Now is the time

Lately I've struggled with reconciling the kind of parent I am now with the kind of childhood I always imagined my children would have. It just doesn't seem like anything counts as the real thing when my only child is still at an age where he won't remember anything and he can't speak his mind yet. Couple that with the fact that I find being a stay-at-home mom exhausting, and it's easy to see how I've let myself fall into a routine where I am just "getting through" the hard years and telling myself I'll be the kind of parent I want to be later when it counts (and when I have the energy).

My sister-in-law, full time SAHM to 4 kids (the oldest is 6) doesn't allow her kids to watch TV. On a rainy day when they're all a little bit sick, she still refuses to bust out a movie to buy herself an easy hour or two. I found myself thinking she was crazy, but at the same time respecting that she is sticking to a system that enforces the ideals she thinks are important for her kids. If she can get through the day with a 6 month old, a 2 year old, a 4 year old and a six year old with no extra help and still be the kind of parent she wants to be, I should sure as hell be able to do the same with one 17 month old.

So the most important thing to me as a parent is setting an example for an active and healthy lifestyle. Playing outdoors and running around instead of being sedentary inside all day. Eating healthy, fresh food and being fit. I want my kids to prefer playing catch outside or going swimming to playing video games in the living room. I want them to prefer eating a home-cooked meal to ordering pizza from Dominoes.

Around the same time as this visit to NJ, I watched Food, Inc. and Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. I found myself disgusted by what these "fat Americans" were eating and the lack of physical activity they were getting, as well as completely dumbfounded by the fact that they weren't jumping at the chance to change when given the help and opportunity to do so.

Then I started thinking back to what I ate as a teenager. In the morning I would eat toaster strudels or pop tarts or sugary cereal. At school for lunch I would eat pizza and soda, usually with a cookie. Dinner was often fast food or some heavily processed frozen food because my mom was a single working mother with very little time to cook for us (and somehow it never occurred to us to cook for ourselves). We always had fresh fruit, but we were getting the majority of our calories from, as Jamie would say, "a load of crap."

I cringe when I think of what that must have done to my body. My fast metabolism is both a blessing and a curse because I should have been FAT from eating all that, even if I was a varsity athlete working out 3 hours a day. It's so easy to ignore a horrible diet when you don't need to lose weight.

Anyway, I made a promise to myself that I would start taking control of this now. I am the only one who controls what food Timmy gets. I am the one who is in charge of shaping his environment and showing him how great it is that we live in a place where we can play outside almost every day. I am the one who has the chance to take him on camping trips like the ones my dad took us on, showing him the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone and Yosemite and Mesa Verde. I can teach him how to ski and hike and fish and surf. I can teach him how to pick out the good produce at the farmer's market, grow vegetables in his garden and cook with natural ingredients. As someone told me, it's my job as a parent to put healthy food on his plate, it's Timmy's job to eat it. It's also my job to feed my body and soul so that I'm healthy and active when Timmy has kids and PJO and I grow old and retire together.

We try to buy things that are less processed and more fresh. No high fructose corn syrup, no MSG, no nitrates and no preservatives or additives (especially Red 40). We also buy organic for at least the dirty dozen, milk and eggs. We are making the effort to buy locally grown products and support vendors at the farmer's market. We're far from perfect and we'll still eat out at restaurants or occasionally buy something that is prohibited by our list. But I feel better eating chocolate cake when I made it from scratch and know everything in it than eating a mystery slice that is filled with preservatives and who knows what else. I try to spend as much time outdoors with Timmy and PJO as I can and we're planning a fun vacation for the the end of summer before I start working, hopefully the first of many memorable family vacations. I may not always be the parent or wife or friend or lawyer or person I want to be, but if I try to do something right every day, at least I can be proud at the end of it all.