I don’t think we’re the worst parents ever, as far as our
son’s nutritional intake goes. The kid’s never seen the inside of
a McDonald’s. Candy is a strange and unfamiliar thing to
him. He’s eaten about 1/10,000 of the Spaghettios that I ate
throughout my childhood. (One test can of organic Trader Joe’s
brand, of which he ate approximately one O.) —
However, high up on the list of things I would like us to do
better–along with getting the occasional leafy green vegetable successfully
down his gullet–would be to set a better example when it comes to the consumption
of desserts.
My wife and I have something of a sweet-tooth. We have…a great appreciation for baked goods. Cookies (her),
Danish (me), pies (also me). What’s not to love? We
could eat the weight of a small elephant in ice cream per annum. Desserts are delicious.
This problem is compounded by the fact that we live in New
York, home to some of the greatest dessert vendors in the world. How is one supposed to resist an urge for ice cream when the
Van Leeuwen truck is around the corner? Find me the person who
doesn’t think a twenty-minute run shouldn’t be rewarded with a chocolate-walnut
cookie from Levain Bakery. If you have a love/hate relationship
with sweets, you don’t want to be here.
Our kid has seen us polish off our fair share of goodies
over the course of his three years. He’s also seen us eat a metric
ton of vegetables, eschew white bread in favor of whole grains and make a lot of
healthy food choices, but setting a generally good example doesn’t make up for
setting one really bad one sometimes.
For this reason, along with the growing realization that I’m
adding to my flab collection, I instituted No Dessert February. My
wife and I are attempting to get through the entire month without succumbing to
our love of sweets.
This is not as cut-and-dry as it sounds. Because there are a lot of grey areas here. Honey-Nut
Cheerios for breakfast? Perfectly acceptable. Three
bowls of the same cereal at 11:00PM? That’s dessert. (A truly sad and pathetic dessert, but dessert nonetheless.) Granola bars? Tricky. My rule is that, if
they have chocolate in ‘em, that’s a dessert. (My wife may not be
following that particular rule.)
As I write this, we are five days in. We’ve
made it through so far without any serious injury. I’ve had a
couple more Starbucks mochas than I might otherwise have consumed (IT’S A COFFEE
DRINK, DAMMIT!) but have been fairly strong, overall. I did have
one hallucination during which I thought my wife was a box of Ho-Hos, but that
was mercifully short-lived.
I’m confident we’ll make it through. And then
we’ll hopefully have the strength to limit our dessert intake moving forward, so
our kid grows up thinking that sweets are something you eat a couple times a
week and not something that has to be consumed every night without fail or Mommy
and Daddy get nervous and jittery.
I’d kill for a pint of Chubby Hubby right now.
