For real.
My daughter says this when she wants to impress me or when she herself is pretty impressed. This happens every 20 minutes or so:
“Look! A roly poly, for real. It’s all rolled up so I am taking it on a bike ride, but I will bring it back to the garden so it can live.”
Her joy, excitement, wonder, and knowledge of simple things is light and fun.
For me, today was complicated. I could barely let a very proud grandmother feed my 14 month daughter a brownie. It had hidden spinach, blueberries, and oat bran! But my mind spun off on tangents: breast cancer, heroin addiction, cavities, and so on. Because it was a brownie and it was the first time she’s had a brownie, cookie, cake type of treat. She really liked it and I looked at the recipe to see how many grams of sugar.
For real, I need to calm the fuck down.
Having children puts a mirror in front of your face. I think this is why parents strive to be perfect. We are constantly getting feedback from the mini-me versions of ourselves and we want to get it right this time. Also, we are afraid to make mistakes and maim our children, somehow. But, I am noticing, the most powerful, heavy influence on my children is my anxiety around even the simple things- buckling the car seat, talking with the cashier at the grocery store, cleaning up the living room for the 10th time. Really, anything small. So I ask myself, what about the big things?
The purpose of this blog is to begin a practice of viewing food, nutrition, and health with a simpler, calmer presence. I will put a nutrition hat on my anxious parent head and take a look. And so begins my self-prescribed CTFD Diet.
Let’s keep it light, fun and calm the fork down.
CTFD Diet 
I totally relate. I’ve been there. I think it’s the same fear that prevented our great great great….great grandmothers from letting their babies from getting eaten by saber toothed tigers. I’ve relaxed, although the grandmothers probably wouldn’t agree. I no longer feel like I need to hide vegetables in brownies and am happy that the kids will usually eat them undisguised on their plates. We talk about food, they understand the ingredients that we try to avoid and why. They’re generally fun to eat out with, know the basics of cooking, and can tell anyone who needs to know exactly how msg affects the brain. So, it evolves, fear is good, and so is calming down. I look forward to your blog. Maybe it wil inspire me to get mine going again.
Thanks, Shana! Good insight about the animal instinct. Helps me to feel more aware and may explain my impulse to want to attack or snarl at well-intentioned, sweet grandmas.