healthy food and my reality

A couple of unrelated photos:

The kids are at a great age.  I took them to (the night formerly known as) enrichment and had them bring toys and books and videos and they camped out in a room while I helped out with the dinner.  I told Eva to pack some stuff and this is how she packed it.  

Samuel was eating lunch outside.  Lunch obviously had some apple slices in it.  He used them to make some boats for his pet worms in the back of his Tonka truck.

Okay.  The topic.

My home is no health food Utopia by all means.  I post these things to share the things I have learned, the changes we have made, and changes I hope to make.  

I know it isn't easy.  I know first hand that it isn't easy.  

Here is my day in food:

Cut up some fruit and eat it in the car.  I am late, of course.  

Meet my friend, and take a class and make a cute Black Apple doll.  Took longer for me to make it than I thought it would (I am still not done, have to fix the handicapable arm).  That means we didn't have time to eat lunch.  That means I was starving and far from home.  Poor me.   That means I hit the nearby cafe and try and find the least bad thing.  I end up with a bowl of Italian Wedding Soup.  

Run errands and am soon starving again.  Even with my almonds, fruit juice and fruit leather (that I keep on hand.  Uh, can you guess who is pregnant?), that soup didn't hold me over for long.  

Finish errands, stop at the Asian store for the best potsticker/ gyoza/ dumplings ever (well, outside of China, New York and Los Angeles).  They are in the freezer section and my mom said these beauties in a mysterious unmarked bag are made in LA and then shipped here.  Get some bok choy (my first time buying it) and oyster mushrooms (also my first time).  The dumplings are made with white flour.  But remember what I said, only eat it if it is totally worth it.  I always serve them with brown rice.  

Rush home.  Start making dinner.

Get a text from Karl (who had taken the kids to Home Depot):

I promised the kids a treat.  Sam wants McDonald's.  Eva is flexible.

I respond: 

I am making dinner

Karl:

Ok (and comes home)

The soup was good.  The kids tried the bok choy and mushrooms.  Didn't like them (remember, expose them 12 times) but did eat the tofu and drank the broth. The potstickers like always, were awesome.  

Was cleaning up the bok choy that I didn't use and found a tiny caterpillar.  Looked closer and found another.  Yep.  That is AFTER we all had big bowls of the soup.  I was trying to be adventurous and buy a new veggie.  I am so grossed out.  This is worse than finding half a worm in a apple.  I am mad, too, because that soup was good and I made enough for leftovers.  I am grossed out and mad.  And I'm telling you, I would never find a caterpillar (at least a distinguishable one.  Ew) in processed bag of Cheetohs or in a Happy Meal.  And if I did, I would have someone to get mad at and then maybe I would be rich.  

Karl and the kids still had their heart set on a treat.  Samuel doesn't want ice cream.  I go downstairs to the stash and get him a Kinderegg.  He takes it.  

I have a headache.  Maybe from my day of starving.  How wimpy is that?  Sorry, starving kids in India.  

They leave. Here are our texts (my thoughts are in parenthesis):

K- Sam is returning his treat for something else.  Guess... (what kid in their right mind returns a Kinderegg?)

C- Gum?  Please not a giant slushee vat of corn syrup and red 40 (they like Slurpees, big ones)

K- Nope, a Happy Meal (after I spend all that time making the healthy meal). At least we have gotten then to think of it as a dessert...

C- Leave it to you to negate my healthy food efforts.  Maybe you should take them to Walmart (I like Walmart as much as I like McD's) and buy them a bunch of plastic toys, too.

K- Great idea.  Will make sure they soft pliable plastic made by a 12 year old Bangledeshi child and I'll have them chew on them all they way home.

C-You know why Samuel asks you?  He knows he can get you to give in.

K-It was his choice of treat.  He ate the hamburger and some of the fries (remember, this is right after his big dinner.  This kid eats so much!).  Didn't want the milk (good because he is allergic).  Not great for him, but there is worse (true).  We have cut down a LOT and the kids have been pretty good about it but a break now and then in nice, in my opinion (true).  We were talking about it most of the day... (I totally understand obsessing about food and not stopping until I have it).

C-It's fine.  It's funny.  It's my reality.  I am going to blog it.  Then I'll feel better (and I already do!)

K- I think it's funny that McDonalds is his choice for a treat.  You actually should feel pretty good about that.

C- (Even though I get his point, and he is right and I do feel a tiny bit good about it, I say...) I would not feel good if he thought a beer was a treat.

K-True.  My point is that a lot of people think of McDonalds as food.  Our kids think of it as a dessert.

C-  I know you have a point.  BTW if/ when he asks for a beer one day you better say no.  

K- Lol

Karl came home and was proud that they chose regular milk over chocolate.  I was a brat and instead of being proud I pointed out that Samuel is allergic to milk.  I also told Karl that he gets to clean up the big huge booger (he has the grossest hugest most disgusting boogers because of milk) that Samuel wiped on the toilet (12 inches from the roll of toilet paper.  We have told him countless times to just use the toilet paper.  But he seems to prefer to smear them on the side of the toilet.  Gross, I know).  Usually I make Samuel clean it up.  I think the new rule is that whoever feeds Samuel the milk (and gets to appear as the good guy to Samuel) gets to clean up his giant booger smears.  

There you have it.  Real, huh?  Real and gross and funny.  If you are afraid to come to my house now, I understand.  I am tempted to not come here anymore.  Still figuring out a good balance with the food thing.  I actually think my family has been really great about it.  And if this was Karl's "thing" you better believe I would be taking my kids out for shakes (but not big slushee vats of high fructose corn syrup or McDonalds, I quit doing that way before this health movement of mine).  That's just how we roll...

and thank goodness there is always tomorrow.

Oh, and I feel compelled to share that as I finish up this post I am also finishing up the second half of Karl's chocolate cashew shake.  And the only justification I can give is that in my former days this would have been my very own shake and I would have eaten the whole thing. 

Okay, I stopped eating it. I thought about it and I was finishing the shake because it was easier to eat it than to walk over the fridge and put it away.  Nice Karl, he put it away and admitted he gave the rest to me because he didn't want to keep eating and he didn't want to walk over to the fridge and put it away, too.  Funny.  I am not a lost cause, after all.  A little bit lazy, maybe, but I still like healthy food best.