I have active kids –as newborns neither of them ever sat placidly in their bucket seats while my husband and I enjoyed a quiet dinner in a restaurant. Or while we sat anywhere in public, actually.  I’ve gotten used to their activeness and my kids have grown into lovely, lively small folk, but I have realized that sugar in any format is a surefire way to turn them into dizzying, whirling dervishes. Processed sugar in pre-made snacks and treats is the absolute worst for them, so we tend to avoid candy altogether.

But now that they are both of school age, I realized that it’s fairly unavoidable to control all of their sugar intake myself, and depriving them of sugar and candy could potentially lead them to have issues with sweets. Instead I’ve worked on teaching them how to spot brightly-coloured toxic culprits disguised as goodness, and how to make decisions on their own intake of sugar. But, I’ve also made more allowances…

Like today –Slurpee Day! Once a year, the convenience store 7-11 has a “celebration” which corresponds with the date of July 11^th – and slurpees are free for all day. I remember walking to 7-11 as a child and putting a mish-mash of flavours like root beer and cream soda into those paper cups, and I decided that this is a good enough reason to let my kids have some slushy memories too! Every July 11th, in the height of summer, we harken the doorway of 7-11 to have our one free slurpee. Then we go to the biggest, most cumbersome playground I can find so my whirling dervishes can go nuts.