A Christmas Without Chocolate

'Twas the week before Christmas,
and all through the house,
not a creature was stirring,
...except for me, stirring the fudge mixture I was making to give away with Christmas presents. Being on maternity leave is great, but the pay cut makes home-made gifts something of a necessity.

Why, oh why did I decide to make fudge? Yes, the recipe looked easy: chocolate, condensed milk, vanilla. I threw in some marshmallows, because I'm just that good a cook. Making the fudge was the easy part. Not eating the fudge? Just a bit harder.

I had good reason to stay away, though. Sure, I have the same challenge this year that every new mother faces, especially during the Christmas season, of laying off the sweets in a desparate attempt to shed the baby weight. I have another reason to avoid chocolate, though, and it's not just for my own good. Every time I eat chocolate, the Little Man gets gas. I'm not talking about funny little toots, or even a raunchy belch or two. That I can live with. I mean the kind of gas that seems to build up in a little tummy and then just stay there, causing discomfort and tears. (It seems to trouble the baby, too.)

Not long after he was born, the little guy started drying until he exhausted himself and us on a regular basis. He was inconsolable, and we tried everything. We bundled him up; we let him flail his limbs around like a little tree in a hurricane. We gave him gripe water (alcohol-free, though the alternative was tempting some evenings!). We gave him warm baths, we walked him, we rocked him. We didn't think it was colic; the crying wasn't happening every night, and it only lasted for an hour or so. It was time to look at my diet.

Some experts say that what a mommy eats does not affect how breast milk tastes, nor does it give the baby gas. I'd like them to explain the look on my little guy's face when he nursed after I ate chicken shwarma, but that's another story. I have no doubt that my diet was the source of the trouble, and I promised him I'd do whatever I had to to help him. Now, I don't eat cabbage. I don't eat much broccoli, and I never touch brussels sprouts (thank God for vitamin supplements!) or any foods that tend to cause gas in grown-ups. Then I read somewhere that chocolate could be a problem. I reluctantly decided to try going a few days without. Now, please bear in mind that this was the week before Halloween, and the hubby (God love him) had just brought home a huge box of mini chocolate bars, all of them favourites. I feel guilty admitting this, but I actually half hoped that it wouldn't work. Then we could find some other source of the problem, and I could continue to stuff my face with chocolatey goodness. No such luck. The situation improved immedeately. I was crushed.

Once we got through Halloween, things were OK, though sometimes less than satisfying. I missed my chocolate bars, chocolate donuts, and chocolate chip cookies. I slipped up occasionally; I honestly forgot that hot chocolate does, in fact, contain chocolate, and my poor babe paid for my mistake. We were surviving. But now... Christmas. Season of egg nog, turkey dinners, and, that's right, chocolate. Chocolate advent calendars, chocolate cookies, chocolate stocking stuffers. Aisles of the stuff in Wal-Mart. And the holy grail of the chocolate world... Lindor. They say that a majority of women would rather have chocolate than sex, and if we're talking about those creamy little balls of chocolate, I'm there. I haven't had a Christmas (or a week of PMS) without them since mom and I discovered them several years ago. I'm drooling all over the computer here just thinking about them. That's a tradition I'll have to forgo this year if I want anything resembling a Silent Night.

I'll miss my annual affair with my beloved sweets, but this year I guess I've got a bigger craving. I want to see the Baby Boy smile. His happy little face melts my heart, and that's the sweetest treat I could ask for. Besides, a happy baby is WAY better for my thighs and butt!