Sunday, March 4, 2012

When your dreams and reality butt heads...

In my quest for adopting a whole, healthy, lifestyle, I have been given quite a challenge. I am on a mission to find the healthy foods and snacks that will actually excite my almost 10 year old daughter. My 6 year old son is easy. He'll eat pretty much anything I put in front of him and with the amount of energy he is constantly exerting, he eats A LOT of it! The girl, on the other hand, can be a little hard to impress and she loves her food to be salty, sweet, creamy, cheesy, or bready! She is a young woman! Of course those things are delicious! Being a Taurus and a pre-teen, she is naturally resistant to change and not inclined to give up on her position just because mom bounces around like a weirdo talking about how fun it is to be active and healthy! This child is amazingly bright and she has reasoning skills beyond her years. I just have to remain aware that my dream of her getting excited about my interests may never happen. Understanding that there are many benefits to healthy living doesn't change the fact that she wants fruit by the foot in her lunch box like her friends get. To a 10 year old that matters. I want to turn her on to healthy food in a positive way that feels like an improvement rather than a restriction. But I don't want to be cooking separate meals for each family member based on their level of healthy habits. I cringe when I hear her say to my son, “Mom is going to say no because it’s not healthy.” in her best pre-teen voice. This isn’t supposed to feel like punishment!

For an after dinner treat one evening, I made a banana and avocado milkshake! (recipe) I put it in cups that you can't see through with a lid and straw (tricky, tricky) The kids drank it without even knowing what was in it and they loved it! Eventually Sophia asked me, “Is this the banana and milk and ice shake I asked you to make?” I said, “Well, kind of. It does have one other thing in it... an avocado.” She’s said, “Avocado??” Then she paused, took another drink, smiled her sly smile and said, “Well… It’s delicious! Maybe I do like avocados but only when you put it in with other things.” I beamed. I can handle that. Maybe she’s going to get into this healthy eating thing yet! She even had a second helping of Brussels sprouts that night!