How to get your child to eat healthy foods

Copy Kids Parrot

Get­ting kids started on eat­ing right is so impor­tant to their long term health and well-being.  The eat­ing habits they develop in the for­ma­tive first years are the basis of how they will make food choices well into the future.

As we see more and more kids being raised on processed foods and barely being able to iden­tify what whole foods look like, it is even more impor­tant that we instill healthy habits as early as 6 months of age when they begin to eat table food.

I first found the DVD Copy-Kids on a mom blogger’s web­site.  I was intrigued to find a DVD that claimed to help kids to eat fresh fruits and veg­eta­bles. As soon as the video arrived I popped it into the machine for my kids.

As I watched the video I have to admit I was skep­ti­cal.  There are 12 chap­ters, each one about a single

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November 27th, 2012 | Category: Health, Intuitive Eating, Motherhood | Leave your comment

Heartbreak of Parenting

In pre­vi­ous posts I dis­cussed how my daugh­ter has dif­fi­culty with her speech.  She has an amaz­ing intel­lect but she has trou­ble form­ing words coher­ently.  We haven’t been able to find a phys­i­cal cause for her speech dif­fi­cul­ties and were con­cerned about her con­tin­ued delays.  We decided to put her into pre-school to get her extra help with her speech even though our long-term goals are to home­school both children.

About a week ago, I was sit­ting with my daugh­ter while she had a snack.  She turned to me and said, “Mommy are you happy I can talk now?”  Some­times I for­get how heart­break­ing it is to be a par­ent.  How do you explain to a child that it goes beyond hap­pi­ness?  It’s about her con­fi­dence and giv­ing her the tools to suc­ceed no matter what.

Last night as I was read­ing the bed­time sto­ries, she broke my heart all over

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September 29th, 2011 | Tags: , , | Category: Motherhood | 13 people had their say - chime in!

And it begins

Kids going to school

I just dropped my kids off for their first day of preschool.  It was so hard to get them to sep­a­rate and go to dif­fer­ent classes.  Their excite­ment matched my trep­i­da­tion.  I woke this morn­ing with all my fears over­flow­ing.  Would the teach­ers shame my daugh­ter because she picks her nose when she is ner­vous?  My son gets so excited he has trou­ble hear­ing (read lis­ten­ing to) peo­ple.  Would the teach­ers dis­ci­pline him for being dis­tracted?  Would they make friends or feel iso­lated?  Will they be OK being sep­a­rated for the first time in their short lives?

Being a mom breaks your heart every moment.  It’s a con­stant shed­ding of wants, dreams, desires and hopes.  Let­ting go of every­thing we “think” we want/need or what is best for the chil­dren.  In three years of par­ent­ing I have lost more ego than 11 years of prac­tic­ing Zen med­i­ta­tion.  A Zen Mas­ter uses

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September 7th, 2011 | Tags: , , | Category: Motherhood | 8 people had their say - chime in!

Preparing for Hurricane Irene

Yes­ter­day Hur­ri­cane Irene reeked havoc up the east­ern coast of the United States.  Liv­ing in south­ern New Eng­land we were in the path of the hur­ri­cane so we took prepa­ra­tions seriously.

We pre­pared by:

Buy­ing bot­tled water Buy­ing bat­ter­ies for all of our lanterns and flash­lights Filled up the bath tubs in case we needed water for the toi­lets and clean­ing Stuffed our freez­ers full of ice to keep them cold for up to 5 days Pre­pared meals we could eas­ily eat cold or make on the gas grill Pre­pared a room with­out win­dows to gather in if the winds were too destruc­tive Set up pumps in the base­ment to man­age any flood­ing we might have from the pond behind our house Har­vested every­thing we could from the gar­den Went to the library to stock up on movies (in case we had power) and books (in case we didn’t) Talked to the kids about what

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August 29th, 2011 | Tags: , | Category: Motherhood | 4 people had their say - chime in!

Adding So You Think You Can Dance to the DVR

Dance_Wallpaper_Melanie_1024x768

I under­stand the real­ity TV craze to some degree.  If you really think about it we are a voyeuris­tic soci­ety even if we refuse to admit it.  We like to get a look into other people’s lives.  At heart we all have a bit of Gladys Kravitz (come on, don’t tell me you don’t remem­ber Bewitched and Samantha’s nosy neighbor).

I will admit my favorite tele­vi­sion shows have everyone’s favorite chef we love to hate, Gor­don Ram­sey.  I DVR Hell’s Kitchen, Kitchen Night­mares and Mas­terChef.  I love the Food Net­work chan­nel.  Not really real­ity TV but still tele­vi­sion based on real­ity rather than fic­tion.  These are all related to my love of food.

I even tried to avoid the whole Amer­i­can Idol thing.  If it weren’t for my in-laws vis­it­ing three years ago I would have suc­ceeded but they had to watch and now so do I.  Every year I swear

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August 10th, 2011 | Tags: | Category: Motherhood | 6 people had their say - chime in!

Getting where I thought I would never go

At a young age we imag­ine how we see our life turn­ing out.  We gather ideas and infor­ma­tion and begin to cre­ate a story we want to make hap­pen.  As we move through life some things hap­pen just as we planned.  Other times we might get to a sim­i­lar place on a path we never suspected.

As a child I always wanted to be a teacher.  I would gather hand­outs at the end of the school year and use them to play “school.”  It was the only game I ever wanted to play.  Inter­est­ingly enough, when my mom asked what I wanted to study in col­lege, psy­chol­ogy was the first thing that came out of my mouth.  Some­where along the way the idea of being a teacher was lost, or so I thought.

I’ve stud­ied many things in my years and psy­chol­ogy was always my first love.  But I ultimately

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August 7th, 2011 | Tags: , , , | Category: Motherhood | 12 people had their say - chime in!

Birdies learning to fly

Bird's Nest

Every year since we’ve lived in this house, finches have tried to build a nest in the roof over our porch.  Twice we have found the dead babies on our porch, prob­a­bly ousted by another bird.  Once a chick’s heart was still beat­ing.  It took me a cou­ple of days to get over that one.  Poor birdie.

This year we have been watch­ing and lis­ten­ing for three months as the birds built their nest and filled it with lit­tle eggs.  We were rewarded with the sound of lit­tle chirps two months ago.  This week we could see the babies stand­ing on the edge of the nest call­ing for their next meal.

Ear­lier today we were hav­ing a snack on the porch hav­ing just got­ten our first water­melon from the CSA share (more on this later).  I kept hear­ing a knock­ing sound over our head.  I couldn’t fig­ure out what was making

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August 5th, 2011 | Tags: | Category: Inspiration, Mind Body Spirit, Motherhood | One comment so far

Too late for the potty…

We are deep into potty train­ing and I made a tac­ti­cal error in the whole process.  About a year ago we attempted potty train­ing by the “get rid of the dia­pers method.”  After the third day, I couldn’t do it any longer.  The acci­dents were mak­ing me want to rage.  In my defense I wasn’t ter­ri­bly grounded at the time.  One thing I do know about the whole process is that mak­ing potty train­ing stress­ful for the kids can have life long repercussions…as well as halt­ing the whole process.  So I decided to go with the whole wait and see method to pre­vent doing last­ing dam­age to my children’s psyche.

Thus my error.  Now I am try­ing to potty train with 3.5 year olds.  I am doing this now because we are miss­ing out on activ­i­ties I would like the kids to be involved in because they aren’t potty trained. 

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July 21st, 2011 | Tags: , , , | Category: Motherhood | 7 people had their say - chime in!

Why?

Since my twins turned 3.5, we have been deal­ing with many new things.  The least of which is the con­stant “Why?”.  Par­ents remem­ber this age with clar­ity.  Noth­ing more would make us hap­pier than the end of a string of why ques­tions.  Make that times two and the con­ver­sa­tion can seem endless.

A typ­i­cal con­ver­sa­tion goes some­thing like this.

Mom: “You need to stay in the dri­ve­way with your bike.”

Z: “Why?”

Mom: “It’s not safe.”

Z: “Why?”

Mom: “The cars can’t see you.”

Z: “Why?”

Mom: “Because you are small.”

A: “My yike small.”

Mom:  “You will grow up soon.”

Z: “Why?”

Mom: “Because lit­tle boys and girls grow up to be big boys and girls.”

Z: “I like being a small boy.  I don’t want to get big.”

Mom: “Well you can be small for now but if you eat good food and get lots of sleep you will grow up.”

Z: “I don’t want to grow up. 

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July 12th, 2011 | Tags: , , | Category: Motherhood | 4 people had their say - chime in!

And The Little Ones Too

 

Another Blo­gette I feel a spe­cial affin­ity for is Ash­ley of And The Lit­tle Ones Too.  Ash­ley is mom to two beau­ti­ful boys Noah and Hay­den and wife to Paul “the apple of their eye”.  She is a proud baby-wearing mama shar­ing about her life in a bi-racial fam­ily.  Any­one who pro­motes baby wear­ing is an amaz­ing mom in my book.  The love and secu­rity this lifestyle con­veys to a child is truly invaluable.

As an aspir­ing pho­tog­ra­pher she reg­u­larly posts pic­tures of her fam­ily and their adven­tures.  When I look at her pho­tographs I see the love in her fam­ily so clearly.  It’s won­der­ful to wit­ness the hap­pi­ness she is creating.

Her newest ven­ture is a New Food Fri­day Blog Hop to pre­mier on July 8, 2011.  She will be try­ing new recipes once a month and post­ing a review and hope­fully pic­tures.  There will

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July 7th, 2011 | Tags: , | Category: Blogging, Motherhood | 5 people had their say - chime in!
 
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