I am Mommy, hear me RAW!

Yep, not RAWR, raw. My body feels abused. It's time to do better.

I would love to do a juice fast to get my body clean and functioning as it should. Right now I'm not there. So here is my plan:

As much fresh juice as I can manage will be my main source of nourishment, with a few salads and some fruit. Oh yeah, and plenty of water!!

This morning for breakfast I am drinking blueberry/mango/watermelon juice. It's not bad. I plan to eat the rest of the watermelon, and a salad this afternoon with lettuce from our own garden and sprouts from the "Sprout Lady" at the market (who happens to be super nice, and she makes her own tofu).

Speaking of, our garden is flourishing! Here is some lettuce we thinned out a few days ago...

Also, yesterday was Canada Day. We didn't plan on going to any of the celebrations, until we happened upon them accidentally. It was good, though. For our family day yesterday we had a picnic near the waterfall then walked along the river until the parade came through. The walk home was the best part though. You see, we don't really let our children have sugar. Yes, we are terrible parents!

So what happens at a parade? Well, handful after handful of candy is thrown at children's eager faces, as parents watch them transform from well fed children in to starving, raving hyena's chasing this candy. Our son usually says "No, thank you." Which normally works very well, but he was too busy plugging his ears from all the loud sounds to bother this time. Our daughter is still learning, so she would just politely take the candy and gather up what was around us and hand it to their Daddy. All the way home, these two offered candy suckers and bubble gum to every passerby we saw. And they LOVED IT. While we were walking I could just imagine other parents taking pity on our children because they are holding all of this sweet sugary stuff that they are not even allowed to eat (how unfair, right?). But the truth is, we take pity on the children who are allowed to eat it. They do not get the enriching experience of sharing something with others, they spend two whole minutes devouring as much sugar as they can, then they get hyper and start to act out because they can no longer control themselves, then the parents ask the children to calm down, at which point said children have a temper tantrum, which lands them in some serious trouble. Suddenly, not only are they out of candy, in trouble, and climbing the walls, they do not have those wonderful memories and social experiences of making somebody's day.

So please, do NOT feel bad for our children. By allowing them to give away their candy, they had the best Canada Day of their lives (so far!). I just asked our son what his favorite part of Canada Day was, "Giving away the candy! And when I left some in that bike helmet, I hope they found it and ate it!"