Sugar-rush

I realised today that there is a direct correlation in this house between stress levels and my sugar intake. For example...

Early morning: The normal routine of getting the Boys out of bed, washed, dressed, fed and ready for school went well. So breakfast was my usual branflakes and milk, with a scattering of raisins, and no sugar. All is quiet on the western front and my food consumption is worthy of a very slim and gorgeous saint.

Post-drop-off morning: calm and quiet. Soup and extreme worthiness for lunch. I spend half an hour polishing my saintly halo.

Boy #2 pick-up from nursery: Normal routine, no real hassle although there was a slightly scary moment when he raced for the car and nearly (but not quite) into the road. Result? The halo slipped, and I snacked on one of the digestives I keep ready for Boy #1's post-school dip whilst Boy #2 took a quick nap...

Boy #1 pick-up and return from school. Relatively stress-free. Straighten my halo and snub the sugary snacks.

4.20pm; leave to take Boys to the hairdressers: have spent the last 50 minutes giving them a snack, tidying up, hanging up the laundry, and preparing dinner for our return. Oh, and polishing my halo again. I leave work-at-home Husband (who is hugely relieved to have a calm and empty house to himself for a while) behind with instructions that he has one thing to do to make dinner happen; put the tray of baking potatoes in the oven when the timer (which I have set to remind him) goes off. Since I have washed and oiled them, he does not have to do any preparation. In fact, he does not even have turn the oven on, I have already sorted it. What could go wrong?

5.20pm return: with two reasonably well-behaved Boys who look like mini-angels with their newly shorn barnets. Husband is on the telephone being important, so I go in to sort out dinner. The tray of baking potatoes is still on the side in the kitchen.

Muttering under my breath and tossing my halo into the waste-disposal, I give up on any idea of food saintliness today and find a half-eaten pack of milk-chocolate buttons. I shovel them down whilst I wash and peel substitute potatoes. The television (which I have been relying on to distract the Boys whilst I sort out our now-late dinner) refuses to turn the sound on. I find a packet of raisins and start to shovel those down too...

6.30pm: we've finished dinner. The spanish casserole I had prepared was not well recieved by the mini-restaurant critics I call my sons, who I have now ceased comparing to mini-angels. Ultimately I found I could only be bothered to demand that they eat the broccoli and some of the (boiled, not baked) potatoes; the rest was scraped into the bin.

Whilst Husband bathed the Boys I found myself in the kitchen drizzling squeezable golden syrup into a spoon and eating it neat.

On the plus side, I suppose at least I didn't do away with the middle-man and tip it straight into my mouth...