Moderation of Desserts

We're doing better about dessert in this household. For a long while, we ate dessert (usually ice cream) nightly, both because we're weak and because John had so much trouble eating as a toddler, he'd cry all night from what we suspect was hunger. We were desperate enough to give him ice cream nightly to try to quiet his hunger. But that solution was its own problem.

Maybe half a year ago, we switched to serving desserts only on Sundays and on special Catholic feast days. I've noticed that now, instead of considering dessert nothing special (but also a right!), when we say we're serving ice cream, the kids run with deafening screams of joy into the kitchen, shrieking with excitement for several minutes. That seems like a good change!

The other day John said the funniest thing, falling in the category of "You Know You're Catholic When." I was serving dessert, so it must have been a special feast day. He said, "Why is this the Sabbath?" I asked what he was talking about, as it was not Sunday. He said, "Well, you're serving a dessert." Fantastic! It has finally sunk in! (And that reminded me of when my friend Elaine was baking a pie and she asked her kids, "Why am I baking a pie?" and they answered instantly, "Because today is the Lord's day!")

John also has figured out that every day is a feast day for some Catholic saint. Last week we were talking about the saint of the day and he said, "Hey! Let's have dessert to celebrate Saint So-and-So!" That's when I had to break the bad news that we limit our desserts to really special feast days, not just everybody's feast days.