Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl

It's been my thinking, and still kind of is, that sugar is the devil. At least the white crystallized kind. It really does make people feel bad later, a spiking high followed by a very low dose of depression and sometimes anger. At least you're going to feel a little impatience or some kind of hard resistance towards life around you. 

But hey, listen, I am absolutely not about to get on a soapbox about sugar right now. You know why?

I'm addicted. I'm trying to get away from it. I'm with you, friend.

And of course, like I do with all things, I'm going to blame this on circumstances outside of my control: pregnancy cravings.

It's a little ridiculous when the first thing you used to reach for in the morning was an orange, apple or banana. Now? Chocolate. Yeah I go for the chocolate first. SO what?

So I realized what was going on around the sixth month. Coffee, at that point, became an immense craving as well. Some milked up, frothed up, delicious coffee. Just smelling it could make my eyes go black like a shark who has smelled blood. And then the sugar thing happened. And is still happening. Because I just ate the last of the gummy bears I put in my husband's stocking, supposedly intended for his sweet tooth. It made him happy until I ate all of them. Every last one. Don't even get me started on the chocolate-covered coffee beans I've been buying for myself. 

Then there's the baking, which I could also partly blame on the holidays. Brownies, cake, cookies, cake cookies, brownie cake cookies. It's starting to get weird. 

The unbearable hypocrisy of it all! Here I am studying therapeutic yoga and nutrition and I keep getting up for another stupid bowl of cereal at 1:30 in the afternoon, 

like I didn't have two bowls of Kashi's Honey Sunshine earlier this morning. 

Then there was the failed first-round gestational diabetes test. Great. So appalled and embarrassed. You have no idea. "But I study holistic nutrition, what the hell?" The day before my second round of testing, it was like I was withdrawing. I stayed away from sugar, and I passed the stupid test. Still not proud of the overall effort it took for me to stay away from the things I ache for right now. Everything is made of sugar! You really can't get away from it. 

I used to make fun of my husband, his blues name is "Sweet Tooth Jones." Like an older blues man in a juke joint in the 30s, playing the guitar for Bessie Smith, as she croons I need a little sugar in my bowl. A few friends and I joking, "What'd you get for ole Sweet Tooth Jones at the store?" Oh, some organic gluten-free, dairy-free fig cookies. Exactly what he wanted, I'm sure. Sweet Tooth Jones has no problem finding something substantially sweet in our snack cabinet now. 

Carbs are an easy commodity these days.

But now we've got another Sweet Tooth Jones. And I'm pretty positive that we actually have three. Because, of course, this is all baby. I did not do this. 

Oh shoot. Definitely not a good idea to start off this all-important relationship with blaming. But seriously? I was not like this before. I mean I liked a good funnel cake when it presented itself but I wasn't not going to go search one out, sniffing like a bloodhound, losing everybody I was with because my ultra-scent of smell took me straight to a place where grease and powdered sugar rule.

Maybe my blues name can be more jazzy: Blood Sugar Shorty or Cavity Calamity or something like that. Yeah, I like this blues name game. I'll be on this all day.

In short, our family is doomed in sweet-toothness. As crazy healthy as always I've been, right when I'm feeding a little kicking alien inside me, I'd rather have a damn bowl of some cinnamon cereal instead of healthy salad. Right when I've started a certification in holistic nutrition. Does it make sense? No. 

It just doesn't. But it is what is. And that's what it is. One thing still present: I try to stay away from high-fructose corn syrup. And artificial stuff like aspartame and Splenda and all that. 

I'm not all bad. This, too, shall pass. As long as I don't start needing insulin shots. There's got to be some kind of upside to the downward things, right? Oh, yes. There's always some good in the bad and some bad in the good.

Sugar Mama,

Liza Jane