Grown up?

Baby Watch 2006 is in full swing. Paperbaby is here and we're waiting for MusicBaby to make his appearance at any moment. I felt this was a good time to throw in a post about growing up.

My mom was not uber health conscious while I was growing up. She never had any big rules that you had to follow upon pain of death or deprivation. So I got to eat chocolate and ice cream and juice. I didn't have to drink milk at meal times or finish everything on my plate. She was also not a complete slacker. You couldn't say you hated something if you hadn't tried it and if you were at someone else's house the No Thank You Helping rule* was firmly in effect.

She was also really good at making stuff sound good. "You sure you don't want any? OK, great, more for the rest of us!" But her true genius came out in the way she could put limits on the stuff that you craved so much you would have promised to clean the bathtub with your tongue if you could just have a bite.

This is where she came up with the 10 chip rule. If we were making chocolate chip cookies (and, after we caught on, even when we weren't) we were allowed to have a spoonful of dough or we could have 10 chocolate chips. There were special tiny fluted tin dishes she would extract from a special drawer and we were allowed to count out 10 chips from the bag into our own little dish. It was so ingenious that we'd ask for 10 chips. "May we each have 10 chocolate chips?" Not "some", not 50, not a bag full, just 10, please. OK, if we were really, really bold we'd ask for 20. And sometimes we'd get them.

This may seem silly. And looking back on it now I am sort of surprised that it worked but man, it was like getting an Oscar to be allowed the supreme indulgence of one's own serving of 10 chocolate chips specially chosen with one's own pudgy little fingers. (God's honest truth my fingers were skinny by the time this ritual ended. I remember sitting on my bed during a snow day in Junior High with Queen Bee feasting on chocolate chips out of a fluted tin cup.)The whole thing taught you to appreciate an indulgence, though. You wouldn't just toss back your whole cup full of chips in one swallow. You wouldn't chew each chip in quick succession, either. You might chew one to see how that felt. Then let one slowly melt in your mouth. See how long you could make a third last. Nibble the swirly tops off of all the rest while deciding how to finish them. The process could take half an hour, particularly if you got into a heated debate over your technique. Not an uncommon occurence.

I am a grown up now, at least according to my bank and the IRS and a couple of people who think it's a good idea to stop me for directions. My friends may not agree, and I'm more inclined to trust my friends. Here's why.

Apparently a few months ago I was in a cookie baking phase, or at least a cookie baking preparational phase, because it seems that I went to Costco and bought a 4 pound bag of chocolate chips. They have sat in my crisper (Shut it!) for months now. They were sealed and all was good.

About a week ago I needed a treat really badly and when I looked around chocolate chips were the only thing I truly wanted. I actually had the end of another 4 pound bag, it was about 20 chips. I don't have a pretty little fluted tin cup to serve them in but I'm a grown up, I don't need a tin cup, hell I'd only have to WASH a tin cup if I used it so I ate them out of the bag.

I fed the beast!**

Two days later I opened the new bag. I have no checks and balances people! No one recounts my chips. No one puts them in a bowl. No one closes the crisper and says, "Maybe you can have another 10 tomorrow." My first indication of trouble is that sort of fuzzy chocolatey feeling on my teeth and my eyeballs twitching from all that sugar. I don't do caffeine anymore so you put enough sugar in me and I'm Baby's First Tweaker. Not good. I think I've eaten a pound of chocolate chips in a week. I'm so glad I don't have a scale.

I want my mommy. ***

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*Doesn't matter if you don't like it, as long as you aren't going into anaphylactic shock you can and will eat a small helping.

**10 chips to the person who can tell me where I got that phrase this week.

***Fortunately she arrives on Friday.