Last night I made my list of things to do today, and it was a rather long one, but today hasn’t gone as planned at all.  Let me back track to yesterday and maybe even a little beyond that.

Actually we’ve been having some issues with Ellie for awhile when it comes to hyperactivity (beyond the normal toddler stuff) and extreme tantrums.  She doesn’t cause herself bodily harm, but she will definitely try to cause harm to other things around her.  When she’s pitching one of these “mega tantrums” she will kick, punch, and throw things at whomever or whatever is in her path.

She’s always on the go, but some days she’s much worse than normal.  If she’s a 5 on most days she’s more like a 30 on these extreme days.  When it first began happening she was taking Zyrtec, and the fits were happening in the middle of the night.  It was like she was having night terrors, but according to most “experts” she would’ve been too young to have night terrors yet.  Still, the doctor took her off the Zyrtec and switched her to Children’s Dye Free Benadryl after a few other prescription trial and errors, and the night time fits seemed to come to an end for the most part.

As she grew older and more foods were introduced to her diet we slowly watched the fits and extreme hyperactivity return.  It was obvious to both of us her moods changed drastically based on certain foods.  Even though the doctor claimed taking away red food dye was an “old wives tale” I did it anyway.  The improvement was drastic.  Ellie has been on a *mostly* red dye free diet for a few months, and we haven’t had any extreme temper tantrums. 

Until yesterday.

I was on the phone with my Dad, and Ellie got on the phone and said “Papa Clyde bring me ICEE! I want green ICEE!”  He laughed and told her he didn’t know where to find a green ICEE, but he would bring her an ICEE. He stopped by Burger King and got her a small Cherry ICEE, and against my better judgment I let her drink it. 

And now I really regret that decision.  Let me note that I normally let her have a small amount of Coke ICEE as a reward for using the potty, or we’ll use our snow cone maker at home to make her a slushie with syrups I have puchased without red dye. If we buy a slushie at a gas station I always choose a flavor that is least likely to have red dye (although you’d be surprised what contains red dye), and she’s ok.  We can rule out the sugar overload as being the culprit because the only thing that changed is the red dye.  Drinking that small Cherry ICEE was red dye overload for her, and she turned into a totally different kid. 

She wasn’t just bouncing off the walls.  She was mean.  She pitched multiple extreme tantrums where she threw things, screamed until she lost her voice, banged her head on the floor, and tried to kick holes in the wall behind her bed.  She bit, slapped, and kicked at me when I would attempt to pick her up.  She pulled the arms off one of her hard plastic baby dolls, and threw them at my head.  I’ve had to take the arms off those dolls before to drain water when she’s put them in the tub, and it takes a lot of strength from me to pop an arm out!  When she finally went to sleep well after midnight she woke up every 45 minutes or so in a screaming rage. 

Today has been better, but we’ve both been so absolutely exhausted.  My Nana wanted to see her this morning, so I let her go to Nana’s house mostly because I was too mentally exhausted to argue.  Bubba had been hiding in the utility room most of the night, so he finally came out and curled up on his pet bed to get some uninterrupted sleep, and I knew I needed to do the same. After I napped away a bit of the exhaustion I headed next door to pick Ellie up from Nana’s, and we discussed last night’s events.  She told me how things had gone at her house, and although better Ellie was still acting out and pitching tantrums over a few things.  Then she refused to use the potty at all and would purposely pee her pants (after informing my Nana she was going to do so).  We don’t know if that’s connected or not…you never know with a potty training toddler although she’s been daytime trained for awhile now. 

The bottom line is we both agreed red dye is a no no!  I don’t care what the doctor said.  I grew up with kids who had reactions to red dye.  I know other parents, especially with children with ADHD, who have told me red dye made a big difference, and now I’ve seen it first hand in my own child.  Ellie’s diet will now be completely red dye free if I can help it!