Mum's The Word - July 5, 2016

How about chocolate covered in more E numbers and additives than you even knew existed?

William had the worst tantrum of his life the other evening – he was like a completely different child.

And, it was so out of character there’s only one person to blame: me.

I made the awful mistake of buying him some chocolate at a fun fair.

But this wasn’t some organic, 90 per cent cocoa quality stuff, it was a tube of knock-off smarties.

I didn’t even look at the ingredients (shame on me) as he happily munched through half the tube.

At bedtime that evening, the full effect of what I’d done began to dawn on me.

He started sniggering in bed and hiding under his quilt, before popping his head out like a jack in a box.

Asking him to lie back down and close his eyes seemed to make him more mischievous as he started throwing his teddy bears and blankets off the bed.

Next he threw himself out of bed and started running around the landing shouting “you can’t catch me!”

Eventually I got him back in his room and wouldn’t open the door until he’d calmed down and climbed back into bed. Which he dutifully did; before running off again.

It took a full hour and shutting us both in a room downstairs where I read books to him until he calmed down and fell asleep, completely exhausted by his outburst.

When I looked at the label there were all sorts of strange names: tartrazine, carmoisine, E129 and E104.

No wonder he was so hyper – he had the equivalent of half a sweetshop in his tummy!