Your Defining Moment

Can you pinpoint your defining moment?  I think a lot of people have this idea of what their defining moment will look like.  Or what it looked like.  But I think we all have one.  A moment that somehow changes the paths of our lives, permanently.  This defining moment can be good, it can be bad.  It can improve your life for the better, or even it could define your life for bad.  But it puts it's mark on you, and you can never look back.

I know my defining moment.  And I remember it clear as day.  My daughter was in daycare, and I had returned to work.  I had already begun to make her baby food, and I casually and excitedly informed her teacher that we were looking forward to the opening of the local farmers market in a couple of weeks.  And her teacher responded: You should check out this farmers market, my husband sells what he grows there.

Doesn't sound life altering...  does it?  It was.  This simple give and take.  This simple conversation between two people permanently changed my life.  I suppose it's something like, nature vs nurture.  And while I believe we can be predisposed to something, I find that the people around you make a far greater impact than our society grants credit towards.

This simple act, of asking me to attend a different farmers market, altered my families path for ever.  It introduced me to a much smaller market, with people who grew to know my family, who talked to me weekly.  It introduced me to people who owned farms, and had not only produce, but who could get me access to bulk locally raised beef and pork.  It changed where I got my eggs, and it opened me up to conversations about milk. It in other ways made me far more hyper aware of my food and my surroundings.

I am grateful for those people in my life.  Who have opened my eyes to a world I was fully prepared to go down, but a road that I may not have traveled without those around me.  This moment in my life, I am sure, prepared me for our family's current journey.  I already have the resources at hand to fulfill my daughters dietary needs.  I have a full network of people who not only support me, my family, my daughter, my diet, but believe in it.  Not simply because of my expanding knowledge and because of sharing this information, but because they were already firm believers that the less processing is better us.

What's your defining moment?  Are you proud of it? As long as we are still on this great earth, there is still time to have the ah ha moment, and make changes if you are not.

Best Daycare Ever

  

I have the best daycare ever.  No, seriously.  I do.  Managing what my daughter consumes while we are together is generally easy.  I control what comes into the house, and I am the only person who has to deal with any meltdowns over not allowing inappropriate items.  Figuring out how to manage her diet when she is outside of our home, is I’m sure where every parent begins to worry.  I am a full time working outside of the home mom.  I also have another child, 8 months old.  Effective the beginning of August, both my children are in daycare 5 days a week, from about 6:45 AM until between 4:45 and 5:45 PM.  They are in the exclusive care of someone else, for the majority of their waking hours.  And I absolutely must rely on them to help me in my mission.  

The daycare that we attend provides just about everything you could need.  Food, diapers, wipes, snacks, lunches, pull-ups.  I bring the kid, and for the baby I bring the bottles, and that’s about it.  But since we started down this path, the facility provided food has been a major obstacle.  A) Are they ‘safe’ for my daughter to consume, without regressing to our 2.5 hours bedtimes?  B) I pay good money to have all of these things included in our tuition, for many reasons, but not the least of which is to eliminate something ELSE I have to do when I get home from work in preparation for the next day. 

As we test just how much ‘non approved’ foods she can tolerate, and where I can take advantage of these benefits, and when I need to make alternative arrangements, I’ve been providing a lot of her food.  I’ve sent in approved snacks (that is easy to do once a week).  And on the days where the lunch is particularly questionable, I send in her lunch.  But that is just the daily obstacles.  As any parent with a child knows, that HARD days, are the ‘special’ days.  The day that another child’s parent brings in something for their child’s birthday, for example.  Or like the situation I encountered today, the center does something ‘special’ to celebrate the summer.

Today, at school, they brought in a Kona Ice truck.  What is a Kona Ice Truck?  It’s a traveling Italian Ice truck.  I didn’t know until I googled it myself.  2 months ago I would have been excited for the treat, and thought it a wonderful idea.  This month, I cringe.  A) Artificial colors.  B) Artifical Flavours.  C) Don’t get me started about the sugar.  

So after learning (about a month ago) about this event, I set out on my mission to ‘deal’ with this.  I actually found a company that would provide approved snow cone syrup.  So I shelled out $16+ Shipping so that my daughter could be ‘normal’ with the rest of the kids.  I spent yesterday looking to see if the order had shipped, and then I spent last night panicking because I realized TODAY was the Kona Truck visit.  And since the syrup hadn’t even shipped, there was NO way it would be here for TODAY.  So, in desperation I took an approved pear juice box, and shoved it in her lunch box.  There.  I thought.  She can dump that on her ice.  Satisfied with my diversion, I went to bed.  And this morning, my husband brought the kids to daycare.

Dutifully this morning, I e-mailed the center when I had a moment to let them know my plan.  And to EVERYONE’s HORROR… was faced with the response of:  “She saw it during breakfast, and already drank it.”

Let me stop for a moment and interject.  THIS is not the fault of my daycare.  THIS is the fault of severe miscommunication (apparently) between my husband and myself.  And the poor teacher that opened didn’t even have a chance, since she hadn’t been a) warned it was in there, and b) been told it was for the Kona Ice.

At any rate, with 45 minutes until the Kona Ice truck was to arrive.  I received an e-mail from the director of the center (the names have been changed to protect my angels):

“Carol went garbage digging and Karen is en route to Basil Bandwagon (store).  See what you miss when you leave your desk!”

They were replacing my consumed pear juice box.  I sat at my desk and let a couple tears form in my eyes.  I had always known I had the support of the daycare, but this going above and beyond what I ever imagined to show their support of what I was doing, was just more than I could comprehend emotionally.  So like I said.  I have THE.  BEST.  DAYCARE.  EVER.

And tonight, I can talk to my daughter about the exciting visit from the Kona Truck, and continue to enjoy my daughter, instead of cry because I lost her over an Italian Ice.

To my daycare.  Thank you.  A thousand thank you’s would NEVER be enough to repay what you have just given our family.