From the mouth of babes...

Daisy says the funniest things from the depths of her sweet loving little heart. Lately she is concerned about health (I think all my kids are, I guess I've scared the crap out of them regarding McDonald's, Junk Food, Vitamins, and Exercise):
"Mom, is that your first Diet Coke of the day?"
"Mom, I can't eat that (hot dog). I'm a vegetarian"
and finally today when I picked her up she said, "Mom, I've decided I'm going to eat only organic foods"

It seems like all city kids, like their parents, shun processed foods and needless calories- organic is de rigeur. I love this indoctrination because it keeps Jason and I healthy. Except when I don't. When I leave the city and I just want to shake it off and pretend we are an easy hang. We go and visit family and a relative wants to come in like Superman, "Hey let's all go to McDonald's! MY TREAT!" (Because that worked in the 80's) Then my kids drop in the fetal position and start to cry, "no! not there! It's FAKE FOOD!" London will say, "Do you know how they make their nuggets?!?" Tass will explain, "It's not even real ice cream!!!" And then I laugh it off and talk about how we live at Sonic in the summer and see? they don't really know the difference and I fed them cereal for dinner last week and really, they aren't that uptight and snooty, with their brioche and cornichons and exposure to the best damn food on the planet...we absolutely love hydrogenated oil, really!

As an experiment I ordered Hostess cupcakes from Peapod yesterday, a big box of 8. (Fresh Direct, the other grocery delivery, doesn't carry them- guess they're too Fresh) Chocolate frosting with the white squiggle on top. The kids had never seen them before. McAllister is 9, mind you, and was confused how they put a cupcake inside plastic wrap. London, I guess, had read the ingredients and told me "mom, it has BEEF FAT in it" ('animal byproducts'). Then I realized something: "Kids, have you ever had a Twinkie?" (That's the classic after all) - and, I kid you not, blank stares! McAllister didn't know what it looked like. London made a face and said, no, she'd never had one. Not once.

Since we moved to NY I have tried  to make my kids' childhood as normal as possible (from what I knew growing up). This oversight proves maybe I have some work to do.