A Slippery, Sugary Slope

I have been thinking a lot about food lately.  Andy and I are not always the healthiest of eaters, but we are by far not as bad as we could be.  We hardly ever eat fast food, we include a lot of fruits and vegetables, we are eating whole grain bread, etc.  I made all of my own baby food.  I don't say that to brag (although I am pretty proud of it) or to make anyone feel bad who didn't make their own.  But I am kind of happy that my kids never ate any food out of a jar.  Puffs, yes, crunchies, yes, but no pureed beef unless Mommy cooked it and pureed it.  They still eat a lot of fruits and vegetables.  They like peas.  Broccoli.  Every kind of fruit imaginable. 

But we've run into a Cheerio situation.  We have always served regular cheerios as an "appetizer" for breakfast, mainly just a handful to keep them busy while I get something else ready.  They alternately eat them or throw them on the floor for the dog, but they have always enjoyed them.  Ben had even been asking for second and third helpings after he finished everything else. 

But Mommy and Daddy eat multi-grain cheerios.  Sounds healthier, right?  Should be.  But I looked, and the sugar content is a lot higher (not as high as Pop-Tarts, another parental indulgence).  Someone, I won't name names, shared their multi-grain cheerios one morning, and now they are hooked.  They will ask for more multi-grains (signing it, saying it, pointing, grunting, whining) every morning now.  Sometimes at dinner.  I've been known to give them Animal Cookies to keep them quiet, and we share some of our not so healthy treats.  I am wondering at what point it's crossing the line and taking away any of my street cred from being "that mom" who made all her baby food, breastfed, and uses cloth diapers. 

We have never taken them to the crack addiction that is McDonalds.  But they love Chik-fil-a.  We don't feed them a lot of crap, but tonight at dinner I had to really push Ben to eat his pizza.  I refuse on multiple principles to buy any of the food marketed to toddlers.  They eat what we eat.  I don't want my kids to grow up to meet the ridiculously high childhood obesity statistics.  I want them to love their fruits and vegetables always.  But I don't want cookies to be forbidden, or to deny them chocolate cake at a birthday party.  I don't want to reward them with food, but I want to be able give them pretzel sticks to make them quiet when we are out somewhere.  It's a slippery slope.  I don't want them to become hooked on sugar and sweets, but since we are not the world's best role models, I hope we don't set them up for failure.  We do buy organic milk so that counts for something, right?

I am sure that there was something else I had on my mind, but when I was feeling like a pizza pusher at dinner, this topic came front and center.  I'll try to remember the other thing I had to say.  On to this week's project photos - kind of a weird mix, and not all baby pictures.  What's up with that?

September 13 - This is Murphy.  I know he's been photographed quite a bit, but not talked about in awhile.  Murphy is my baby, I adopted him when he was only about 5 weeks old from a shelter.  He lived with me in college, through an apartment, a townhouse, a condo, my parents house, and has adapted very well to the changes in our life (you know, I've had roommates, we got a dog, we got a husband, we got a cat, we got two new humans).  He won over my non-cat loving husband when we were dating.  He's getting older now, he's 11 as of August.  I need to get him to the vet, he's been sneezing with lots of snot, and today he was wheezing.  I'm scared to take him.  I'm scared something might be wrong with him.  And then I think I'm a wuss for not taking the poor guy to the doctor. 

September 14 -  We met up with two of my MoM friends at the zoo.  Between the three of us, we had 7 kids (little Miss L is not visible in the photo, the eldest and only singleton of the bunch).  I think it was probably because the zoo wasn't very crowded, but we really didn't get many comments or questions for women together with three sets of twins.  Although the first lady did assume we were all sisters.  It's nice to hang out with them, and I think there is some understanding in hanging out with other Moms of Multiples that you don't always get with singleton moms.  Don't get me wrong, all of my friends with kids have been great, and everyone always lends a hand.  But with other MoMs, no one bats an eye if you need to chase down one child while abandoning another, we share snacks and wipes, we change diapers anywhere we can, and it's nice to be with people who understand.  Here's my best group shot of the day.  It went a lot better than when they were out of the strollers. 

September 15 -  See Ben.  See Lily.  See Ben riding Lily.  Sigh.  Our dog, Lily, is the best kid dog we could have raised.  She doesn't mind the kids doing just about anything to her.  She kisses them, lets them climb on her, tug on her, use her as a stepstool to get on the couch, anything they want.  Today, I saw something that made me think that she is watching out for them.  We had an open house today so the gates were down.  I was upstairs with Maggie and she made a bolt for the stairs.  They are usually good about waiting, but I know she wanted to go downstairs.  Lily was laying about two steps down, where she doesn't usually hang out, like she was guarding the steps so no one fell.  Good girl.

September 16 - This is Maggie modeling not only last years' model of sunglasses, but her new big girl hair.  We decided to just go ahead and trim her bangs since they were always hanging in her face unless I clipped them back.  I had asked Andy if he thought we needed to take her somewhere, but he was confident we could do it.  My instructions were "just above her eyebrows" which translated I guess to "an inch above her eyebrows" which I think is just a little short.  They will grow.  I know they will.  They are out of her face now which I know is good.  But she looks so much older or something.  And I kind of wish we had taken her somewhere official to get it done. 

September 17 - This would be a good Wordless Wednesday submission - the shirt says it all!



September 18 - For my bachelorette party, Andy's aunt had given me a collection of panties that would "last throughout the years".  I did the same for my friend Dawn on Saturday, and I thought it came out adorable.  I even wrote my own poem :-)  The last pair, the leopard briefs?  Can you believe they were still available on the JCPenney clearance rack?  For $1.97 you too could maybe find a pair?

September 19 - This one has a story.  We had an open house today.  In addition to the straightening of baby toys, cleaning of the bathrooms, mopping the kitchen, bed making, etc. that always goes on in last minute cleaning, it seems like my husband always has some project on the list I hadn't heard about until the day before or day of the open house or showing.  This time it was landscaping.  We had noticed yesterday that the flowers in the whiskey barrel on our porch had died.  This is not an unusual thing for us, we are not great gardeners.  So last night Andy mentions that he wants to run to Lowe's to buy some flowers for the whiskey barrel, some mulch to put in the beds, and just to clean up the front a little.  He took Ben this morning, came back with the aforementioned items and this plant. 



It's a beautiful plant and it was on clearance.  About a week ago, we had an incident where Maggie knocked over the full length mirror in our bedroom and broke it.  It was an accident waiting to happen.  I had mentioned to Andy that we needed something to go in that corner.  He came back with this plant.  I believe my first reaction (in my head) was "Are you f-ing kidding me?".  What came out was more like, "Really, in our bedroom?  Does that seem like a good idea?  That can't go in our bedroom."  He didn't quite see why.  I guess he didn't automatically have flashes of toddlers throwing topsoil.  I've seen how fast they can empty the bookshelf or the drawers while I brush my teeth, or go in their room to gather laundry.  I don't want to have to contain them in all parts of the house.  We need to get every room to the point that it is toddler friendly, and somehow, this plant in our bedroom?  Doesn't seem like a step towards the positive.

Since my blog is now googleable, I'm getting some new visitors.  Hi new visitors!  I love seeing that I'm getting hits for IVF, or MFI, and I hope that someone finds something in our story helpful.  But whoever was looking for the naked toddler beach pictures, or something about men diapers?  Don't let the door hit you on the way out.