The Fruit Snack Incident

I'm not a very exciting grocery shopper. Every week I clip coupons, plan a rough menu for the week, make a precise list for the grocery store, and buy only the items on my list. This system has worked well for our family, and since I rarely buy junk food, on the weekends or a special night if we're craving chips, ice cream or cookies, we have to leave the house to get them.

Last week on an exciting curtain shopping trip at Menard's Mark picked up a box of Finding Nemo fruit snacks.  I don't buy fruit snacks, just like I don't buy fruit roll ups, pop tarts, teddy grahams, or granola bars. I only recently started buying animal crackers and goldfish as they are the only foods allowable for kids at the YMCA, but otherwise, most of these foods just seem too commercialized for me and have the nutritional value of a Snicker bar. But, like any parent, both Mark and I thought a little treat wouldn't hurt anything. 

These small packages of gelatinous fish have caused more problems than I'd care to recall. Luke wants fruit snacks for breakfast, lunch and dinner, while I'd prefer to keep them as a reward tool for good behavior, using the toilet properly, or as a bribe to ensure total cooperation. The situation is now out of control. I have to keep close guard on the cupboard to prevent Luke from climbing the shelves, and when I'm not looking he'll drag a chair over to the cupboard and sneak the fruit snacks off. When I catch him in the act I face the wrath of a scorned two year old and for twenty minutes pay the consequences while I try to calm down, discipline, and then assure the temperamental boy back to rationality.

I don't know what the answer is in this situation. Do I need to completely eliminate sugary foods from our lives and only have them appear in Easter baskets and Christmas stockings? Or, do I make them casual fare, nothing to make a fuss over, and avoid the temptation they pose in the cupboard? Either way I'm in over my head and at war with a Clown Fish.