Okay, so. Sit down. I have to tell you what happened at my house this week, because I need someone to laugh at me and you’re the person for the job.

There are certain things you assume you know after having ten children. You know that silence is suspicious. You know that “I didn’t do it” usually means nobody has technically established who did it yet. You know never to trust a toddler carrying a marker. You know that when a child tells you their stomach hurts, you have about twelve seconds to figure out whether this is hunger, constipation, an elaborate bedtime dodge, or an impending biological disaster.

I have been doing this for more than two decades. I have ten children. TEN. At this point I feel like I should have some kind of honorary doctorate in bodily fluids.

And yet this week, my friend, I was humbled by a gummy bear.

Not even a regular gummy bear. A sugar-free gummy bear. Because apparently I looked at a bag that said ZERO SUGAR and thought, look at me, making responsible choices. Adorable. Absolutely precious. Reader, I was not making responsible choices.

The Bears Enter the Chat

The girls had sugar-free gummy bears, and Harper, being Harper, did not approach this snack with moderation or restraint. Harper apparently treated the situation like there was a trophy for finishing first, while Lynnlee had a more reasonable amount. Remember that detail. It matters later. We also had one of those red, white and blue slushy concoctions from Sonic, because I was apparently determined to run a full gastrointestinal experiment without realizing it.

Everything was fine. Until it wasn’t.

That night, Harper’s stomach started hurting. Then came the gas. And then came the exploding butt, and there is really no tasteful literary way to improve on that phrase. The child had exploding butt. Badly.

So now I’m doing what mothers do at eleven o’clock at night. What did she eat. Did anyone else eat it. Could it be the ice cream. The slushy. Is there a stomach bug going around. Do we have Gatorade. Do we have crackers. Why is there always so much poop.

Eventually Harper kept down some Gatorade and crackers and started looking a little better, and I thought, great, crisis easing. Except then Lynnlee announced her stomach didn’t feel great either, and she was gassy too. Wonderful. The opening act.

Mother of Ten Finally Reads the Damn Package

At this point I started retracing everything they’d eaten. Nobody else in the house was sick, and other people had eaten the same ice cream without consequence. But there was one thing both girls had eaten that nobody else had touched, and that was those damn sugar-free gummy bears.

So I pulled up the package, and there it was, right at the top of the ingredient list: maltitol syrup. Then I checked the nutrition information. Serving size, about nine gummy bears. Sugar alcohol per serving, nineteen grams.

Nineteen grams.

And then, because apparently Albanese had tried to warn me and I chose to live dangerously, there was a charming little line on the package that said consumption may cause stomach discomfort and or laxative effect, individual tolerance may vary.

Oh. OH. You mean the bag of candy I handed my small children comes with a disclaimer that basically says these bears may make you shit yourself? That seems like information we could put on the front, Albanese. Maybe right underneath ZERO SUGAR. Something like ZERO SUGAR, POSSIBLY ZERO CONTROL OF YOUR BOWELS. I’d have noticed that one.

Suddenly, the Evidence Was Damning

Then it all made sense. Maltitol is a sugar alcohol, and our bodies don’t absorb it particularly well, so whatever doesn’t get absorbed keeps traveling down into the intestines, pulling water along with it and getting fermented by gut bacteria, which produces a lovely little cocktail of gas, bloating, cramping, and diarrhea. Lots and lots of diarrhea. And apparently how bad it hits you depends on how much you eat.

Remember when I told you Harper ate more gummy bears than Lynnlee? Of course she did. Harper got the deluxe package. Lynnlee got general admission.

So there I was, somewhere after bedtime, handing Gatorade and crackers to my miserable little girl and slowly realizing I had not stumbled into a mystery stomach virus. I had weaponized candy. Against my own children. With my own hands.

But They’re Sugar-Free

And that’s the part that really gets me. I bought sugar-free gummy bears because somewhere in my tired mother brain I thought, well, that’s probably a little better. I was winning. Look at me, mother of the year, reducing unnecessary sugar, making marginally responsible candy decisions.

Nope. Regular gummy bears might give you a sugar rush. These apparently come with a complimentary colon cleanse.

And before anyone asks how a woman with ten children didn’t already know this, I don’t know. That’s the entire point. I’ve raised babies, toddlers, and teenagers. I’ve handled stomach bugs, ear infections, mystery fevers, stitches, broken bones, things stuck in places, things coming out of places, and illnesses that required me to Google phrases no mother should ever have to type into a search bar. I’ve kept tiny humans alive for more than twenty years, and apparently there was still one boss battle left waiting for me. Sugar-free gummy bears.

This Week’s Parenting Lesson

Harper is doing better. Lynnlee got the milder version, presumably because she ate fewer of the gastrointestinal grenades. And the remaining gummy bears have been relieved of duty. Permanently.

So here’s Thursday’s parenting wisdom from a woman who has ten children and, apparently, still requires adult supervision in the candy aisle. Read the fine print, especially when you’re buying something sugar-free, and especially when that fine print contains the words laxative effect. Because sometimes zero sugar doesn’t mean you made the healthier choice. Sometimes it means you’re going to spend the night handing a preschooler Gatorade while apologizing for accidentally poisoning her with a rainbow-colored bear.

Twenty-something years of parenting. Ten children. And I am still learning.

Although, to be fair, I bet I’ll read the back of the damn bag next time.