For those of you who don’t know my family very well, let me tell you: we are addicted to sugar. Guests in our house would think we ran a bakery with the number of sweets we have in our kitchen at any given time. And the freezer? It’s always stocked with cartons of ice cream, Klondike bars, ice cream sandwiches, frozen pies, etc. I think it’s safe to say we keep the local Baskin Robbins in business. When I was 16 and looking for a part time job my Dad wanted me to apply to Baskin Robbins for his own selfish reasons. I refused because I did not want my ice cream scooping arm (my right arm) to get bigger and more muscular than my left arm. I thought I would look like some sort of freak walking around with one arm bigger than the other from serving all that ice cream. Plus I was in high school, and you know kids, they can be so cruel.  I didn’t want to be the subject of teasing.

This is how I would look had I worked at Baskin Robbins

Here is our freezer. And this picture was taken BEFORE we restocked for the week

In addition to our love of frozen treats, someone is always making cookies around here, and from scratch (we don’t eat that “store bought crap” as my dad refers to it). It is an unspoken rule in our house that if you make cookies you have to let everyone eat some of the dough before you bake it.  It doesn’t matter if someone isn’t home when the cookies are made. You just put the dough in a bowl in the fridge so it is waiting for them upon their return. I don’t care if that person is out of the country – they get cookie dough. If you make cookies and don’t save a family member some dough, you’re just being a bitch. Plain and simple. Consuming raw eggs doesn’t scare us. The chance of getting Salmonella poisoning? It’s worth the risk. And to keep up with the cookie demand we have been forced to make the “fruit drawer” in our basement fridge the “chocolate chip drawer.”

Who needs apples or oranges when you have chocolate chips?

If you are craving a candy bar, no need to stop at a gas station or the local Walgreens. Just come into our pantry and you’ll find what you need: Reeses, Kit Kats, Crunch Bars, Butterfingers, and a Kelly family favorite, the 100 Grand Bar. A candy bar that is so underrated it makes me sad. It’s the perfect combination of chocolate and caramel. This one flies off the pantry shelf.

Now, our eating habits weren’t always this way. When we were kids my parents fed us as if it was still the Great Depression. I keep telling them they could have written a book on “how to keep your children from becoming obese.” Get Michelle Obama to endorse that crap and they would be set for life. She loves keeping kids skinny. I bet she would even implement the Kelly family eating habits on Sasha and Malia.

Our dinner was given to us on small salad plates and we ate our cereal out of tiny, old margarine containers. (I guess money was tight back in the day and we couldn’t afford real bowls) Getting up for seconds at dinner was like doing the walk of shame. But the most traumatizing part of it all was that my Dad use to buy reduced fat Oreos. I can still taste the awful sugar free cream filling in my mouth from time to time. It sends a chill down my spine just thinking about it.

Somewhere along the way (probably circa 2007) we made the jump from reduced fat Oreos to Double Stuffed, and we never looked back. Eating cereal from tiny margarine bowls? That’s a thing of the past. Now we pretty much eat any kind of sweet we want for breakfast and we justify it by likening it to a donut. Our theory is that you can trace any sweet that you eat for breakfast back to the donut.  Cake for breakfast? It’s just like a donut! Ice cream for breakfast? Well let’s see, at birthday parties you have ice cream with cake, and cake is just like a donut, so go ahead and eat that ice cream at 9 in the morning! I was once challenged on eating pudding for breakfast and this was my response: If you look at the pudding container, what is one of the first ingredients listed? Milk – a dairy product. Ice cream is a dairy product that you have with cake, and cake is just like a donut! Done. Cookies for breakfast? Please, that’s like the donut’s third cousin, totally acceptable.

Overcoming the freshman 15 was one thing, but overcoming the “I’ve returned from college and am now living at home” 15 is a whole new battle. A battle that I am losing every day.Don’t worry though I asked for a gym membership for Christmas to help shed some of this extra insulation. Also, my sisters and I have made a pact to resist the chocolate temptation and start eating healthy. We’ll start…tomorrow…