingly sweet. It seemed to cling to my tastebuds long after I swallowed.

“Oh, aggg, ugggh!” I choked. “What’s wrong with it?”

He looked wounded. “It tastes fine to me,” he said, snatching back his precious, unappreciated Dew and caressing the bright-green bottle for a moment.

Anybody who’s known me during the last five years or so might be surprised to read that. See, up until June, I had a twenty-ounce-a-day Dew habit, which at times crept slowly and steadily up to more like 30-ounces-a-day. When pregnant I restricted myself to a mere 12-ounce can each day, and that was torturous. It felt so incongruous with the reasonably-healthy life I was trying to live, and yet I tried to give it up altogether many, many times, and failed each time. The corn syrup, the yellow dye, the sugar, the fizz, and the jolt of caffeine all lured me back time and time again.

It started so innocuosly. I was in the habit of stopping at a certain fast-food restaurant a couple of times a week for an early lunch and took to getting a Mountain Dew with my meal. Soon I was going through the drive-through daily just for the Dew…no food. After a while I switched to cans (preferring the flavor to bottles) but became frustrated because I had to drink three cans a day to keep headaches and the mid-afternoon slump at bay. I reluctantly switched to bottles, even though I didn’t like the flavor much by the end (actually, I’m not even sure I could taste the stuff by then anyway). When I woke up in the morning, I’d start thinking about how and where to get my first Dew. Then I’d think about how long I could stave off getting the second and hope that there would be no third (but there often was). I tried switching to Coke (the idea being it would be easier to give up Coke cold-turkey than Dew), I tried replacing the stuff with caffeine pills, I tried visual imagery, I tried bullying myself, and to no avail. My daily schedule was basically ruled by this neon yellow beverage, and I was consuming a ridiculous number of calories per day, wasted on nothing but a drink that I didn’t even LIKE that much anymore. I resented the Dew. I hated the Dew. I wanted to escape the Dew. But strangely I still loved and respected the Dew. It was like I had Stockholm Syndrome.

But no more. As evidenced by my reaction, the addiction is now completely broken. And you might wonder how I managed to kick such a nasty habit, especially if you’re in the throes of a soda addiction yourself.

The truth is, once I followed a few simple steps, giving up the Dew was surprisingly easy. I know there have got to be at least a few fellow Dew-captives in my midst, so I’ll dew–ha ha–you a favor and share them here:

1) I moved from small-town Michigan to Chicago. I don’t necessarily recommend this step unless you’re really desperate, or really want to move to Chicago. But the take-away advice for somebody who doesn’t want to move with a bunch of kids across several states is shake up your routine. Moving took me out of the path of those places where I once purchased my daily Dews, and into a strange land where stopping at the corner gas station wasn’t nearly so easy or routine as it once had been.

2) My husband started working outside the home instead of the both of us being at home like we once had. That had made it far too easy to be one another’s enablers. If I was busy working on a deadline or all the kids were home I could just say “Hey honey? Wanna make a Dew run?” and he’d be back in ten minutes clutching two fresh twenty-ouncers. Now, alone in Chicago all day with four kids, I would have had to load them all up into the car, drive to some unfamiliar 7-11, get them all out, go in, purchase the soda, drive home, unload everybody from the car…or do the same only instead of driving the car it would be walking to a 7-11 with four kids. Well, either way, it just didn’t seem worth the effort. Again, many of you probably already have husbands who work outside the house, or don’t want your SAH or WAH husbands to get a job just to help you kick your soda habit, so the take-away advice here is put obstacles in place that make it difficult to get to the soda. Maybe you’ll sign up for an activity that takes you far away from your favorite convenience store every morning for a couple of weeks; maybe you’ll go visit some friends who live in the boonies and ask them NOT to stock the house, as they may have become accustomed to doing, with green cans and bottles for you. You don’t need to do this long-term; just long enough to get past the initial few days of physical and psychological withdrawls.

3) I replaced the Dew habit with another habit.. I bought good tea, figured out exactly how I best liked it prepared, and started a ritual of brewing a cup the instant I got out of bed every morning. For the first few days–during a few crises of faith–I chain-tea-ed. I knew I wouldn’t keep it up forever; tea isn’t easily mobile like Dew, it takes time and effort to brew it and it never tastes right when they make it at restaurants, so it’s not like I’d be suddenly hopping into Panera two or three times a day to get my Earl Grey fix. So part 2 of my advice here is to make your replacement habit something that’s at least marginally healthier, and not quite so easily habit-forming. The nice thing about hot tea? You don’t gulp it so much as sip it, at least when it’s hot. I soon found that between all the brewing and cooling time and still-too-hot-to-gulp time, I just plain didn’t have enough time to get in more than a cup or two a day.

4) I don’t think all that would have been enough by itself; you also have to want to quit badly enough. All those other times when I tried, I was held back psychologically. I wanted to want to stop but the truth was I still wanted the Dew more than I wanted not to drink it. Moving was tiring, and all-consuming for a while, and I found I just didn’t have room in my life for an addiction to a seriously unhealthy beverage. Who knows? Maybe that made all the difference in the world, and 1-3 were just the icing on the cake.

Either way, if you have found yourself dreaming of the taste of Dew, refer to it as “your buddy”, or have thanked God for it in your nightly prayers, it’s not too late. After a week or two, all my cravings were gone…and now I find the taste of Mountain Dew utterly disgusting. You can too.

There’s a debate raging among parents of school-age kids, and things are getting ugly.

Is it about No Child Left Behind? No? How about funding for the arts? No again?

Actually, the debate du jour is over some school districts’ policies that ask parents not to send in sugary treats, whether it’s in a lunch or snack or sometimes — gasp — even on that child’s birthday.

In some schools, the policy is to keep allergic and food-sensitive kids from accidentally ingesting something that might harm (or even, in some cases, KILL them). In others, teachers don’t want a bunch of kids jacked up on sugar half the day-then crashing down in the afternoon (fair enough.)

In some districts it’s been hinted that lower-income parents are having a hard time affording birthday treats for the whole class, or working parents may have difficulty finding time to make them. And some schools see reducing sweets as helping to address the growing problem of childhood obesity.

And in most cases, the schools and teachers in question still celebrate the child’s birthday: they sing a birthday song, give the child stickers or other trinkets, let them wear a crown or find another way to make the child feel special.

Regardless, the ban has got a small number of parents fuming. And while it’s possible I’m missing something, I want to sincerely ask: what’s the big deal?

Full disclosure: I love to bake, but with three kids in school and another one hanging on my leg as I mix the batter, sending in snacks and treats has long since ceased to be a fun activity and is now yet another obligation, along with a zillion permission slips and volunteer activities. Thus, a no-treat policy (which my boys’ school does have) is likelier to make me cheer than jeer.

But even if sending my kids to school with a plate of cupcakes filled me with unmitigated joy, I can’t imagine getting upset if I were asked not to. After all, the kids get plenty of treats as it is. I can make them a plate of cookies to eat when they get home. They can invite their entire class over for a party and I can load them up with home-baked cupcakes, brownies and Rice Krispie treats. What’s the big deal if they can’t eat it in school? It’s not as though, instead of getting a cupcake on their birthday, they now have to get poked with pins or are forced to eat brussels sprouts.

Let’s get a grip, shall we? We’re talking about treats, people. Frosted, sprinkled, sugary TREATS. We aren’t depriving kids of water or air or love. All across the country, children are failing to learn to read, developing diabetes, lacking adequate medical care, going hungry, drinking, doing drugs, experimenting with sex, watching music videos that should be rated NC-17, being victimized by bullies and abusers, and inexplicably, returning to fashions I thought we left behind in the ’80s. Can’t we parents find a weightier topic in which to invest our outrage?

Moms, we need to start looking at the big picture here: our child’s “right” to eat a cupcake between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 3:15 p.m. inside the school building, doesn’t trump the teacher’s right to decide how the classroom is managed. Nor does it trump the school district’s right to see a growing problem - namely, that kids eat way too much junk in general - and find one way to make a difference.

Have some school districts gone too far by banning birthday sweets? Maybe. And I suppose parents are well within their rights to make a stink. But I would argue that we’ve all got better things to worry about.

We all give up a bit of power when we put our kids in school, and like it or not, decisions are made for what’s good for the group rather than our own precious offspring. Perhaps instead of complaining about minor annoyances, parents could take that energy and time and spend it reading to the classroom or cutting out construction-paper circles.

Or perhaps they could do what I did, and give the teacher who employs the “no treats” rule a virtual toast. Less sugar in my kids’ systems and less work for me? Now that’s a policy I can get behind.

Okay, I just spend a half-hour typing a post, and lost it while trying to publish. And I don’t have time to re-type it all, so instead…

Read this…
And call your senator. (Postpartum Support International makes it easy!)