1 Mother 2 Another

We went out to lunch yesterday to
celebrate Maddie’s second-ever hair-cut, and when I asked her
where she wanted to go she led us to Which Wich, the quick
restaurant that sells the exact same menu - pb&j and
ham-n-cheese- that I make, but at three times the cost. When I
asked Maddie why she wanted to go there, Maddie said,
“Because they have good chips.” Cora added,
“Yeah, and good cheese!”

It’s no secret that I try to keep my
kids eating healthy, and while we eat more junk food than some of
my friends, we eat less of it than most families in our age ranges.
When we take chips on a picnic, it’s Robert’s Gourmet
Smart Puffs or, if we’re really splurging, Baked Cheetos. And
I can honestly say that I’ve never bought a slice of
processed cheese for my kids, who instead get their grilled cheese
sandwiches with awesome Vermont cheddar (I love ya, Abby).


Which probably explains why my kids think that fine dining includes
a slice of Kraft American and a bag of NOT baked Cheetos. Cora digs
into that neon-orange greasyness with the gusto of a person too
long deprived of oxygen, and I start to worry that perhaps I
deprive them too much. On the other hand, if I let them eat that
junk regularly, they’ll never go back to the semi-healthy
stuff we usually eat, and then I’ll just have even pickier
eaters on my hands. At least now, when Maddie cries out for a slice
of cheese as a snack, her personal debate is between smoked gouda
and an Australian cheddar.


So we’ll stick it out for now – but I am already living
in fear of kindergarten. The other day Maddie was telling us a
story about lunch time at her school, and she said, “And then
Jonathan picked up his Capri Sun – that’s a type of
drink some kids have, Cora.” And Cora nodded in wonderment at
the foreign language being spoken.


Ok, so I’m raising them a little weird.