Follow-Up Observations

1) Robins - The 100+ robins are still happily gorging on the holly berries at my house.  The holly tree is almost completely stripped of berries. Consequently, the robins are very, very plump now.  Plump and complacent.  The robins used to scatter when we'd open a door or Ben would scream at them from the window.  Now, they're so plump they just sit on the ground and continue to eat berries, nary a glance in our direction.  I'm not sure if they are too full to move or intoxicated.  I did a little research on roosts of robins, and it's been reported that robins can actually get a little tipsy on fermented berries.  Perhaps they aren't full, but drunk?  I haven't seen any flying crooked or tipping over or anything yet....

2) Robins Part 2 - Unfortunately, what goes in must come out. The unpleasant reality of having 100s of robins at the house is that our driveway, cars, sidewalks, and front yard are covered in droppings.  I don't mean a splash here or there, but literally covered.  I've gotten hit myself once (ew!), and Scott now runs for the car.  It's just plain gross, and I have a pretty high tolerance for gross.  The top of the car looks like it has brown, seedy icing on it.  Quite disgusting, and I will spare you a photo.  I have tremendously enjoyed the robins' visit, but at this point I'm ready for them to find another tree and the minivan needs to hit the carwash. 

3) Food Dye  -  Lastly, and most importantly, my food dye experiment results.  You might remember a previous post I wrote about my experiment of removing food dyes, especially Red 40, from Caroline's diet to see if there was a behavioral/emotional improvement.  I was very skeptical about this experiment.  Skeptical, but hopeful. 

Wow, though, what a difference!  Caroline's behavior has improved.  Really improved.  No more 20 minute tantrums.  None.  I can reason with her and keep her from getting upset when she is on the brink of going over the edge.  She is better able to deal with daily schedule disruptions, etc.  Sure, she gets mad/sad/jealous (insert emotion here), but the emotions are at a more reasonable level. I thought perhaps this was just wishful thinking from me, but the grandparents corroborated my feelings this weekend.

I was worried about how the classroom Valentine's Day party would go, since all Valentine's candy is red.  She came home from school with a whole bag full of things I'd rather her not eat since they all contain Red 40:  red lollipops, conversation hearts, red fruit chewies, candy bracelets, etc. I explained to her that she could not eat them, but suggested that we walk to Wawa and we could pick out 2 chocolate bars to trade for the red candy and she could have small pieces of the chocolates after dinner.  Caroline's reaction? She cried for a little while, not angry crying but sad crying.  Then, said, "OK mom let's go to Wawa."  What?  That's ok?  She likes being a "good girl Caroline now" (her words).  

There's no way to really know if the food dye is the problem without putting it back into her diet and seeing how she behaves.  Maybe we just started treating her differently.  Regardless, we're on such a good roll now, I don't think I'm going to change anything.  At some point I'm sure she'll get some food dye outside the house and we'll see what happens then.