My husband started cleaning the kitchen cabinets yesterday. Oh, I should be happy. See, we were plagued by these little nasty spice bugs.

But he is unable to complete a task (either due to his Parkinson’s Disease or his maleness) so he left the entire contents of the kitchen cabinet spread out on the kitchen table. “Okay,” I thought, “no problem, I’ll put things back or throw them out.”

And then, I noticed something about the contents on the table. We have a heck of a lot of hot cocoa. We have it from William Sonoma and from Swiss Miss. We have the fancy chocolate sprinkles from Neuhaus.

We have it no longer. We had it. I threw it all out. All six kinds of hot cocoa and four kinds of chocolate sprinkle-stuff. It was just too much. And I’m afraid that my accruing so much hot cocoa might say something about me and my parenting style. I indulge my kids too much.

I mean, does everyone find a ton of hot cocoa when they clean out their kitchen cabinets?

I casually know an older woman whose husband had Parkinson’s Disease and she said her one failing as a parent – when her children were little and her husband was declining – was that she spoiled them. When they were adults, her children did not thank her for indulging them. In fact, they reprimanded her. They wanted boundaries and limits, she waffled and was permissive.

She probably gave them lots and lots of hot cocoa.

As a parent of kids whose dad is ill, I admit I feel sorry for my kids. I want them to be warm and not cold. Hot cocoa is delicious after a day of sledding. But I try too hard. I buy them too much. There have got to be ways of warming the soul and keeping the cabinet free from clutter – ways that might not include chocolate.