E and Nikki took me to see Iron Man 2 for Mother’s Day. We couldn’t do Mother’s Day Movie Extravaganza like we do every year – time just didn’t cooperate – but we saw one movie. I’ll take it. When it got loud at the end during a big fight, Nikki hopped into my lap and curled up like she does often. She likes snuggling and cuddle time. She’s very clingy at times – which I am often annoyed by. But yesterday – when I wrapped my arms around her entire body – I realized that it wouldn’t be long before she’d be too big for this. So, on Mother’s Day, I found myself crying a little bit watching Robert Downey Jr. blow people up. Not because of anything on the screen, but because I’m not ready to let go yet. It’s hard having a teenager and small children because you can see very clearly what is waiting for you down the road. And while I couldn’t be more proud of my oldest child, he doesn’t let me hold him like that anymore. (Hee. The picture of me holding him like that makes me laugh.) So I squeezed her tightly and didn’t ask her to move when my legs started falling asleep.

When we got home and showered for family dinner, I asked E to take a picture of us on the front porch in that same position. I then asked him to do it again later when we were at Mimi’s house. I wanted to make sure, while that memory was still fresh in my mind, to document her in my arms like that. Because we’re about 11 days away from her being too big for me to hold her entire body in my arms. Sure, she’ll sit in my lap, let me hug her – but being able to encompass her fully in my loving embrace? That will be gone before I know it.

NikkiZ’s first T-ball game was last Saturday. I wanted her to play soccer again this Spring since she liked it so much last Fall, but MrZ grew up playing baseball and really wanted her to at least try it out. See if she likes it. If she’s any good. He still loves the game to this day and like any parent, really hopes his child will love the same things he does. So…we’re giving it a try.

Here’s the thing. Rec league t-ball is much more serious than YMCA soccer was. We practice or play 3 times a week. If weather causes us to miss a practice or game, the coach tries to reschedule on a different day. He has us meet before and after for off-field work since we only get the field for an hour and he doesn’t feel like that’s enough time. There are drills. Real drills that don’t involve animal noises or guessing games. Basically, she’s doing the same drills MrZ did in high school. They give us homework. They correct the kids when they’re doing stuff wrong. This is the real deal. TRUST ME.

It’s a hard adjustment for me to make. I struggle with feeling like NikkiZ’s too young for something so serious. On the flip side, however, she’ll be in this age group for three years. It probably won’t feel so weird when she’s six. Might was well get her used to it now so that when she is six, she might actually be useful on the team. But this has me wondering…does it ever start to feel okay to have coaches get onto your kid?

LilZ was never really into sports. When he did play soccer it was for a very kind league that didn’t really want coaches yelling at kids. This makes me very happy. I’m sure most Moms like this too. MrZ, however, doesn’t feel like its very realistic if you actually hope for you child to succeed in sports. NikkiZ is already showing skill and love for sports, so we might as well get her used to the reality of it now…right? I mean, her coach is great. He doesn’t yell or anything, really. But he takes it very seriously and it has me considering the future and the coaches we have ALL seen yell at kids. How do you deal with that? Do you just shut off the part of your brain that says, “Nobody yells at my kid but ME.” Or do you eventually see it as a positive thing in terms of their athletic growth? I was never really good at sports either, so I never played on teams or for coaches who yelled. But I had friends who did and as a Mom looking back on that? I wonder how their parents coped?

Do you have kids that play serious sports? How do you deal with the coaches that make up those teams? I’m thinking that I’m struggling enough already and our coach doesn’t even yell. In 5-10 years when she’s playing for seriously competitive teams with coaches who do yell when mistakes are made, I think I’ll just have to stay home. I definitely don’t want to be the Mom that yells back at the coach in defense of my baby. Especially if that baby is armed with a softball and decides the embarrassment I cause her warrants a pitch to the noggin’.

I often write about my daughter’s obsession with princesses and pink and dresses and jewelry. And these things are all very true. But I also often describe her as my, “Rough and Tumble” girl. She is showing quite an athletic streak. We noticed it first in soccer as she discovered the euphoria associated with stealing the ball from someone else. Unfortunately, the “someone else” was often a member of her own team. She is quite determined to be awesome at t-ball, even though she’s one of the youngest on the team by two years in some cases. She wants to race everywhere and she’s constantly covered in scratches and bruises. She never worries about her hair and always has marker on her hands.

These are the things that make her my girl. I never had any real athletic ability, but I’ve always been a bit Rough and Tumble myself. I loved making messes and rarely stayed clean. Even as an adult few items of my clothing aren’t stained in some way or another. I love being outside, even if it’s just drawing with chalk on the sidewalk. Mud has never scared me and I often walk through puddles.

It’s nice to see that. Part of me mixed in there, somewhere. I wasn’t into the princess thing like she is, but I always had scabs on my knees. Her’s may be from running the bases where mine were from busting my ass down the stairs. But it’s still a Sisterhood…of the Rough and Tumble girls.

So…we watched the much-hyped Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution this past Friday. It got me really thinking about how I feed my kids. Thinking for THREE days. THINKING AND THINKING AND THINKING. Because since I’ve watched the show, I’ve monitored feedback on blogs and twitter and have come to the realization that this is a VERY touchy subject.

For me.

Let’s begin with the facts: Our family is mildly healthy. We rarely eat fast food, and when when we do we rarely choose fried options. When we do go fried it’s inevitably the Chik-fil-A chicken sandwich because OH MY GOD. They’re just impossible to resist. We tend to eat healthy without really trying. Partly because MrZ and I both grew up understanding healthy food choices. Partly because we just prefer the taste of grilled over fried. Mostly because we want to try our best to be as healthy as possible. We don’t own a fry cooker of any type and we don’t keep sweets around the house. In general: Mildly Healthy.

THAT SAID – Our daughter is the most unhealthy eater on the planet. Well, that’s not necessarily true. There are a lot of typical unhealthy foods she hates: Chocolate, cake, chips (she’ll eat plain chips) and popcorn. BUT – she is such a picky eater that the few things she does eat? AWFUL. Chicken fries. Chicken nuggets. Turkey and cheese sandwiches on white bread WITH MAYONNAISE. Plain potato chips. Sausage (she picks sausage off pizza and eats the sausage patty out of a biscuit.) And everything is better when she dips it in ranch. Now – in her very small defense – she loves oatmeal and sometimes yogurt. That’s it. The only healthy stuff besides the occasional bite of fruit she eats. Maybe unhealthy isn’t a strong enough word.

I’m embarrassed just talking about this. Because there are a lot of people who would scoff at what I let my child eat. My husband is one of those people.

Now…my Dad never forced me to eat anything. But he also never really kept anything too bad around the house, so even if I had my choice it was never as toxic as what NikkiZ eats. Still – he let me turn down stuff whenever I wanted. I hated anything with tomato sauces: Pizza, spaghetti, soups. I wouldn’t ever eat ANY of it. When I discovered you could order pizza without the tomato sauce? I DIED, I was so happy. Yet…as I got older…I wanted to try new things. I’ve been taking foods of my black list since I was 18. Besides spaghetti, pizza and soups I’ve learned to love green olives, guacamole, eggplant and sushi. I’ve been trying and loving new foods since I had LilZ. Now, there are still healthy foods I hate: Lettuce, Creamed Corn and Vinaigrette dressings. But periodically I’ll give it a try in case it’s changed.

My point: No one ever forced me to eat anything, yet I became a healthy and adventurous eater as an adult.

This is the sliver of evidence I hold onto when arguing my case with letting NIkkiZ eat Chicken Fries while the rest of us are eating homemade vegetarian lasagna.

This drives my husband CRAZY. He thinks I shouldn’t give her an option. While we watched that show Friday night we argued about it because I get very defensive. It’s very VERY hard having a picky eater. Every time Dooce wrote about Leta eating refried beans for breakfast, I wanted to hug her and thank her for giving up like I did. Because, if you have a child who fights tooth and nail every time you put ANYTHING in front of them (EVEN CAKE) you might one day…give up. That’s what I did. I decided it wasn’t worth the stress or the pain anymore. I just fixed her one of her staple meals while the rest of the family ate something new and most often: DELICIOUS. I’ve seen AndyZ eat homemade guacamole from a bowl with a spoon. LilZ orders the salad whenever we go out to eat. My other two kids? PERFECT EATERS. NikkiZ? I just gave up.

So…I told MrZ we’d try it his way for a few weeks. I get VERY bitter/grumpy/angry about these type of decisions that end up affecting my life more since I’m at home with the kids. I fight them almost as much as NikkiZ fights eating vegetables. It took a lot of swallowing of my pride and my ego to allow this experiment to proceed. But – thanks to Jamie Oliver – I at least did that much.

NikkiZ fought dinner tonight and ended up eating nothing. MrZ says she goes to bed hungry. NikkiZ says, “I’m NOT hungry.” Because she is made from two of the most stubborn parents on the planet and she will NOT give in that easy. It will take much more than just one skipped meal to make her give up her Chicken Fries.

*sigh*

It’s going to be a long few weeks. But here is the conclusion I’ve come to. There is a range on the spectrum of Feeding Our Children. (Just like with ALL parenting issues.) At the crappy end of the spectrum there’s Huntington, West Virginia: Where Jamie Oliver is because it is our nation’s “Unhealthiest City.” On the other end of the spectrum is the family that eats all organic foods and never a drop of soda. I am currently probably somewhere right in the middle. THAT IS NOT A BAD PLACE TO BE. We don’t have to give up our over-processed fattening foods for the sake of our sanity. We just need to make them the exception, not the rule. I recognize I should, at least with NikkiZ, scoot further from the Huntington end of the spectrum. I recognize that and that’s why I’m trying it MrZ’s way for a few weeks. (Weeks that will probably KILL ME.) But – I’m never going to be the person who refuses the chicken nuggets FOREVER. AND EVER. BECAUSE THEY ARE AWFUL.

They are awful…I know that. But I am also lazy. And I suffer from anxiety attacks CAUSED MY MY DAUGHTER REFUSING TO EAT. Those two things will keep me from ever being the perfect nutritionist for my stubborn and picky daughter. If after a few weeks my sanity is on the line and my daughter is still not eating? I’m going back to my way. And I’ll just seek solace in the bowl of oatmeal she eats every morning because HELLO…I’ll take what I can get.

It was gloomy yesterday so I suggested to the kids that we go to the mall and see the Easter Bunny. It seemed the perfect activity since nothing outdoors was viable. (Spring was here for about three days. It was fun while it lasted.) NikkiZ, of course, wanted to put on her Ariel dress from the Bibbidy Boppity Boutique she got in Disney World. Now, that whole experience was outrageously expensive. So expensive I’m embarrassed to tell you. Let’s just say we justified it because our hotel room was partially paid for thanks to Team in Training and because we’ve never done anything like that for her before. We also justified it because we know people who buy really fancy $100+ dresses for their daughters and only let them wear them for pictures, or to the special event they were purchased for, and we don’t do that. EVER. I spent $40 on an Easter dress one year and felt like I was officially INSANE. So, we decided we’d get the costume dress and makeover and we SWORE we’d let her wear it whenever/wherever we wanted so we could – essentially – get our money’s worth out of it.

She wore it three days in Florida. We were only there five.

She has worn it several times since and yesterday? She wore it to see the Easter Bunny. She even brought her wand, as you can see. We also decided her and AndyZ should wear their Dollar Store Bunny Ears to the mall to make the Easter Bunny happy. All of these elements, the Ariel Disney dress, the bunny ears, the wand…all of these pieces created what is my favorite Easter picture EVER. What you can’t see is NikkiZ was also wearing hot pink socks with peep-toe red shoes. But she wore her white leggings because, “They match.” Yes, honey. Please wear your white leggings with your princess dress to the mall because the pink leggings with the hearts? That would be over the top.