3/27/2008 Chocolate Lifestyle

This Easter was the first time my 20 month old son really got to eat chocolate. He had tasted it before on a couple of occasions, each taste making him loose his mind, resulting in some sort of catastrophe and ultimately an early bedtime. It was as if the devil entered his tiny body making him forget about his own physical form and all of the people around who loved him. His pupils appeared dilated, he had jerky movements and a tighter than normal grip. All of his normal, sweet composure disappeared, replaced with the desperation of the runt of a feral dog litter somewhere in India. The urgency in his pleas for more chocolate scared me and made me realize that he was truly my son.

Easter Sunday we all sat down at my mother’s dining room table with a Rockwell-esque feast laid before us; sweet potatos with marshmallows, uncle Steve’s famous green beans, seven layer salad, homemade cranberry sauce, apple sauce, a BIG ass ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, and those dinner rolls that look like the Swedish Chef’s face. My son ate two or three bites of dinner then acted like he was stuffed beyond our comprehension, so we entertained him for the duration of the banquet. As everyone began throwing in their towels, Mom emerged with a pie and a cake, and then presented Fox with his own Easter basket. More of a laundry basket, it hulked over Fox’s head in his baby seat giving him an eye-level view of it’s contents. The composition of the basket broke down like this:
1%-Jack and the Beanstalk DVD-(sucky)
1%-easter grass-(?)
2%-funny bunny easter glasses-(now broken)
96%-foil wrapped chocolate candies; solid, hollow and filled varieties.
The Pagan spirits must have smiled down upon this exemplary nest of goodness! It was the embodiment of the "ideal" choco-fertility offering to Goddess Eostre providing high calorie blessings to fuel reproduction many times over!

Immediately I went for a Recces Peanut butter egg; it was like an automatic reaction over which I held no command. Mom gave me the stink eye and asked me to wait till she could get some pictures. I told her that I wasn’t sure if that was possible, but I’d try.

Slowly the realization set in and Fox comprehended that there was enough chocolate to kill a mule at his fingertips. He tore into a cellophane bag containing a hollow bunny and eggs wrapped in foil, and before I could hoist the gigantic basket to the floor he had eaten four eggs. There were festive flecks of foil gathering in the folds of his clothes, and Fox was consuming the orbs in their entirety.

The display caused me great anxiety and mild disgust. Butterflies filled my stomach as I thought to myself "what the heck is going to happen when Fox is full of chocolate?". It had never happened before, and from what I had gathered by his dabbling in the substance he was going to pull some Tazmanian devil shit straight to the moon!

Immediately I gained control of the situation by removing the basket from his vicinity while he polished off the stock pile he had arranged on the tray in front of himself. When he got to the last egg, he had an entire one in his mouth already, one he was removing the foil from in his hand, and the last one waiting in the wings of his table. As soon as he had swallowed the bulk of the candy in his mouth he jammed the one in his hand in, and seeing that there was one left he started the wild begging.

What’s so bad about having eaten five milk chocolate eggs, having another entire one in your mouth, and another one in your hand? Is the idea that you can’t go on eating chocolate into infinity horrible enough for such a tantrum? Is life not worth living if your chocolate provisions get stolen away from you just like that?



Fox and I know the answers to those questions. Oh yeah and nothing out of the ordinary happened. As soon as he threw the initial "where the hell did all my chocolate go, it was just right here and now it’s gone" fit, Fox was cool. Chocolate is food, after all. Not that it is going to be the basis of Fox’s diet or anything, but during a few holiday seasons I don’t see the harm. Valentines day (season), Easter (season), Mother’s and Father’s day (it really isn’t fair for adults to eat chocolate and forbid their children), Fox’s birthday in July, my birthday in August, Halloween (season), and finally Christmas (season).

That’s it!