My Mother's Day Wishlist

If you're looking for some deep throughs about my wishes for the world or my family, this isn't the post for you. I just know what I want and I like to ask for it and you might be curious about what that is and so here it goes...

Every year on Mother’s Day, I refine what my hopes and dreams are for the day.  My husband loves to give the perfect gift, so I try to accommodate that by letting Jeff know ahead of time what I want.  For some of you, that may sound selfish or demanding or un-spontaneous, but I’d rather ask for what I want than hope for it, not get it and then unconsciously punish Jeff for it. Here’s what i’ve learned over the years about what I want:

1. I need time to be around my family without having to respond to every request.  I want to sit and watch the kids play or watch a show with them without having to stop and get water or get a snack or wipe a bottom. Sometimes Jeff does that single-handedly and sometimes we are with a group of people who help distract the kids so that they don’t think they’re constantly hungry or thirsty or bored.
2. Gifts.  I don’t need gifts.  But I do love the things the kids make.  I love that way more than anything that they could buy for me (to be honest, the things they want to buy are more their style than mine). What I DO love is gifts of service on this day: going to Costco without me, getting my car washed for me, making meals (preferably all day) for me/us.  
3. Speaking of food… I LOVE baked goods.  My deepest desire on any celebration day is to have cake, or pancakes, or muffins, or scones.  I sent Jeff a recipe this year for these delightful looking banana maple donuts (minus the walnuts, of course) and these white chocolate scones.  And since I don’t like being in charge of food on Mother’s Day, Jeff is making dinner.  Mostly, I’m leaving dinner up to him. I don’t actually care what it is as long as I don’t have to decide or cook it.  I did give some pointers on food we have that he could use or cook, but that’s it!
4. I want time alone in my house.  I spend SO much time catering to other people’s desires at work at home, with family and with friends that I want time to decide on something that I want, not something that I think someone else might want too. Being alone at home is a moment of exhale for this introvert and while I love my family and I know there will be many moments of silence when our nest is empty, I do really crave moments of silence in the chaos right now.  And then I want to welcome back the chaos a more replenished person.

Mother’s Day used to be a day of drinking for me.  At that time, it served a purpose. It really got me out of the responsibility of doing lots of things for my kids and gave me the time to sit and relax.  However, it also really took away my awareness at the beauty of the day and left me feeling horrible that night and the next day. It no longer serves me and so it’s no longer part of my celebration.  I totally get that it works for others and that is wonderful, but I realized that my real goal in drinking was to get out of some of the responsibilities that I do from day to day, so now I just ask for those things to be done for me.

I’m lucky to have a husband who really cares about making the weekend a joy to me.  He is attentive and curious about what I want. I’m also lucky that the kids are aware of Mother’s Day and they seem to truly want to make it special for me - including secrecy and “special projects.”

40 Days of Change

It’s safe to say that this Lent was the most impactful Lent of my life.  For many Christians, Lent is a time for feasting and fasting as a remembrance of the forty day fast Jesus did in the desert when he was tempted by Satan. Often, people will give up (fast from) sweets, cursing, social media or fast food or feast on things like patience, prayer, acts of kindness, or compassion through different acts in the Lenten season as preparation for Easter.  Many, many times I have given up candy, or Easter candy specifically (because it’s my favorite) or I would take on an extra something - an extra prayer or meditation or act of kindness each day. This year, I decided to fast from reading my standard fare and feast on reading books by and about people of color - specifically African Americans.

I must admit, when it comes to Lent, I’m on-again-off-again.  As a young person, I took it very seriously. Then, in the days when I kept church at an arm's length, Lent passed without acknowledgment.  When I was a mother of infants and babies, I ignored taking on further sacrifice. Now that I’ve recovered from being the mother of babies, I still approach Lent with hesitation.  The fasting didn’t always seem to do much to change me in the ways that I had hoped. It often felt very surface. But not this year.

Typically, I would not write about Lent and what I gave up and how it felt because it’s very personal. Religion is personal. Anything having to do with race is personal.  It’s all personal and there is a LOT of judgment around all of it. But this Lent REALLY changed me: it had opened my eyes and made me so much more humble, so I felt it was worth sharing.

This year, I took an idea from this blog post that I found through one of my favorite bloggers. The Episcopal priest who wrote the post gave a list of suggestions of things “to observe Black History month with the same seriousness as we do Lent.”  What I found was that doing this during Lent definitely increased my accountability.  Had I not made the decision with a couple of friends and had my own mental accountability, I might have read a bit, then moved on to something else and come back when I felt more comfortable.  The psychological accountability of doing this during Lent kept me from walking away when things got uncomfortable or sad and it created a real dive into a topic that I was already interested in understanding better.

I have the privilege to choose when to engage in race discussion and when not to.  That is afforded to me by my whiteness (while not 100% white, I am most often perceived as white). I realize now that that in itself is a privilege. I also realize that I am no expert. I’m not here to tell you that I know things or that I’m “good” for doing this.  I just know that these things changed me and maybe you’re in a position to be changed too.

As I read, I realized that there were certain types of books that impacted me in different ways.  Fiction is always my go-to stress reliever and self-care. In these last forty days, it continued to serve that purpose.  When the reading to got too intense or I needed to read for stress relief, I turned to fictional books. While the events in fiction books were still disturbing, it was somewhat easier to read when I knew the characters and story were made up (even though it very likely happened in real life).  Also, because of how stories are crafted, they often fiction ends with some resolution - either happy or sad - but a resolution nonetheless. I found memoir to be the most difficult to read. Often, the same types of events from fiction would happen in the memoirs, but as you were reading you KNEW that it happened to this particular person (or their friends or family) and it really drives home the pain that people feel as the result of systemic racism. Non-fiction was the easiest to read and was the most jaw-dropping.  Because it is filled with facts and the author’s synopsis of the meaning of those facts, it can be quite startling - but definitely not as intimate. In fact, the non-fiction book that I spent the most time reading (The New Jim Crow) was the one that changed me the most.

Here’s what I read (or viewed or listened to) -

• 13th (documentary) - This was a Netflix documentary that I found out about through someone I follow on Instagram.  This was a very eye-opening documentary about how the 13th amendment created somewhat of a loophole that allowed for our current system of mass incarceration that is not based on race, but on criminality - and how that has been utilized by our country since the ending of slavery.

• When They Call you a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors - This memoir was about her upbringing and how it eventually led to her participation in the Black Lives Matter movement.  All of the things she experiences are personal and direct examples of what Michelle Alexander describes in her book The New Jim Crow.

• I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown - This book was really eye-opening as far as what it’s like to be an African American woman in real life; like what it’s like to be black in a “diverse” workplace, what it’s like growing up as an African American person in schools, and what it’s like being black in everyday life in America.  There were so many things that I just didn’t understand or even know about until I read this book. Her writing is so beautiful that you don’t even realize how much she is teaching you because the words alone are a gift - it almost felt like a blend of prose and poetry.

• Taste of Honey by Jabari Asim - This piece of historical fiction strings together stories from different characters living in the same Midwestern town.  The book explores all of the things you might expect in fiction - friendship, romance, family relationships - but also, gives a very real and personal view of police brutality, racism and community in the late 60s leading up to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Waking Up White by Debby Irving - This is actually a departure from what my Lenten promise was as it is written by a white woman, but it was a great introductory read for these forty days.  I actually read it right before Lent started and finished it in the first days of Lent. It is the memoir of a white woman “waking up” to her beliefs about race and how it’s reinforced in our society.  It was interesting to watch another person’s path and their unfolding understanding about the role race plays in our decisions and what creates that understanding about people who are not white.

• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander - This was the centerpiece of my Lenten reading.  It is a piece of non-fiction that is full of jaw-dropping facts and research written by a civil rights advocate and lawyer.  There was SO much information here and it really caused me to pause and re-examine everything I thought I understood about our country.  Her writing style is perfect for this topic because she lays out the facts and examples and then when things are difficult to understand, she follows up with another explanation of the idea.  She tells you what the book will contain and then leaves you with some ideas about where she thinks we should head next as a country. This was a longer read, but was SO essential for this reading list.
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas - This is a book about the experience of a girl who is with her friend, an unarmed black teenager, when he is shot and killed by police after being pulled over for a broken tail light. The author takes you through the experience not only of that night but also of the experience of the aftermath and the reverberations of it in the community that the teenagers are from. As a piece of fiction, it really sheds light and understanding on the reasoning for the Black Lives Matter movement, especially given that real events similar to this fictional one have happened over and over again across the United States. This piece of young adult fiction was recently adopted by our district's board to be taught at one of the high schools, so I really wanted to read it. As most young adult fiction, it was engaging and fast-paced and really took a complicated matter and laid it out in an understandable and relatable way.

• A presentation by Josephine Bolling McCall about her book called The Penalty for Success - we were lucky to hear about this presentation done in the Santa Clara University Law School.  I was nervous going in, but was amazed by the story told by Ms. Bolling McCall. Her story echoed many of the ideas, themes and actions of the books in this list and was, of course, very personal.  She explores the death of her father and does research to uncover that he is one of many African American men who have been lynched without their death being acknowledged as a lynching. In her research she found she was not alone.  Her presentation was a very personal account of her research and what she discovered along the way. I haven’t read her book yet, but it’s on my list for continued reading.

• The Good Ancestor Podcast by Layla Saad - I also steered clear of podcasts by my usual people and as kind of a back door way to hear from one of my favorites (Glennon Doyle).  I listened to Layla Saad’s interview of Glennon Doyle and then her interviews of Rachel Cargle and Lachrista Greco. She explores what it means to be a good ancestor and what our ancestors have inspired in people.  No matter who her guest is, the podcasts are always engaging and have such a calm and personal feel to them.

I definitely plan to continue on this feasting.  There is a whole new world of reading that has opened up to me and the list of books I want to read is getting VERY long.  Because of my privilege, race has not been something that I thought too much about. Now, I see how it has influenced my reading, my job and my perspective.  These 40 days changed what I thought I knew. It challenged my beliefs about myself, our country and racism in general. Most tend to avoid the topic of race both socially and in their free time, but my experience during Lent makes me think that an approach like that won’t really work if we want peace and justice in our country.

There’s no real reason to continue on my old narrow path of authors, genres and topics.  I see the world differently now. And these books give me a different way to experience our world.  I leave the Lenten season humbled by the skills of these makers and am floored by my new understanding of the African American experience in America.

When you get a diagnosis...

In all of the time that we have been working with various professionals, I hadn’t thought much about a diagnosis for our son.  I just knew that we were using our available resources to help him. When the school’s support team met last month to talk through next steps, they asked if he had an official diagnosis.  While I knew what diagnosis meant, I wasn’t really sure what that would look like. I wasn’t even sure that any of the doctors had specifically named something as an “official” diagnosis.

And then the other day, I finally remembered to circle back to the doctor to see about an official diagnosis.  And she had two: one that I suspected and a second one that we had discussed before in passing, but never as an official diagnosis.  And then there I was, sitting with this diagnosis and I was a little shocked.

I guess I was shocked at the official diagnosis of it.  I knew he definitely had the symptoms, but I didn’t know at what point the diagnosis would come - and I guess I figured it would be down the road more.  

The benefit of being a teacher (well, one of them anyway) is that I’ve seen how this diagnosis can play out in the teenage years.  And I know that it can go away if we can teach him how to manage his anxiety. And as far as diagnoses go, this one is pretty minor.  And yet, it gave me pause.

I was discussing it with a friend and she asked if I had told him about the diagnosis.  We haven’t. And then she asked if we were doing anything differently. We aren’t.

And when she asked those two questions, I had to explain to her, we aren’t doing anything differently, it’s just that psychologically my perspective is different.  THAT is the part that’s interesting. Nothing is different except the words that we use around the same thing that we’ve seen all year. And, last week, the week that we got the diagnosis, he spoke to his teacher at least once each day for the longest speaking streak he’s ever had! What has changed is how I see him.  Rather than being a person fully capable of stepping up and doing the things we ask, the diagnoses makes me hesitate. And that’s not right. It has me asking his future church school teacher if he will still be able to attend church school given his situation - but with no diagnosis, I would have assumed that he belonged there and just explained that he’s a little different than some kids, but does things mostly the same.

The real upside to having a diagnosis is that we have a justification for advocating for our son, but the things we’re advocating for are not meant to cater to maintaining this diagnosis and instead to help him grow out of it.  My hope is that having this diagnosis will bring awareness to his future teacher and maybe create a little more patience and compassion, but not fewer opportunities to participate. And that’s what I need to remember: now that we have this little piece of paper, our expectations of him do not change at all, but we may need to have a little more patience and compassion around his timetable to sort things out.

So for now, we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing and challenging him to push himself to do what he can.  In the meantime, I’ll be checking my mind’s desire to pave the way for him.

How to hate yourself in ten quick Girl Scout Cookies

I struggle with compulsive eating.  I always have. I can’t just have a piece of cake, it could easily turn into a quarter of the cake!  I can’t just have a handful of chips, it’s the whole bag. Not one piece of pizza, but four instead. And that doesn’t even take into account the times that I’m emotional eating.  It’s been a real struggle to figure out how to control myself, because it’s not like I’m compulsively eating cucumbers. It’s just that junky, processed food that is so readily available.  

Over the last few years, I’ve developed much better habits.  I am not starving myself by any means, but I’m not as compulsive.  There’s more awareness over why I’m eating and if I’m really hungry, then I can eat a vegetable - it doesn’t have to be cake.  

The holidays put me back into some bad habits as far as emotional eating and allowing myself access to foods I’d typically not have in the house.  Having our change in diet means that I’m regularly preparing treats for my kids and - as a result - eating them.

So, I decided that it was about time that I got back on track.

After a day of generally avoiding the things I meant to avoid.  I was so proud of myself for not giving in! (There are always opportunities for giving in at work.) But then there was an after school meeting where they feed you.  And they were feeding us pizza and Girl Scout cookies.

The pizza I could resist because I knew that I’d get a headache from the wheat, but the Girl Scout cookies shined like a beacon during that entire meeting.  

Finally, at the end I caved - and when I cave, it’s not in moderation.  It was 10 cookies of delight. And then the headache. And then I heard myself berating myself for being weak.  

“You should have left them alone.”

“Ugh, now you have a headache.”

“You told yourself you wouldn’t do that.”

“You could have stopped with one.”

I would never speak to someone else that way, but I find it perfectly acceptable, normal even, to do that to myself.  Over any small thing. Any error that I make, any mis-step, any flaws in my approach to trying something new results in this personal berating.  It’s only recently that I’ve acknowledged it, but it’s been happening all of my life.

At times, it’s easier to engage a kinder and gentler coach-type self-talk that reassures me that people are not perfect, that I can always start again in that moment.  But it’s generally a hard thing to practice all of the time.

And the thing is, whatever your goal is, being mean to yourself on the way to that goal is not what keeps you in it.  That mean part of you that emerges when it happens, that’s just avoidance (a goal-evading tactic) rearing its deceptive head.  

You’re mean to yourself after failure, then you avoid the you that’s being mean to yourself because no one wants to be around a mean person - even it’s you. And in order to avoid that mean person, you basically have to avoid the goal that you were working toward in the first place.  So, now you have successfully avoided the mean person and also your personal progress. Really, in these situations, being compassionate with yourself and speaking kindly, as you would to a friend, is what pushes you forward.

When you’re kind to yourself, you don’t create an antagonistic relationship with yourself and that gentleness allows you to take part in the natural process of growth - making mistakes and learning from them - and then move forward to keep growing through those mistakes. Instead of hating yourself, you can love that you are taking on something that causes mistakes, which means you are doing something new and outside of your comfort zone which requires both risk and growth! Yay, you!

But it’s SO hard.

So maybe those ten cookies weren’t a mistake after all.  They were just part of the path that I can look back on and say, “Remember when I ate those ten cookies and couldn’t control myself? I’ve come so far since then.”

And it’s not always cookies.  Sometimes the path that you’re on is about exercising everyday - but you miss a day, or a week or a month.  Perhaps you are trying to drink more water each day. Maybe it’s spending less money when you’re bored at home or watching less TV or reading more - and you just fall into old habits for a minute.  No matter how long that minute turns out to be, you can always jump back onto the progress toward your goal. Just because it didn’t work out for that period of time, that doesn’t mean that dream or that goal has to go away.  Failure and moments of having less discipline are normal! Especially when your goal is a long-term one. But don’t think about that long-term part (that can be scary and defeating too), just focus on right now and the thing you need to do right now to get you back on track and refocused.

And maybe try a different approach.  At these meetings, I’ve never moved the cookies to the other side of the table because I always thought I could control myself - maybe it’s time to try moving the cookies.  Or in that moment when I feel the impulse to open the cookies, get up and get water or take a breath or tell my neighbor to not let me open the cookies.

We do what we think is the right way to do something, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only way.  Making that long-term goal happen means that you’ll need to try ways you haven’t tried before - because if those ways you tried had worked in the past, you would already be at that goal.  

So, now it’s a new moment and I’m ready.  It’s time to try new ways and get that positive voice going in my mind.  Girl Scout cookies (or Peeps, or Cadbury Eggs or Easter candy in general), I’m ready to resist you.

Becoming a mom: A convenient way to become small

Having kids made it so easy, though to shrink back from the things that were a bit of a challenge and let my fear grow, which caused me to become even smaller.

Becoming a mother was really of my ultimate dreams.  I was going to have a job, get married and have kids.  That summed up what I wanted for my life. I think that’s fairly general and uncreative desire.  So, maybe my dreams didn’t start out all that big to begin with. I chalk that up to my own self-doubt (that I continue to struggle with).  

We have three kids.  Three sounds like a manageable number, but let me tell you, it often feels like one million kids.  Ours are close in age (currently ages 8, 6 and 5) and two-thirds of them have some sort of recurring or persistent health issue. Even if they had no health issues, three kids is a lot of mental, emotional and physical work.  It can really consume you and drain you of life.

Now, here’s where people are like, “But children are a gift” and “You’re so blessed” and “They grow so fast.”  And all of those things are true. But parenting, much like the rest of life and humanity is a multi-dimensioned thing.  It’s complicated and simple. And tiring and beautiful. And it gives people permission to shrink themselves.

I have been lost in the chaos for quite some time.  I think I finally started to emerge about two years ago.  At that point, I started to try things that were outside of my comfort zone just to grow as a person.  Becoming a mother had helped me kind of stop seeing myself as a person and just saw myself as a vehicle for survival for my family: the product of my ultimate dream.

Just like marriage, though, having kids is not really an actualized dream in itself, it’s more of a threshold that you cross into some really rough and scary territory.  Parenthood (and marriage) is the beginning of something new, not an end - and often, the something new is difficult and involves things you never thought you’d ever have to do or think about.

And it’s busy.  You could easily busy yourself with all of the things that your little tyrants, I mean treasures, want or need.  Washing clothes, preparing food, following through with rewards/consequences, playing, organizing, or shopping for their tiny clothes.

And the thing is, that busy-ness that seems necessary is actually a trap. Or a really convenient excuse to put yourself second (or third or fourth or tenth) on your list of priorities.  And over time, your dreams and desires for yourself become shrink so much that you kind of forget that you had them.

And the busy-ness is sometimes secret camouflage for fear.

“I can’t do that, I don’t have time to.“

“I can’t take care of myself, I have to take care of the kids. My husband doesn’t know how to take care of the kids like I do.”

“ I don’t have the time to go to school/work out/eat well/do yoga/spend time with friends because I’m needed at home.”

And it may be true.  And it also may be a lie.  

It’s easy to say that your family is first.  I mean, we hear it all the time, right? But as a parent, you are really leading the charge here.  You are teaching these young people how to live and how to be. And if you’re not taking care of yourself and making your dreams come true, what are you teaching them about taking care of themselves and making their dreams come true?

Modeling behavior is one very commonly used teaching strategy in the classroom and in life.  But we forget that sometimes. And sometimes we forget that parenting is actually teaching another person how to exist and survive in the world - the same world that we live and function in on a daily basis.

But really, when you put your family first, sometimes what your mind is secretly telling you is something like, “I am afraid to take the risk to learn how to dance, so I will keep myself busy making dinner from scratch every night.” “I don’t want to face the possibility of being scrutinized, so I won’t write the book that I want to write.”  “I don’t want to be judged by others so, I’m not going to _____ - instead I’ll re-organize the kids’ closet. What brings us joy anyway?” “It’s hard for me to navigate social situations, so I’ll just make sure I’m super mom at home.”

And if you’re a stay at home mom, the challenge is way bigger.  Not only do you miss out on the validation that working moms often find at work, you tend to get no validation or even negative messaging that you are doing your job horribly (either through unfinished tasks or misbehaving children). So you face the task of having to find confidence that comes with regular accomplishment somewhere deep, deep inside you.  You have to find the courage to try and take a risk that may not exist anymore because you don’t have the repeated feedback loop that tells you that you are regularly facing challenges and overcoming them in some way. (Most of that comes from our own mental messages to ourselves and our natural tendency to focus on the negative, not the positive messages that we give ourselves.)

“I am afraid that if I try to eat right, I’ll fall off the wagon - again - so I’ll just make sure that we get to all of our appointments on time and just do my best.”

“I am afraid of feeling left out, so I won’t make plans with people.”

“They won’t like me, so I won’t join that mom’s group.”

You should not do things that you don’t want to do just because you want to punish yourself. That’s not what I’m saying.  But what I’m saying is that having a family is sometimes a convenient excuse to let your fear take over your thinking and hold you back from all of the amazing things that you can experience in life.  This is your one life and that fear of failure (or fear of success) is VERY strong. So you don’t have to say yes to everything, but think about why you’re saying no. Is it because you really have no desire to participate, or is it because you are afraid of what will happen if you DO say yes?

Because if it’s fear, then you alone (and not your family) is holding you back.

Everyone faces obstacles on their success (otherwise the success would be meaningless!) and the obstacles look different for everyone.  But there are many ways around an obstacle - sometimes it’s over, under, around or through. If you are trying the same ways over and over to overcome your obstacle, your fear may be telling you that it’s too hard to overcome.  It might be time to pull in some extra help to get you thinking of different and new ways to overcome it. And it might be time to be OPEN to trying something new. (Which is totally scary, I get it.) But when it comes to your life - you are the boss and you get to decide what your experience of this life will be.  No matter what the obstacles.

How we retrained our picky eaters

Last night we had a dinner that would typically have remained untouched despite whining, crying, cajoling and pleading.  Honestly, it was delicious: two new recipes - one for meatloaf and the other for roasted potatoes. Two-thirds of the kids finished their dinner while one waved off due to illness - but she tried it and that would NEVER have happened in the past.

“So how do you get your kids to eat?”

It has always been a question that comes up in conversation with other moms.  Sometimes they were asking to find out what our kids eat in general, but more recently, it’s about how we get our kids to try new things (eating more vegetables and eating allergen-free foods).  

When we set out on this allergen-free diet, we had two goals.  The primary goal is to help our son to be healthy. We wanted to reduce his body’s inflammation with the hope of helping him to be more successful in overcoming what he calls being “shy,” while also teaching him how to cook safe and tasty foods for his allergies.  Our secondary goal was to find a way to get the kids to eat cleaner and healthier in general - to break the bad habits we had helped them form.

As you know from an earlier post this year, we started by getting the kids on board.  During a particularly chaotic moment with our son, I talked to the girls about the role that food may be playing in the behavior he was displaying.  I told them that I thought that we should do something as a family to help him and what it would mean for us: that we would have to try new things, be open and not complain.  Knowing our son, if the girls were leading the way, he’d follow along with no problem. I also knew that the girls (and Jeff and I) have some adverse reactions to the same foods that Levi is allergic to, so really this change was not just for Levi, but for the benefit of all of us.

I’ve noticed that over time (mostly since having Levi), I am definitely sensitive to wheat and soy.  Consuming either one can make my stomach hurt and bloat. I have always struggled with headaches. I never was quite sure what caused them, but I’m finding that they are generally caused by pollens and are enhanced when I’m eating things that I’m sensitive to.  My reaction can be as bad as a very painful headache, but it also can show up as morning grogginess. We want Levi on his A-game when he goes to school each day, so knowing that he may be waking up feeling a more intense version of what I experience with my sensitivities, it only makes sense that we would try to help him avoid having to feel that way.

So, as a family, we committed to eating differently. We cut out as much processed food as possible, increased our normal daily vegetable consumption and decreased the amount of processed sugar we are eating (by a lot).

So here’s how we made the shift:

1. New rules.  

We started a star chart for every kid.  In the evening, they could earn a star if they: didn’t complain about dinner, tried everything that was offered and two stars if they ate everything.  These stars accumulated to time on the iPad that evening. (This ended up going away, but was a great way to kickstart our change. It gave us a way to pump up eating differently and reinforce the behavior we wanted.   Now, they are motivated by the treat at the end of the meal - usually treats are only offered after dinner.)

2. Treats.

Every weekend, I make two treats to last us through the week.  It could be a pan of brownies and a cake. Or it could be cupcakes and a bundt cake.  It could be donuts and muffins. This week it’s banana bread and a berry “buttermilk” cake. Those treats can only be consumed after each child has eaten all of their dinner.  We keep the portions fairly small so that they can have seconds of any meal if they want. And we cut off eating at a certain time otherwise they love to work the system and eat all night long. In all of the dinners we’ve had since the beginning of the year (that’s about eight weeks) there have been five times that I can recall that  someone flat out refused to eat dinner. They didn’t like it for some reason and decided that the treat wasn’t worth it so they moved on with life. On the majority of nights, though, our kids are trying things they have never eaten before and they are open to actually eating all of the food they have in front of them. This was a HUGE change for us from before.

3. Cut out (or change) snacks

One of the bloggers I follow suggests that in order to change picky eaters, you have to cut out snacks.  The idea is that without snacks, the kids are hungry for the next meal and will be more willing to try something new. She said she gets a lot of questioning about that.  It was a strategy I was considering depending on how difficult this transition became. Truth be told, I can only tolerate their whining for so long. And it’s winter and rainy here, so there’s no fun outside activity to distract them from their bored snacking.  I decided that I’d do my best to avoid snacking and push the veggies first before allowing the fun snacks. That way, if they want a snack, it’s fine, but I get to choose what it is. If they don’t want it, then they can’t say it wasn’t offered and they must not be hungry after all!

4. The “good” snacks are different

Over the years, we have slowly given in to worse and worse snacks for our kids.  The snacks contained more and more sugar and were more and more processed. Some of this was just out of ease for us, and some of it was giving in to whatever parenting guilt we had.  With our new diet, we had the chance to not only re-evaluate the snacks, but eliminate them based on allergy or general un-wholesomeness. The snacks they get that are the “good” snacks are things like air-popped popcorn, popcorn chips, rice cakes, sweet potato chips, and gluten-free pretzels.  But even with these snacks being somewhat healthier, they are also eating far less of them than before. Because they have to pay the price of eating vegetables first, they will sometimes pass on eating the “good” snack indicating that they weren’t as hungry as they initially thought and maybe were just eating out of boredom.

I always cut up our vegetables right after our trip to Costco.  I keep them in a bin in the fridge so that they can easily be pulled out for snacking.  I try to have a variety of vegetables available, so they can choose the vegetable they want to eat and it’s not always the same vegetable that they always fall back on.  This keeps me from giving in and giving them an easy but unhealthy snack - it makes vegetables just as easy.

5. Don’t give in

It’s really easy when things are busy, or you’re tired or the kids don’t like what’s being served to fall back on old habits.  One of the most important parts of all of this is that I don’t give in to them and what they want, I hang on to what I know is right for us right now.  Mom-guilt often has me giving in to too many sweets or snacks or switching out dinner for something they like more. However, I am the boss here and it’s my job to make sure they’re fueling their bodies properly, so I don’t give in.  There are no substitutions. You don’t like dinner, that’s ok. You have enough body fat to live through the night. You don’t like that choice of vegetable, that’s ok, you can skip treat tonight. In all of the meals we have had since January 7, there have only been a few times when a kid decided it wasn’t worth it to eat the dinner - and it was always something that seemed totally fine.  For example, the kids would eat kale pesto, no problem, but one night Ana would not eat a roasted tomato (which was delicious, by the way!). So weird. But when that happens, we don’t give in and offer something different and we don’t stop making that particular meal. If they don’t like it, we try again a few weeks later - and sometimes they end up liking it later on! But really, not giving in is more about teaching them that they can’t wear us down over time.  If they learn that they can whine their way out of eating something once, they’ll try it again and again and I just can’t take the whining.

When reading about eating back when the kids were toddlers and were super picky, I remember reading that you should serve kids the same things you eat and re-offer disliked foods again and again.  Most of the time, that was too much for me. I couldn’t deal with the arguing, I felt bad because I eat a lot of vegetables and I didn’t want them to have to do that (what weird thinking!). But my mind really shifted this time.  For the limitations that Levi has in his diet, he really does need some eating flexibility if he’s going to live a life of good food. Even without allergies, the same thing is true for the girls: they need a broader base of foods they’re willing to eat, or at least be open to trying new foods.  And now, there is no arguing. Either do it or don’t. And I don’t let their whining or my guilt get the better of me. Eat or don’t eat, that’s their problem, not mine.

One night, Ana was particularly disgusted by dinner. I think it was a soup (and it was a good one!). She didn’t want it for whatever reason and I didn’t budge that she could not replace soup with leftover pasta.  She cried and cried and sulked and came back and cried. Ultimately, she was hungry, she said. When she came back to the table for the final time, she basically pleaded that she should be able to eat the cut up vegetables in the fridge (that are reserved for snacking) for dinner instead and that she knew she would not be able to have a treat.  I was willing to give in to that, I mean NEVER in her life had she requested so vehemently that she at least be able to eat raw vegetables so that she would not be hungry. Never. It was a testament to how different our life is now and I still can’t believe it.