A Confession

I have to confess that I let Michael eat things with high fructose corn syrup in them. I don't give him a bottle of corn syrup and tell him to go for it, or hand him a bag of skittles and call it breakfast, but on occasion he has candy, ice cream, juice (though this doesn't usually have corn syrup), and a number of other foods that contain "unnatural" ingredients. Sometimes we even go to Chick-fil-A, and yes I will confess on occasion I have taken him to McDonald's and bought him a Happy Meal (that he probably didn't eat). I keep apple juice in the house (not the added sugar kind, but the 100% juice kind probably isn't great either). I let him eat goldfish crackers, and if he wants a cheese stick I give it to him. I feed him scrambled eggs for breakfast (not the free range kind), and we eat meat lots of nights. I give him real sugar, none of this coconut sugar crap. When he is sick I readily give him Motrin (no more tylenol after an episode of this american life), I don't mess around with essential oils. I have never taken him to the chiropractor for a cold and will continue to stick with the medical doctor. I thought this was kinda normal behavior and then I moved to Austin. The other day we played with two families that blew my mind, one was on an alkaline diet and the other were vegans. See before we moved our friends weren't on special diets, you could offer friends a snack, I am so so glad I didn't offer these kids a snack, the goldfish crackers may have killed them, and oh no if they ate the previous favorite friend snack of microwave popcorn. I was sitting there with these moms thinking "what the heck!". But i did learn that I am a terrible parent because I let Michael eat these things, watch TV, and use western medicine. after that disaster playdate we went to HEB, where Michael asked for a cupcake (they have beautiful cupcakes in their bakery and I never let him get one), but you sure as heck better believe I let him get one and even encouraged him to get one with more frosting, and the next night do you know what we had for dinner... that's right we went to chick-fil-a where not only did I get him a kids meal with chicken nuggets (their choices are pretty limited, but pretty sure it is actual chicken) and a juice box, but I let him have all the chick-fil-a sauce he wanted and at the end our family shared an ice cream. Again, he isn't having skittles for breakfast (though he wants to), but he knows what skittles are, and I'm sorta ok with that. I'm tired of the judging in Austin. There are so many different parents here that if you fall into mainstream you are the odd one out. So there's my confession, my name's ashley, my kid has stuff with corn syrup on occasion, we eat peanut butter sandwiches, drink apple juice, enforce bedtime, use traditional medicine, visit a pediatrician, plan to send our kids to public school, encourage potty training, bathing, and we're ok with that...