Victory for mommy

Many of you know that I do not like juice. Okay, strike that. I personally LOVE juice. I do not however like to give juice to children. Why? Because most kids will eat fruit in its natural form, so why give them juice? It's loaded with extra sugar (not just the natural sugar in fruit), artificial flavorings (yuck), preservatives (yuck) and sometimes artificial coloring in the form of dyes (double yuck). Whole fruit is much better. And, I would rather them drink water and milk - which they currently love.

The issue at hand is that the kids are getting more picky. Well, Lauren has been picky for a while. Ethan is becoming increasingly picky, even with fruit now. Oliver has some he doesn't like. Collin will eat just about any fruit still... thankfully. This last winter Ethan decided that he no longer liked oranges and grapefruit (an issue since I was trying to only buy fruit in season). He used to eat orange after orange after orange. We had to limit his daily intake. But now he just sits there picking all the strings off (which I hate too), then eats the segment but ends up spitting it back out and says it's too hard to eat or it's yucky. Oh, and complaining... a lot. So, I gave up. The twins however are still in the I can't peel and cut it fast enough on both oranges and red grapefruit for them. Oranges and grapefruit have merit... and I want Ethan to get those vitamins... so when my friend told me about a juicer she had that she loved but didn't use enough to keep and told me she would sell it to me at a rock bottom price... I scooped it up! Enter: my new toy... a power juicer.

I started with apples just to get the excitement going, even though Ethan would eat apples 24/7 if we let him. He loved it. He actually professed his love for it over and over and wanted me to make it every day. The twins also loved it, as did Lauren. But that was a gimme really. So then I tried grapes... another gimme... but keeping the excitement alive. It was really good as well. They all sucked it down... no breathing... just sucking. I also tried lemonade because Ethan has been obsessed with wanting to try a lemon (not realizing that most people just don't eat lemons). That was a failure due to a blonde moment... of not peeling it... I know.... I scare myself sometimes too.

This morning, I decided to try orange juice which is of course one of the main reasons I wanted to try this toy. Ethan stood there watching, excited and giving the twins a play by play of the juicing process. The end result: 10 ounces sucked down without a word in 45 seconds. The twins did the same thing (I gave them less juice though). The house actually fell silent while they sucked their juice down... it was an amazing thing on a couple counts!

There are recipes for veggies too... yes spinach is one. I am thinking carrots will be the easiest one to add without them knowing, but right now Oliver is the only one of the four that won't eat carrots cooked or raw. But, it still might be worth it.

In the end, I am happy that I found a way to get oranges into Ethan in a natural form. (The thing is a pain in the rear to clean though, but worth it. And I am still drooling over the VitaMix.)

Victory for mommy!

Mommy = 4...oh okay, it's probably more like 2

Kids = 5,000,000

Sigh... I'll get there!