Biggles

This is the soundtrack to Easter round our gaff: the intermittent barked shout of “Chocs away!”.

We're not re-enacting scenes from Biggles. It doesn't mean: "Sling the wooden blocks away from the wheels of the plane, Algy, old chap." It means, perhaps more obviously: "Put the chocolates away."

When you have a teenager with Prader-Willi Syndrome (who never feels full up) and a four year old with a sweet tooth (who never shuts up), the burning questions being considered over the Easter Bank Holiday are as follows:

• How many chocolate eggs to allow
• What healthier alternatives need to be supplied for my PWS daughter
• Where the blinking hell to hide everything

So thanks to Nanna & Grandad, Grandma, Mum & Dad and Uncle Mark, Drake Minor got a chocolate rabbit, a Celebrations egg, a Chocolate Buttons egg, a bag of mini chocolate bars and some chocolate easter chicks. Drake Major, who isn’t allowed chocolate, bagged a Hello Kitty Magazine, a One Direction Activity Book, One Direction ‘Yearbook Edition’ CD, Hello Kitty mug (bringing the number of different Helly Kitty drinking vessels in her collection to six), and some Weight Watcher lemon slices.

In order for the forbidden food not to be an issue, all we had to do was try to prevent our son scavenging for it too often, and to whisper to our daughter that her haul was much more expensive and she gets to keep her stuff forever (apart from the lemon slices).

Hollow plastic eggs filled with no-sugar sweets for strictly-timed and counted treats were also an effective weapon in the Easter Peace Process (see previous post Chocs).

Keeping busy helped, as always. 

We went on an egg hunt in the woods at the RSPB lodge, finding pictures of wildlife in return for a creme egg (swapped for the aforementioned sweets in our daughter’s case). 

We also went out for Sunday lunch at a local pub.

Incidentally, in case you were thinking this post sounds like a smugfest of my parenting skills and our biddable, delightful children, you’ll be pleased to know this trip ended in mayhem.

Not because of the girl with an insatiable appetite, who actually waited very patiently for her dinner to be prepared.

No, this was down to her little brother, who decided to empty the pepper pot all over the table, refuse to either sit down or eat his plate of meatballs (specially ordered), and who FLIPPED THE FLIP OUT, when I carried out my warning of ‘no ice cream if you don’t behave’, then literally carried him out of the pub, kicking and screaming, flung over my shoulder in a fireman’s lift as a consequence of his response to the awful reality of a no-pudding-situation. I was hoping for a round of applause, or at least an admiring glance or two from fellow dining parents, in recognition of my iron will and disciplined parenting, but nothing. I got nothing. 

Song is Tindersticks - Chocolate. Not necessarily apposite, but it is *called* Chocolate.

Treats

Deciding to have another child wasn’t something we took lightly.

It was five years before my daughter was strong enough for us to consider it. Once we were sure we could cope with the pregnancy lottery again, it took another five years before our numbers came up and we beat the odds.

So she’s got a little brother. A little whirlwind who’s somehow now well on his way to being four years old, although I’m not sure how this has happened so fast.

Having Prader-Willi Syndrome means our daughter’s life revolves around food: she has to be on a strict, low-fat diet, despite being constantly hungry. Not having Prader-Willi Syndrome means our son’s life revolves around Spiderman, saying “poo”, “bum” and “willy” and not having time to be be especially interested in food apart from chocolate and cakes.

So how does our daughter cope? 

We wrestled with the idea of not allowing our boy sweet treats, but felt it unfair to penalise him because of a condition his sister has. Our solution, as usual, is a compromise: he has stuff she’s not allowed but usually when she’s at school and he’s already home from nursery. If she is around then the forbidden food will only be dished out to him at snack or meal times when his sister can have her own low-fat or low-sugar alternative, as part of her carefully-timed, carefully-controlled diet. She doesn’t feel like she’s missing out because she’s excited and thrilled by what’s on her own plate. 

At the same time, she definitely clocks what he’s got. 

For absolute proof of this, you may wish to examine Exhibit A at the top of the page:

"Daniel will be haveing tea soon.

Daniel goes to bed at 7.30.

Daniel will have a bit of time to go to sleep.

Daniel is eating breadsticks.

Daniel is eating organic gingerbread men.

Daniel is haveing tea now."

Video is The Undertones - More Songs About Chocolate And Girls

Related post: Brother

Chocs

Children with Prader-Willi Syndrome miss out at Easter, don't they?

You can't easily escape chocolate eggs at this time of year, but when you have a child with PWS, whose food intake has to be strictly controlled in order for them to remain healthy, you have to.

A friend of mine had a big Easter party for all our kids one year, complete with an egg hunt. The children were given bowls and let loose in the garden, to hunt down foil-wrapped calorie bombs hidden in the bushes, under patio chairs, up trees and in flowerpots.

I knew my daughter would love this; the hunting bit would be fun. But then, there'd be some eating. And I worried about how she'd feel when the others chowed down on choccy, which she wasn't allowed. She always seemed happy enough with her alternatives when we were at Nanna & Grandad's with her cousins - they'd have their milk chocolate fix, and she'd have some raisins and a Snack A Jack and all would be well. But this would be different. There were going to be a lot of kids getting their chocs off. Would she feel left out?

I came up with a plan. I do this a lot. I saw some sweets for sale in a shop, that came in a hollow plastic egg. So I bought them, selflessly ate the sweets, and kept the egg. This was to be my girl's special Easter Egg. It was duly loaded with no-sugar sweets, breadsticks and other goodies that she was allowed to eat. And when the time came to stash the booty for the Great Egg Hunt, her green, plastic, non chocolate-containing egg was stashed in a flower bed. Mums and dads dutifully whispered in their offspring's ears: "If you find a big green egg PUT IT BACK," and the hunt began.

I told my girl that she had to look for one particular egg, and described it. Off she went, wandering about in amongst the over-exicted rabble of pumped-up sprogs. She picked up a few foil-wrapped Cadbury's eggs and brought them to me in her bowl. "I found these Mum. Can you give them to Hamish?"

The search continued. Finally, after a few "You're getting warmer!"s, she discovered her personal Holy Grail. If you want to know how happy this made her, look at the photo, above. And if you want to know whether it bothered her that she was eating different treats to the others, look at the other photo.

As my girl has grown older, she's got cannier. She's worked out she'll get her normal allocation of meals and snacks at Easter. What she's now learned is that people feel a bit sorry for her not being able to have a chocolate egg. So they buy her something nice instead. A craft set, felt tips, a CD. "They're WAY better than an egg, Mum, aren't they?" she gleefully told me one year.

So this morning, my three-year-old boy was given a Thornton's Football Egg. And my daughter got a Hello Kitty plate, bowl and cup set. Later, she's getting The Princess Bride book, from Nanna & Grandad. Missing out, my arse.

Video is Dylan Hears A Who - Green Eggs & Ham (Thanks to @DaveDogFacedBoy for this)