I hate Skittles. 

I do not want to, as the slogan goes, “Taste the rainbow.”

If a Skittle accidentally fell into my mouth, I would spit
it out.  This is how I feel about most
candy.  Except for sour patch kids.

Levi and Isaiah, however, like every other four-year-old
alive, LOVE Skittles. 

And M&Ms.  

And Blow Pops. 

And all the other Crack-in-a-wrapper kids get at
Halloween. 

After a night of Trick-or-treat, Isaiah started the
candy-consumption-negotiations first thing this morning.  I don’t think he was even all the way
downstairs before he started in.  In
fact, he fell halfway down the stairs because he was lugging his bag of candy
along, slung over his shoulder like a little Santa’s sack filled with sugar. 

He very quickly negotiated the potential consumption of one
piece of candy after lunch.  I know this
because he reminded me of it before breakfast, after breakfast, before
preschool, after preschool, before lunch, etc.  

The candy of choice? 
A full size bag of Skittles. 

The twins waited all morning for that candy which, for a
four-year-old, is basically a lifetime. 

Isaiah’s bag was quickly opened, half-eaten, and spilled and
picked-up twice in the five or so minutes we waited after lunch before heading
to their older brother’s Halloween parade.  Foreseeing the potential for a disastrous
candy spill at the parade, I went to get a zip-lock bag for both boys.  I planned to open Levi’s bag and pour both
into separate preschooler-compatible packaging. 

I forgot, however, that a four-year-old tears into a
candy-wrapper like a squirrel attacking a plastic feeder full of sunflower
seeds.  Place a thin layer of plastic
between a toddler and a handful of chocolate M&Ms and stand back – all
sorts of destruction is about to ensue.

One second we were ready, almost out the door for the parade, then Levi’s bag of Skittles exploded shooting a rainbow of sugar all
over the kitchen floor.  He ripped open
the whole side of his bag in one deft, semi-miraculous movement and Skittles
rained down, scattering (or would that be “skittling”?) under the island,
across the rug, behind the heavy iron radiator. 

This, of course, was a crisis for him – children hunt
spilled candy like the shepherd hunting his lost sheep in Luke’s gospel, or the
women hunting her lost coin.  Kids hunt
lost candy with the kind of determination and passion that God’s hunts lost
souls.

Crisis.

This was less than twenty-four hours after
confection-ageddon (aka Trick or Treat) and I had already had it up to HERE
with sweets. 

Remember the candy-consumption-negotiations that started in
the pre-dawn hours of the day? 

And the incessant reminders? 

I wanted to explode like that bag of Skittles. 

One preschooler was crying while the other tried to find and
consume as many of his brother’s lost treats as he could and all I wanted to
do was hunt down the person who thought it was a good idea to give little
people bags of candy bigger than their faces. 

I did not scream, though, like I wanted to, did not stomp on
the candy in rage.  I dug deep within,
past the part that had it up to HERE and somehow saw for one brief second the rainbow
right there in front of me.  I saw how
rainbows lead to hidden treasure and rather than breaking the moment further, I
reached for the pot of gold.  

I knelt down beside the crying boy and the thieving boy and
was thankful the dog at least was outside.

With due diligence, most of the loss was recovered.  

We put the rainbow in a new bag and I zipped it tight. 

Then we ran out the door together, two boys clutching
baggies of brightness and one Mama carrying a rainbow in her heart.

//

By the way, we did miss one red Skittle.  This I know, because the dog found it . . . and
spat it out. 

Even the dog knows better.          

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