Tag: Healthy-eating

Healthy Snacks? Yes! NO!

You may have heard this tone with particularly effervescent kindergarten teachers. “I am going to pick up the toys, who wants to help me? ” The voice is enthusiastic, slightly sing-song and most suggestive of acquiescence. At the end of this sentence, there is a scuttle among the noble children, all aiming to please. Miraculously, those who were moving to the red side of the margin see a chance to redeem themselves and everybody is happy to be helping with the toys. The classroom bursts into song: “Everybody clean up! All the children do your share!”

I confess it was something like this response I was expecting when I announced that I was leaving for the grocery store. “I am going to the grocery store! Who wants to come with me? I am going to pick up splendid snacks for our trip!”

There was no scuttling to please me, no daughter trying to get back into my good books after deploringly questioning me at the mall the previous day whether I had crossed items off my list, as I made to wander off to look at some pretty and shockingly expensive clothes in a forlorn store. None of the repentance one likes to see. The children looked (a) uninterested in going to the grocery store and (b) they practically held my hand and stopped me from buying any snacks for them.

I was going to make a quick stop at Traders Joe, that splendid store of organic fruits, vegetables, beautiful flowers, eggs from happy hens, milk from peaceful cows, yogurts using contented bacteria and p cows milk, fragrant soaps and hand-washes never tested on animals: this is the kind of shopping the husband likes. Most snacks the children like, can be traced back to this store, and yet there weren’t ready to come. I was confused and muddled.

Trader_Joes

It must’ve shown on my face for the daughter, forthright as always, said, “The thing is: you will buy healthy snacks.” She emphasized ‘healthy’ in a rather distasteful tone of voice and continued, “Then, you’ll get mad at us when we stop somewhere to buy something we can eat. Of course, you won’t eat it too because though it is healthy, it is still a snack right? Then you’ll tell us all about starving children and how they would love to have healthy snacks and then we all feel guilty and can’t completely enjoy the stuff we buy with Appa on the way. So, just don’t buy snacks okay? We’ll go with Appa tomorrow to Traders Joe and buy something for ourselves.”

I was aghast and turned to the husband for support only to catch him casting admiring looks at her. “Wow! I wish I was that brave!” he tried not to say.

The husband can be relied upon to be convinced by the children. “But Appa…it is organic. See?” they say as they show him chips, cakes and ice-creams, and he melts, along with that chocolate mousse they are handing him. As soon as they get home, the children disappear upstairs, secure in their knowledge that their father blessed their choice, while I gasp at the contents.

Well, say what you will: I am going to take that packet of baby carrots for myself.

The Cal-Oh-Rie Boss

I remember feeling as a child waiting to grow up and see what I will do.  (I knew it was great fun being a kid, but I was curious about the future).   Naturally,  I asked the daughter what she thought about life as an adult. She said that our lives were cool. Among other things that make our lives cool, was a point mentioning that we got to boss our kids around. That was news to me. I felt like the bossee more than the boss so often.

While having this riveting conversation, we walked past a pastry shop that sported all things cream and sugar in those sparkling windows and the daughter wondered whether we may stop in for a snack. Really, all that cream and sugar could not bode well for the body. So, I used my skills of persuasion and said we want to go for something healthy and moved towards a Starbucks (I know! But it was the only one in sight that had a semblance of a trail mix pack in there) instead. 

I walked in to the coffee store in my usual state, you know? Calm and collected. The moment I walked in, I knew I was fighting a losing battle. There, gleaming from the confectionary box were those blasted cake pops looking like dynamite balloons. I was trying to convince the daughter not to go for those, but everybody knows by now that she only wanted cake pops. I was wondering whether to belt out my healthy-eating-talk or not, and decided against it. We had stepped out for a Holiday afternoon after all. I caught the billing clerk’s eye and she saw my moment of resignation and was there a smirk to her face? Or was she simply smiling at me? I wasn’t sure, and I wanted to be the mom-in-charge and the cool mom all at once to impress Lydia (I think that’s what her name tag said, but it could have been Lysha)

So, I tried again with the daughter, “This is nothing but sugar, do you want to try something a bit more healthy?”

The daughter looks at me and says, “Amma. You said to look for cal-oh-ries too right? See all the things with healthy stuff in them like this pumpkin slice or this apple slice all have more than 400 cal-oh-ries, but the cake pop is only 150 cal-oh-ries. So, it may be all sugar, but it is less sugar.”

There was no point: I gave in and slumped my shoulders a bit.

Then I remembered that I recently saw an article in which the speaker asks us to ooze confidence and fresh from the reading, I oozed. I acted like the totally-in-control-of-daughters-diet  mom and said “Hi. I would like a cake pop please.”

“Good job Amma. Maybe you should get yourself something healthy too.” said the daughter smiling in that sly fashion.

So I bought two cake-pops.

“Is that all?” Lydia (or Lysha or Lyma) asks.

“Yes.” I said meekly and then ‘Yes!”, a little stronger.

We stepped out smartly before any more judgments could be passed by Ly-dash, and picked up the threads of the conversation where we’d left off.

Cake Pops
Cake Pops Are Dynamite
Don’t Mess with Dynamite

“Like I was saying, it must be totally cool to boss your kids around and do whatever you like. Like you just walked into Starbucks now instead of that pastry shop.” said the daughter.

Having exhausted my conversational brilliance, I agreed and bit into my cake pop like an obedient mother.