“Unngh.”
“I’m so tired. …”
“Is it a school day?”
Three forms lay in their beds, stunned. I had opened the curtains, letting in the pale early morning sunshine. I had sung a soft and friendly wake-up song. The children had all gone to bed at a decent time the night before. But today the girls were not clambering up good-naturedly, as is their custom.
Why the languor? Well, it was the morning after the day before, and there was probably a pound of sugar still coursing through each child’s body.
“See what St. Valentine has done,” I said to my husband, who had come into the room with coffee for both of us. We regarded the prone figures for a moment.
My husband went over to a heap of bedclothes, from which two pale feet pointed out. “Here darling, have a sip of my coffee,” he said. “It’ll help with the hangover.”
Like millions of children, these girls had been almost delirious the day before from all the Valentine’s Day candy they’d had at school. It’s become standard practice for children not only to give valentines to all the children in their class, but also to tape or glue some sort of treat to each one. Multiply the number of boys and girls in any given class by the number of confections, add the Valentine’s parties they may attend and any treats their parents may have presented them and you have ridden deep into sugar-shock territory.
“We had so much candy today!” children had yelled to their mothers and fathers, as they’d poured out of school the previous day.
“I have a whole bag left!” yelled a boy to his mother.
“I ate all mine!” a girl yelled to the world.
“I feel sick!” another child yelled, while in the very act of unwrapping another lollipop.
The life of the modern child is punctuated by these high-fructose bacchanals. Every holiday brings a cascade of special sweets, which parents buy as treats, teachers dispense as incentives or rewards, and children give to each other to curry favor or simply to delight.
The result is periodic orgies of eating chewy, crunchy, gooey, cakey indulgences that very quickly loses their exoticism but which many children cannot quite resist even as their faces turn a delicate green.
But that which goeth up, cometh down, and when the thing coming down is a sugar-soaked child, the crash can be dramatic. Those millions of children who spent Tuesday gobbling sweets in a state of exhilaration, very likely (judging from my lot) spent Tuesday evening in low-key misery and fractiousness. The next day they woke feeling groggy and glum, muttering that they were never going to eat that much candy again at one time.
And by Thursday, with the candy hearts out of their systems, I bet every one of them is looking ahead eagerly to the next big sugar blowout.
They don’t have long to wait. I don’t know if you noticed, but right before Valentine’s Day the drugstores and supermarkets had already begun stocking enormous displays of Easter candy. Jelly beans, anyone?
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].