When my daughter called from the bathroom last night, I was fully prepared to finish what I was doing before going to see what she wanted, as I was making dinner, but then she called out to say that a pile of candy wrappers were lying on the bathroom floor.  Considering I strictly control all Halloween candy to the tune of two treats a day, I wasn’t happy.

I went quickly, followed by the rest of the gang who of course were all interested in what was happening because they knew that something was about to go down.  It didn’t matter that Paulina was sitting on the toilet exclaiming that we all needed to leave, we ignored her and stood crowded together in the small main floor powder room, to stare at the spectacle before us.  Distributed slightly behind the pedestal of the sink, was a plethora of empty candy wrappers, and to the other side, a zip lock bag. Evidence.

Next step, trapping the guilty party.

As any parent can attest, we all know what our children are capable of.  And I knew out of my five, who was most likely to be the guilty one.   Paulina would be at the top of my list but since she called in the crime, I knew it wasn’t her.  That meant it was either Jack, or Gregory.  Since Gregory was not particularly interested and Jack had been first on the scene, exclaiming falsely ‘ha, that’s weird,’ I knew it was him.  If it wasn’t him, he would have said so immediately and strongly and repeatedly.  Deny, deny, deny, that’s how you survive in this house.

I looked at him.  He looked at me. I looked at the pile of at least 20 candy wrappers and I looked back at him.  He denied that he did it.  For a moment, I almost believed him.  Then, I smiled slightly, as if I found it amusing.  He smiled too and his eyes were twinkling.  ‘You did this, right?’ I asked.

‘No, no, not me, I didddddnn’tttttttt’ he said.

‘If you confess, I won’t punish you,’ I said, no longer smiling.  Jeremy backed slowly out of the room and Paulina stopped complaining that we should leave.  Jack knew the gig was up and he nodded, crying suddenly.  I sent him to his room and told him to get ready for bed, and that there would be no story tonight.  He went like a prisoner off to death row, head low, hiccoughing, even though I hadn’t even raised my voice.

I was upset with him, not just because he had eaten all that candy, but because for days now he has been leaving the table at mealtimes, which is not allowed, to go to the washroom.  He has constipation issues so for him, we allow it.  He would come back to the table and then say his tummy hurt and that he couldn’t eat his food.  He even did this at breakfast yesterday.  I had just made him a doctor appointment for the next day.  Now his stomach upset makes perfect sense.

He got into bed without speaking, turned off his lamp and burrowed.  As much as I wanted to tell him it was ok, I didn’t.  I was in and out of his room, as Jeremy was showering and prepping for bed and they share a room.  Each time he heard me he said, ‘I love you Mom.’  I assured him I loved him too and that just because he had gotten in trouble didn’t change that, but I didn’t go for a cuddle, even though I desperately wanted to.  He must have said he loved me 5 times before I had everyone bathed and the lights out. 

Then, I went downstairs to the laundry room and ate as much I could out of those damn candy bags so there would be none left for the kids to fight over/sneak.  My tummy hurts.

Okay, okay, so I’m kidding-geesh, I know that would be hippocritical!!!!  To be honest, I haven’t eaten ONE thing from those bags and I don’t even want to.  But before I did my cleanse I would have spent a lot of time in that laundry room picking out my favourites when no one was looking.  I know what it’s like to WANT candy, so how could I be really, really mean?  Was I wrong?