Savor your veggies: how to help kids eat healthy foods

Healthy eating can be done in two different ways: Out of fear of disease, gulping down as many recommended ingredients as possible, hoping that the magic concoction will delete any possible disease from our hardware; or out of pleasure, a deep belief that fresh, wholesome and pure ingredients taste better. 

The first option creates stress, guilt feelings and the fear that perfection may never be reached. The second option relaxes the body, turns cooking and eating into a creative and joyful experience, and does not seek anything else besides living in the moment and savoring every bite.

The table is the sacred place where the tablecloth warms the room, the beautiful china rests next to the full set of silverware. There is soft music in the background, my favorite: Chopin. The meal is not rushed. A fresh serving of vegetables or salad makes its appearance first, before any eyes see the main dish. Why to set dishes for competition and blur their unique appeal?

The boys practice with their eating utensils. How to hold the fork and the knife does not come naturally but as walking and talking, it is a process, not a goal. As well tasting each and every ingredient, because it takes time to tune ones palate to different flavors, an ever ending journey of discovery.

However, how to navigate all this romanticized dinner experience inside a culture that values speed and results? It helps the process when one day of the week is set aside to chop and steam, or roast ingredients, maybe fresh out of the farmers market, like broccolis, mushrooms, zucchinis, peas, corn, kale, sweet potatoes and even some fish and chicken. While some ingredients soften to the steam, there is plenty of time to wash and chop into individual containers, herbs like basil, parsley and cilantro, and succulent cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers. It does not hurt to go ahead and chop also enough for the week: onions, carrots and garlic. 

The result is a refrigerator full of fresh and ready to use ingredients for the week just waiting for creativity spikes. Special names written at the menu entice the children: "Rainbow in a Bowl", for some cooked grains like rice, buckwheat or quinoa with favorite toppings. "Wrap the Power Burrito", with the leftover grain, some beans and the previously prepared vegetables. The options are endless: "Omelette to the Rescue", "Planetarium Pizza", "Treasure Dive Soup", and more. 

It does not hurt to finish with a pleasant dessert like baked apples with some sugar and cinnamon or yogurt with frozen red fruits. Real foods that create real experiences.

When meals are restricted to the table, including the snack time, there is conscious eating, focused on every bite, not multitasked. There is healthy eating, yes, but that is not the goal, it is the consequence. 

Dance of Siblings

Every day they love each other, they fight each other, they care for each other, they compete with each other, they explode in emotions good and bad, attracting and repelling. A journey in learning how to relate.

And I am the observer, the moderator, the last word if things get ugly. They are usually so focused with each other that it is as if I am transparent, or maybe just a distant voice in the background. And yet, as I watch, I am intrigued: How can you understand the dance of siblings? As they move closer and distant, in tears but craving for more, addicted to the highs and lows of sharing moments?

Relationships are complicated and the dynamic between siblings enigmatic. Much easier for me the outsider to prescribe treatments, figure out solutions to their conflicts, see the entire picture without the emotions. However, amidst their laughs and tears they see the world different, as in a blur, unaware of strategies to extend their peak moments and prevent the downsides.

And then I am reminded of myself. How many times emotions blur my vision and I am there lost in my ups and downs, unaware of the big picture? And I look up and see God's eyes, following me, as I move from laughs to tears, watching me when I fail in improving relationships, or when words are used to hurt.

God was watching when the first siblings didn't flourish in their relationship, when anger and envy led to wrong decisions, when the beauty of being the first siblings on Earth was tinted by being the first crime on Earth.

He is still watching, God is still watching as we hurt each other, despise each other, neglect each other. The dance of siblings could be beautiful, harmonic, leading to choreography. Jesus took the first step and showed how to follow the music, bend your knees, to the lowest and dirtiest, and wash the feet, as many as needed. There, and right there is the place to start the relationship, with a humble heart and strong grip.

Stories for my boys

I love making up stories for my boys. There is nothing like watching the excitement in their eyes unfolding before me as I turn stories around to please their little imagination. But as soon as they come, the stories vanish from my memory. This one won't! 

Luke has been telling me that he wants to be a scientist when he grows up, so I made up a story about a scientist Squirrel. 

The Best Squirrel Scientist

Spring was blooming with brushes of colors and shapes. Mr. Squirrel was busy running up and down trees covered with yellow pollen, feasting on the first abundance of the season. He once again was looking forward being surrounded by all his friends that had gone South for the winter. The chattering of birds recalling their adventures in tropical lands and the yawning of bears as they started to wake up for life again.

But Mr. Squirrel, over the winter, had decided to take upon himself a new career. It was not enough being just a squirrel, he wanted to have an important tag on his lap, maybe a few medals and a lengthy resume. So he had developed a plan. As soon as the sun was warm enough for heating the stones around the creek, he was going to start doing Science experiments with heat. 

Heat, he had learned from an old book he borrowed from Mr. Frog, could do amazing things. Like evaporate drops of water! Or create fire when scratched by little pebbles! He also wanted to explore how heat was transfered between different materials. Would heat jump from the stone to the water as fast as to a piece of wood?

Mr. Squirrel could picture himself standing in front of a class of little mouses and bunnies, explaining the results of all his discoveries. Or who could deny the possibility of writing scientific articles to important magazines filled with graphs and numbers? Mr. Squirrel was so excited for his idea, that during those first weeks of Spring, he spent most of his time spreading the news around the forest about his unique plan. 

The forest animals were excited to hear about Mr. Squirrel's plan, but after a few weeks, as Mr. Squirrel kept talking non stop about his heat theories, one by one the forest animals lost their interest and went back to gathering food for the winter months. 

The summer months would have been perfect to put in practice all Mr. Squirrel's heat experiments, if it wasn't for the extreme heat that left Mr. Squirrel always so tired, and more ready for a dip in the creek than to stare at hot pebbles. The tree shades were way more exciting for taking longs naps than the hot stones for studying heat!

Laying on a makeshift hammock of leaves, Mr. Squirrel was sure that just around the corner, he would feel energetic enough to start his hard scientific work. But for now, every scientist was entitled to rest and to do a little bit of career daydreaming. 

Little did Mr. Squirrel noticed when the leaves started to fall, and his Science dreams had become just that: Dreams. And yet, lost in his heat theories speculations, he forgot that soon the lack of heat would also mean lack of food! Without doing any heat experiments, Mr. Squirrel had become the experiment himself! And the results were not that exciting! Mr. Squirrel's painful conclusion was that without hard work, a scientist squirrel is just a hungry squirrel!

This Moment

This Moment

This moment, this moment is all that you have,

to live, to breathe in and out, to absorb it all,

to love and be loved, to serve and be served, to fullfil purpose on Earth.

This moment, this is all that you really have.

The past is just a memory, good or bad, gone.

The future of tempting worries won't improve this one, 

This moment, this is all that you have.

Mothers witness that this moment will pass,

little hands will leave their little trains behind and pursue the world,

little babbles will become narrative and this moment will be gone.

Children like wind, are blown into adults, leaving dry tears behind. 

Even if this moment for you is one to grieve and to cry,

to hurt and to survive, to anguish and to heal,

moments of sorrow will also vanish behind.

And then when all is said and done,

when all the moments have sung their song,

You will look behind, and wonder what moments flourished

and which ones were buried to die.

When only eternity lays around, 

Time gone to hiding aside,

All the little moments will matter,

for what they brought to Heaven.

Moments of praises and worship stand out,

thanksgiving breaths to the greatest moment of all,

when the Son of God, author of time and life,

chose to give His last moment to make yours and mine abound. 

Mars is not home

The room features a round ceiling, disappearing on all corners. My neck stretches out, eyes wide open, awaiting for the spectacle to start. Our family's visit to the planetarium is a first, and the boys can't decide between feeling excitement or fear of what is about to come. As the lights go off, the darkness is broken with grace by a multitude of stars, shining their smiles, as the expedition through the universe is about to begin. 

Not a real sky, but still an amazing way to step back, look at the universe from the outside of Earth. Travel along planets, learn about their uniqueness, and marvel at such a beautiful miracle. Yes, there, nestled among many other grayish, reddish and opaque dangerous environments to life, Earth thrives. A miracle! An anomaly to such a perilous universe.

My soul bows as I watch Earth from a distance, my breath is taken away to imagine that someone cared enough to transform chaos into home. Explosions of green, blue and brown testifies to darkness that this planet is special. It has a purpose, for you, for me. It was made for us.

A blank canvas filled with astonishing details, microscopic beauty, all serving the only purpose of keeping you and I alive and amazed. Amazed by the glory of a Creator that from day one catered oceans and mountains and rivers and flowers for you and for me!

Why? Why is the only question that floods my thoughts. Why did He care? Why did He care enough to bless nothings with life, and then again, bless broken lives with new life? Why did He care enough to treat ungrateful creatures with even more love and a new creation?

The first couple doubted that God had blessed them enough. If they could step back as I do, inside a planetarium and look around at the empty and void available planet alternatives, would they believe? Do you believe?

Mars. There is so much excitement to conquer a place where the canvas is still blank, where love has not been poured. And man, wishing to be God, plays God, trying to create life from emptiness, and beauty from dust, and yet far from being good, very good.

Remember Me

As my eyes cross the little smiles, captured for the last time on a frame, immortal smiles, never to be touched again by aging or creases, my heart melts. Everyone of them gone in a flash and the one thing I am sure they would have asked now, if they could is: please, remember me. Please, don't let time fade it all away, trick your brain into softening up emotions, covering up scars, please, always remember me.

Don't turn me into a number on a chart or into a statistic on a file, please, just please remember me. For all the joy that I once brought to your smile, for all the freshness of life packed into such a small being, for who I was and how I touched your heart, please, remember me.

And as the little symbolic voices in my head all sing together, "Please, remember me", and not just the 20 little voices shut down on a cold morning, but all the ones all over the world, shut down by diseases, disasters and poverty, as they sing, I recall having heard that petition from someone else in the past.

He also asked, please remember me. Take this bread, break as my body was broken, pour the wine as my blood was poured, do this in my memory, please, remember me.

Because our minds become cloudy, we forget. We forget that God gave his Son who died to pay the judgment that belonged to us.  We did not notice God pouring all His judgement upon Jesus while all His love was being poured upon us. We forget that his voice was also shut down, the voice that could open eyes, calm the seas and raise the dead, was shut down by tragedy, a tragedy caused by us.  The voice that created the World.

We forget, but He does not. How could Jesus ever forget? His memory is not subject to forgetfulness, nor the passage of time has any impact inside eternity. He remembers today as well as He remembered 2000 years ago. And He will remember for all eternity.

In all this tragedy, He is still saying, please, remember me. Remember that I went through tragedy for you, I conquered death for you, I left the tomb empty for you. For you! Because of my tragedy, death is not the end anymore. This is not the end of the story! And every little voice shut down on this earth can sing again because He lives.

Remember me.

The day Luke turned 5 and I received my best gift

It was on November 13th, five years ago, that Luke entered into this world, a miracle in itself. We celebrated his birthday with a Lego party on Saturday surrounded by family and new friends we have met in Nashville. But on Tuesday the 13th, his actual birthday, I was gifted again. As if receiving a son from non existence to existence was not enough to be gifted with, I once again on the 13th witness dust becoming life.

I should have known. The verse says that we are made of the dust. Dust that we need to survive, filled with minerals that completes the body puzzle. And yet so little attention is given to dust, that unpleasant substance that insist on pilling on my furniture.

How could anyone be lacking dust? Apparently I was. On the 13th of November without noticing, I changed my life. It took me three days to realize that something had changed. I started to feel at such peace that I could almost sit on a couch and stare at a wall for an hour smiling. A strange feeling, as if a burden that I did not know I had, was gone.

Like if the clock had started tickling slower, leaving enough time to just be. However, there was more to come. I noticed that my cravings for chocolate and sweets were gone! Chocolates and sweets are trustful companionship for most women, one bite here and there when you need a little lift, but still, gone! Like that! I could hold a favorite chocolate bar on my hands for five minutes and not have any desire to taste it!

So after 3 days of such bliss, I decided to investigate. I Googled: What makes you crave chocolate? To my surprise I found out that it was the lack of Magnesium. So then I remembered that on the 13th I had given my kids their Calcium, Magnesium and Vitamin D supplement and decided to try some myself.  Two small children's Vitamin Supplements had changed my life!

Dust, I needed more dust. Magnesium, the eighth most abundant element in the Earth's crust was lacking in my body. And it may be lacking in yours, as our food is not rich in it anymore. As I started to investigate about it, I found out that it is also related to other symptoms I have faced, like mitral valve prolapse, palpitations and change in my heart rhythm.

Magnesium Deficiency can affect the entire body resulting in migraines, post menopausal symptoms, diabetes, depression, menstrual pain, high blood pressure, fatigue, osteoporosis, heart disease and many more. Magnesium also protects the cells from aluminum, mercury, lead, cadmium, beryllium and nickel. But don't take my word for it, please research the subject, you will be surprise with what you find.

After my initial amazement, I started to wonder, wait a minute? I take a multivitamins pill almost every day, this lack should not be happening. Well, it just so happens that Magnesium does not fit in a small pill with the other vitamins and minerals, so most multivitamins don't have it, or have only a very little bit of it. And a little bit of it won't do as Magnesium is not easily absorbed by the body. I have read that a form of Magnesium oil applied to the skin may be better absorbed by the body but I have not tried it yet.

If you are still not convinced, you may also be shocked to know that Magnesium decreases the intensity of some drug-induced dependence as it acts in the brain's reward system. Dust that helps to cure addiction.

I have a long way to go to learn all about this mineral but the way I feel is enough for me to believe. To believe that our cure is still being found in the very beginning, where dust meets grace. Grace that still pours in everyday granted miracles. In a messed up world, there is still thankfulness and glory to God for the miracle of life happening outside and inside, life from dust, and dust becoming life.