Thoughts on... Sugar?

I have mentioned the five keys to bonding in previous posts, as I’ve learned them from Nancy Thomas in her “Taming the Tiger While It’s A Kitten” CD’s.
I talked about Smiling as one, and I want to touch on the other four in the weeks to come. Today, I want to talk about sugar, another one of the five keys to bonding.

Are you like me, asking, “Did you say Sugar?”
Yep- you heard it right- sugar.

Did you know that human breast milk is the sweetest of all mothers’ milks? No other animal's milk is as sweet as human breast milk. There’s a reason for that. Studies have shown that the sugar (in breast milk) stimulates babies’ brains to form connections that help the bonding process to take place.
Isn’t that amazing? It amazes me. It deepens my faith in God, the Creator of all things, who leaves nothing to coincidence. I see that He has a purpose for everything, even sugar.

So, even though we don’t have breast milk available to help us bond with Kelly, we do have sugar! What Nancy recommends is sweetening Kelly’s milk for her bottles, so that is what we’ve been doing.

As I thought about the whole sugar thing (being the analytical thinker I am ;), some things clicked for me…
For one, I thought, no wonder we use terms of endearment like,
“Sugar”, “Sweetie”, ”Cupcake”, “Honey”,
“Sugarplum”, and “Sweetheart” with the ones we love.

Now I know the reason: Sugar = Love!

You know what else I thought?
Poor old sugar!
I mean, sugar has gotten such a bad wrap. It seems almost taboo anymore, what with the way it rots our teeth and causes us to gain weight and all- but sugar is actually a good thing and has a purpose in our brain’s ability to form emotional bonds.
I think we have just gone too extreme with it, where we take way too much of it in, so we end up with the negative results you will often get with anything (that’s good) when used in excess.
But rather than swing from one extreme to another, where we either ban sugar from our diets completely, or eat too much of it to the point of making ourselves sick; what we need to do is recognize that sugar has a place and a purpose, and use it for just that.

Valentine’s Day is the perfect example of how much sugar really is an integral part of expressing love in our culture. I mean, what better way to say “I love you” than to give someone a box of chocolates?
I also love a freshly baked cake, or a batch of cookies- any time of year!

As a mom, that’s such a huge way I love to nurture my kids, and express my love to them, is to bake them something yummy. I do the same for Clint. My mom did it for us growing up, and now that I'm all grown up, she still makes a point to bake something sweet for us every time we go to visit her. My grandma used to do it too- whenever we went to visit her, she always had a freshly baked batch of chocolate chip cookies waiting for us in her cookie jar. I remember, I couldn't wait to her the clink of that cookie jar as I took the lid off to find it full of delicious chocolate chip cookies. Whether it was my mom or my grandma who baked us cookies, I just remember feeling special because they took the time to bake us something yummy.

One thing I hope my kids always know is that the key ingredient in everything I bake them, besides sugar, is love.