(Try to resist the urge to get caught up in how adorable my son is :)... .there's a lesson to be learned here)
This morning I took my kiddo to a local Easter egg hunt. Here he is gearing up for the hunt:
This easter egg hunt was divided up by age groups. He is two, so he was in the youngest group. Of course at that age they don't really hide the candy and eggs, they just have it laying out in the grass for the kids to scoop up. And this particular "hunt" mainly had fruit snacks and other individually packaged treats and very few eggs. None of the kids seemed to care about the lack of eggs, I think they enjoyed having easy access to the candy. :)
Anyway, as I followed behind him I noticed he passed up several pieces of candy.
I figured he just missed them so I said, "Look over here, you missed some."
He looked up at me and said, "No, I don't like that candy Mommy."
As he said that, some other kid came and quickly scooped up the candy and tossed it in their basket without even looking at it. My child however walked away, searching for his favorite candy.
The hunt was over pretty quickly and it was soon time to check out what goodies we ended up with. My son's basket was filled with fruit snacks and skittles and not much else. The proud mommy side of me imagines that's an indicator of how health conscious he is. I mean... out of all that candy he gravitated towards the "fruit" candy. :) And of course the realistic side of me realizes that neither "fruit snacks" or skittles count as actual FRUIT, but for now I'm ignoring the rational side. :)
Lessons learned:
All that silliness aside, his actions during the candy hunt did get me thinking. He could've picked up twice as much candy simply because it was there, but instead of going for convenience he chose to go out of his way to look for what he really liked.
A few hours later I was standing in McDonald's as the the group I was with ordered. It was lunch time and I was hungry too, but the thing is I don't really like McDonald's. It would've been easy to order (what passes for) a fish sandwich and fries, but I decided to follow my child's example. Instead of eating there simply because its convenient, I skipped the McDonald's and put a little effort into making my own lunch at home.
How often do we eat something simply because it's convenient? Isn't that why fast food restaurants are so prevalent? We are an instant gratification type of society, we would rather sacrifice quality than sacrifice time.
Well, a lifetime of sacrificing quality leads to less time in life. Does that make sense? Guess I could've just said: Eat crap and you'll die sooner than if you eat healthy. (pretty blunt, huh?)
Don't always have time to stop what you're doing and hunt down a healthy lunch? PLAN AHEAD so you don't have to worry about choosing between your health and a few extra minutes out of your day.
Do you choose what's "there" over what's good for you?
How to you plan ahead so you don't run into any fast food emergencies?
Hope everyone has a Happy, Healthy Easter!