Someone Better Call CPS, This Is Getting Serious

Of course, as most any other parent, I want the best for my kids, in every aspect of their life. And that includes teaching them how to live a healthy lifestyle. We typically try to follow the 5-2-1-0 rule in our house. 5 = At least five servings of fruits and vegetables combined, per day. 2 = No more than two hours of screen time per day. 1 = One hour minimum of physical activity per day. 0 = Zero sugar sweetened beverages per day. Normally we don't have much of a problem sticking to this, however, today would not have been a good example. Here's a little about how it went.


5 = Could one grape qualify as a full serving of fruit? Is a pickle a vegetable? I mean, it started out as a cucumber. That's got to be worth something, right?

2 = We might have blown this out of the water today. Daddy got home from work early today and the afternoon turned us into a bunch of lazy couch potatoes. I'll blame Daddy, that always works.

1 = Does walking to and from the car in the library parking lot count as exercise? Maybe if we add in the time spent during a heated competition of "who can sprint through the living room at full speed and head butt the couch the hardest?"

0 = The children may or may not have collectively consumed half a gallon of Arnold Palmer iced tea at dinnertime tonight.


So we had an "off" day today. So sue me. Just as with any other job, the job of a full time mom does not come with perfection. Far from it. I call these occasional days our "reality check" days. Reality check, my kids are well fed and not starving. Reality check, my kids got to snuggle under the covers and hang out with their parents today. Reality check, we made it through an outing at the library with no meltdowns and no missing children. And they had lots of fun. I've provided the evidence here.

 

Sometimes I think we all just need to take ourselves a little less seriously. Eat a pickle, and call it a vegetable. Live a little.