Help Yourself Please!

I had realized tonight that I had not updated this blog in about a week.  All of my free time this week has been spent writing an article for Nanny Magazine, and there honestly has not been a lot of free time this week.  The boys managed to nap a total of two days this week, and they are sleeping very poorly.  I am not complaining one bit; I know that in a blink these years are going to be behind us, and I will most likely miss it.

One of the resolutions for this year was to have my family live healthier.  I don't want healthier eating to just be for myself; that would be counterproductive, and send the wrong message to the boys.  Instead, I want personal health and healthy choices to be a priority for all of us.  I also have the upper hand in this resolution; I am the one that does the meal planning and grocery shopping.  :)  With that being said, here are some of the things we have done, 20 days into the new year, to better ourselves.

Self Service Snack Drawer
I have a strong belief that teaching the boys to be self sufficient, and responsible for their choices and actions now, will benefit them down the road.  This does not mean that it is a free for all in our house...and to be honest, anybody that knows our family will tell you it is the opposite.  It means that we have a structure, and I have now made it so that when they are hungry and want a snack, they can grab their own healthy snack out of the refrigerator.

To make the idea work, I cleaned out the bottom drawer of our fridge, and have deemed it available for only Pierce and Carter.  Inside this drawer they have the freedom to choose a healthy snack that has already been picked out, by them, at the grocery store.  Some of the items they love to have in there are greek yogurts, grapes, cheese slices, melon, hummus, carrots, and red peppers.  I put individual size servings of everything into their re-useable snack bags, and they are responsible for putting the empties in the sink.  Not only have they stopped asking me a million times a day for a snack, but I am able to sneak in more fruits and veggies this way.

Meal Plan Together
I haven't actually sat down with Dan and done a meal plan.  It is better to go buy the vegetarian stuff, cook it up, and then have him eat it, than to argue ahead of time about why there is no meat on the shopping list (I love you Dan).  However, I have enlisted the boys to help me.  Carter goes through the sales circular and picks out the fruits and veggies he wants for the weekly snacks, while Pierce will look at recipes online with me to see the pictures of things he wants to eat to eat for meals.  This works in many ways.  It has always been harder to have Pierce sit down for a meal, while Carter will always ask for goldfish, crackers, etc.  By planning together they are learning about food, and also become excited for the shopping trip.

Cook Together
While this means that my cooking time may be longer, and there may be a bigger mess to clean,, we have so much fun cooking together.  With proper supervision, I let Pierce cut up the vegetables for our salad, and Carter helps mix ingredients when need be.  They also love to smell the different spices and herbs that we use, before they get mixed together in our dish.  The other day Pierce actually asked me if one of his muffins had cinnamon in it.  He couldn't see it, but he could taste it, and he was right.  There certainly was cinnamon in that muffin.  They have also started to learn about fractions by having to measure the different size cups.  It is a win win situation.

Go Organic When Possible
Organic can be expensive; specially when you are comparing the prices to non organic produce, and you are living on a single income.  However, by us switching to organic food when we can, we have all started to taste the difference.  The produce tastes so much better, and it is so nice to bite into an organic granola bar and not taste all of this added sugar and additives.  Some weeks we eat more organic than others, but I figure it is better to have some than none.  And it is certainly giving me the motivation (and Dan too), to get some raised beds made and do another garden this year.


That's not too bad for a starting point.  And oddly enough, one of the things we stopped doing so much, was going to the gym.  It is not that I do not love the gym; I really do.  However, when I think of how important it is to have that Vitamin D, fresh air, and freedom to explore outside, a gym cannot compete.  Yes, it is nice to have a place to go when it is sub zero outside, and we certainly use it then.  However, we all feel more refreshed after a walk outside with our dog, or skating on ice at the lake.  Now that I have a double jogging stroller, it is even nicer to have that freedom to go the distance.  The boys have a place to go when they get tired, and I can keep on going until I am tired.


Hope everyone else is having a great January as well!  How are your resolutions holding up?