We are officially one week into Lent. I’m not a religious person by any means, but I’ve always like the idea of giving something up that you may be dependent on for personal growth reasons. I haven’t observed Lent in the past, well, ten or so years. A few weeks ago, my oldest asked me about it, and we decided to observe it as a family.

Here’s what we gave up:

Hubby- falling asleep on the couch and beer.

My oldest- sugary cereal (his choice)

My daughter- her sing-a-long DVDs (I wasn’t going to enforce this on her, but I’m definitely enjoying the lack of Wiggles music in the house. It hasn’t at all stopped her from singing though.)

My younger son- fighting with/harassing his sister and a Pokemon doll. (The deal is he can get the doll back when its clear that he won’t be mean to her anymore.)

Me…. chocolate and raising my voice.

Forty days without chocolate!!! That makes me want to…raise my voice! Arggh. The whole point is the fact that I love dark chocolate, maybe a bit too much. Not eating it for a month should be a healthy move right? But it’s not like I ate it compulsively. If anything this week without my occasional chocolate is just making me crave it more. Now I’m taking it out on vanilla ice cream, which is probably worse for my weight. Oh well.

Not chocolate!!!

On the brighter side, I haven’t raised my voice once! Not even when my youngest violated lent the day after by throwing his sister’s Barbie down the stairs. I did a bit of a yelp, caught myself, took a deep breath, then explained to him that if he did that again, during lent or ever, there would be serious consequences. I’ve never spoken to my kids in such a controlled, yet chastising manner. The boy went down the stairs, picked up the doll and put it back in his sister’s room. Who knew not yelling would be more effective? Thanks Lent!