Parental Sacrifice - or not

Please excuse the lack of punctuation (run-ons  and double spacing - sorry but I am old and I just can't help it)...
The private,  inner,  underside that lurks in the mind of a mother... Thoughts  that shouldn't be thought much less uttered aloud... or on paper... or in cyberspace for that matter... either because they are very bad or just a pure waste of time.

There is a reason why I am willing to let my kids eat something that has recently expired or might be a little off rather than throwing myself on the sword, so to speak and eating it first.  Behind most seemingly illogical and scatterbrained maneuvers on my part (which are many) there are several carefully speculated calculations (although my husband doesn't believe this to be true).   I digress...     The reason is this:  First of all,  the probability of the food actually harming someone is a fraction of 1% and the kids don't know that  the food is expired and so they will eat it happily and not get the willies like I would even though I know intellectually that it won't hurt me. Probably.  Second,  if they get cheated by statistics and get some awful food poisoning and are in bed puking for a day at least they will have a healthy parent available to nurture them,  whereas if I am the one afflicted then the whole shebang shuts down, even though a part of me would welcome the bedrest (albeit preferably not that kind of bedrest).   Third,  my mother used to just cut or scoop the mold off something and hand it to us,  ignoring our cries of "it's moldy,  we're going to die" as if we had taken leave of our senses.   I assume most people don't way over think things like I do, and I am certain my mother did not either.

At any rate, this morning I did take the first bite of  the pink pancake that was made (without my knowledge) with the frozen raspberries that I have a vague memory of buying several years ago in an attempt to get more fruit into my toddlers by making some delicious concoction probably topped with whipped cream and the open container of maple syrup that someone took out of the back of their fridge and gave to me when they were moving last July  and that a kid  had rescued from the back of our fridge this morning  to put on the pancakes and so I know not the origin or age of the product - not out of motherly sacrifice,  but because my blood sugar rendered me desperate for sustenance.