I was way more careful with my big girl. I never used food as a reward. Hugs and kisses, yes. A cup of yogurt or a bite or two of ice cream — never. I understood the dangers, of course. Still do. Equating food with anything other than nutrition starts a child down a slippery slope that ends with obesity or an eating disorder, according to researchers and child psychologists. It connects food to emotion. It places too much importance on food. And it definitely makes it harder to get the kid to do the desired behavior without food being involved.

I’m doing it, though, because she’s too thin, according to my doctor. Regular readers will remember that last month we had that whole well visit scare where the doctor told me that my little girl didn’t gain any weight and that she needed to see at least a pound gain by the next well visit. I’ve been trying to get her to eat more, but it’s hard. She doesn’t like to stay still for very long. Why take the time to stop and eat when there are so many more interesting things you could be doing? So I started offering bribes. “Please eat your potatoes? If you eat your potatoes I’ll give you a cup of yogurt.” And she’d eat the potatoes.

I know I need to stop. I know it. Kids should want to eat their scrambled eggs with mozzarella omelets without the need for a strawberry or banana chaser. They should welcome a sunflower butter and jelly sandwich even if there’s no cookie for dessert. But I’m afraid to stop — at least until June 30th when we have our next well visit. And then? I have a feeling going cold turkey is going to hurt her — and me. Sigh

This post links me into Real Food Wednesdays, a real food movement taking place across the Web. Check out some of my fellow bloggers by clicking through.

Yes, Keira is a tall baby to begin with. She’s always hugged the 95th percentile when it comes to her weight. The tiny gain she made in height put her at the 90th percentile mark, so it’s not like she’s in any danger. Her weight is another story, though. She has always been in the 50th percentile for weight. Her sister has always been about the same ratio. I grow ‘em long and healthy/lean, and I credit that to genetics and a diet heavy on real food and light on processed foods. Still, with the scale stuck at 25 pounds, 4 ounces, Keira has dropped from the 50th to the 25th percentile. She’s skinny now, and it shows. The doctor is worried, which makes me worry, too.

During the visit, our doctor quizzed me about Keira’s diet. I explained that she has always been a good eater, but lately she’s resisting dinner. Instead of chowing down, she’s more often than not crying and begging for her sleep sack and blankie. At the same time she hasn’t slowed down at all. She’s always been VERY high energy, and as she edges towards two she’s only getting faster and more active. In fact, I’d even put it out there that Keira is the fastest, most active baby I’ve ever met. She is in perpetual motion from the moment she wakes up — singing and jumping — until the moment she gives into her tiredness and drifts off to sleep laughing and proclaiming herself, “Funny.”

I explained all this — her level of activity and recent distaste for dinner — and the doctor gave us a few suggestions. She wants us to try shakes in the evenings. She also suggested ice cream or other high-fat foods during her last meal to help boost the number of calories Keira takes in so the scale and tape measure start moving in the right direction again.

For my part I am also trying to feed her earlier. We used to eat at 6:30. Now I am trying to have food on the table by 6 so she can go to sleep at 7 like she wants to. (And no, it’s not always happening, but I am trying.) I’m changing the food she eats during the day, too. If I make eggs, like I did yesterday for lunch, I sprinkle in a little whole milk mozzarella. She loves it. Bagels and toast have cream cheese on them now. We’ve switched from low-fat yogurt to whole milk yogurt. I’m giving her a cup of milk in the morning and putting milk in her cereal, too. I’ve started putting butter in her sweet potatoes. (I’m a purist, so I never bothered with condiments for potatoes, etc.) In terms of serving order, I offer her protein and veggies first, then carbs, then fruit. This kid could live on fruit, but unfortunately as healthy as strawberries are they’re not exactly stellar when it comes to calorie load. And yes, she’s getting a little vanilla ice cream after dinner.

We don’t use scales here in the house — me, my husband, the big girl — so I am resisting the urge to put her on the scale to check our progress. I will say that she’s definitely eating better during dinner. We go back to the doctor in June. I’ll let you know how she does.

What’s your favorite high-calorie healthy food? Have any great-yet-healthy meal suggestions? I’m open to anything at this point.

Belonging to a CSA is sort of like going on a treasure hunt. You never know what you’re going to find. CSAs work like this: You pay a set amount at the beginning of the growing season. Our season on Long Island is 26 weeks long; the annual cost of the CSA is $550. (I’ll do the math for you. It’s about $21 per week.) Then, once crops start coming in you go to a local pickup spot with your own reusable bags and get your veggies and fruit — whatever is ripening that particular week.

You get a lot for your $21. Boxes, even in the spring, are overflowing. Lettuce is usually plentiful. Potatoes and kale are, too. My CSA plants about 45 varieties of vegetables along with an assortment of herbs. Some of the veggies are common — cucumbers, broccoli, spinach (yum, nothing like baby spinach fresh from the fields), tomatoes, and carrots. Some are, to be honest, not something I would ever think of buying. Celeriac, Chinese broccoli, fennel, the aforementioned kale, kohlrabi, and swiss chard. But these veggies old and new really help us eat better. I feel bad wasting anything, so I am always looking for new ways to cook up these items. Katelyn, who usually comes with me to pick them up, loves seeing vegetables in their natural state, and she, like her mommy, loves the way real, fresh produce tastes.

A lot of my friends tell me their kids won’t eat veggies. They ask me how I get my kids to chow down on salad and spinach and — their favorite — broccoli. I always tell them that I exposed the kids at a very early age to many tastes and textures. So now when Katelyn says she doesn’t like summer squash, I can accept that because I know it’s not because it’s a vegetable. It’s because she truly doesn’t like the taste. A CSA, I think, gives kids more of a chance because they are constantly seeing new vegetables appear on the table in plentiful portions.

If you’re interested in joining your own CSA, check out Local Harvest, a directory of U.S.-based farms. Can’t afford $21 per week? Do what I did: split a CSA share with a friend. I shared my share last year and still found myself giving away food towards the end of the week. After all, there are only so many kale chips (baked in the oven with a touch of oil and salt) that you can eat!

I’m writing this post as part of Real Food Wednesdays. Check out the other 50-plus bloggers who are supporting the real food movement by reading some of their posts.

If you look in my snack cupboard I have all of the usual suspects: cookies, crackers, chips. But they are what I would call less “junky” alternatives. Because snacks are important. I absolutely subscribe to the notion of eating lots of small meals throughout the day. Grazing is a way to keep from getting hungry and devouring the contents of your refrigerator, but it only works if the calories you take in don’t exceed the calories your body needs to maintain your weight, of course. And unfortunately, many of the snack packs out there aren’t a single serving but two or even three servings. So how can you snack appropriately as well as greenly? Here are some tips:

Pick Fruits and Veggies First: Stupid idea, right? Everyone says this, and it never works, right? But it does work if you buy ahead, chop, and put into sealed containers. I use Tupperware’s FridgeSmart containers, which have little tabs you can push in or out — depending on the type of produce — to keep it fresh longer. FridgeSmart stuff is BPA-free, and actually works. Don’t want to buy new? There 446 listings on eBay right now, and you can also post a wanted ad on Freecycle.org to get one. I like to dip in balsamic vinaigrette dressing or, if I am feeling really peckish, a little sour cream dip.

Go For Bulk. Fiber fills you up. If you’re snacking, choose items that have more fiber. A bowl of cereal can be great. I like Kashi GoLean Crunch, which has eight grams of fiber. Kashi also has some really fun, really yummy recipes if you want sweet, but want to keep calorie counts down. Popcorn is also great; so is instant oatmeal. I make the most yummy high fiber chocolate snacks with a Weight Watchers recipe a good friend gave me. Take one sleeve of Fiber One cereal (no, I don’t love that it has a little aspartame) and mix it into a package of melted chocolate chips. Make tablespoon-sized cookies by scooping and dropping them onto parchment paper. Each cookie is one “point.”

Don’t Deny Yourself. If chocolate calls your name, answer the call. Just make sure the chocolate you’re eating is the healthy kind. No high fructose, lots of cacao (the darker, the better), and remember portion sizes. I like grabbing a small handful of Trader Joe’s semi-sweet chocolate morsels with three or four pretzels. Sweet and salty equals satisfying. I’m a big cookie person, too. Again, I make sure I buy cookies that have no high fructose or hydrogenated oils, and I limit my intake. Sometimes, I will even keep the boxes in my car. If I want a cookie that bad that I am willing to get up off my butt and go out to the car I deserve it!

Avoid Single Serving Bags. It might seem smart to buy the single serving options, but from a green perspective it’s not a good idea. You can make your own single servings, though, with reusable containers or snack bags. (I like ReSnackIt bags, but there are a ton of others out there, too.) Reusablebags.com has 21 different snack bag options.

Don’t Underestimate “Difficult.” Some snacks go down so easily you can inhale 300 calories in less than a minute. There are plenty of snacks, however, that you have to work to eat, thereby giving your body and mind a chance to enjoy them. My favorite these days: Red Mango frozen yogurt. But here’s the thing: I don’t eat it when it’s soft. I take it home and freeze it. When it’s really firm I can sit down and eat it for a while and really enjoy it. Plus, it’s got probiotics and calcium. I’m allergic to nuts, but unshelled nuts are another “difficult” snack food. You have to open them, which slows your snacking. A few more options: unpitted olives, unshelled edamame, and unshelled pumpkin seeds.

What’s your favorite healthy snack? How do you deal with snack attacks? What’s your biggest downfall? (Mine is cheese — love it, but can’t stop at a one-inch cube!) I’d love to hear about it.

I can’t go into all the messy, nasty, painful details because he’s not going to love that I am writing about him in the first place. However, this has been a part of our lives for so long it had to make it to the blog.

This week he will go for an MRI so the doctor knows exactly what he’s dealing with. The operation is next week, we hope. I’m used to the drill by this point. He’ll go to the hospital in the morning. They will give him anesthesia. They will operate for an hour or so. He will spend an hour in recovery. Then I will take him home with a prescription for something that, if we sold them pill by pill, could probably pay for his entire surgery. The same pills that, once he takes them, will stop up his works so he has to take all sorts of laxatives and fiber to reverse the damage. The same pills that, after only taking them for a week the last time, gave him the jitters, kept him awake, and made him feel like crap because his body was already addicted to them. Thank goodness he lives in Organic Land, where his crazy wife tells him not to fall under the spell of the evil Western pharmaceutical companies. But I digress.

Since this process started six months ago, I’ve seen a lot of good, a lot of bad when it comes to modern medicine. The prices for one thing. The bill was the best part. The first operation cost $7,167. JUST for the hospital. NOT counting the doctor’s fees. It cost $992 for the 45 minutes he was in recovery! Except we have insurance, so after the insurance write-offs, the entire operation cost us $1,804. Only. And if we didn’t have that insurance? Take that operation and times it by four. Then add the other $2,500 per operation for the doctor. We’d owe almost $50,000. People, I know everyone is against healthcare reform, but there’s something wrong with that picture.

Back to the medicine. I’ve already covered the aftercare — pain killers that hook you in so quickly you can end up with another problem before you recover from what ails you. And the surgery? Eh. The anesthesia sort of sucks. The first time was fine. The second time they gave my husband too much medication and he was outright sick when he woke up. He was in recovery so long I started getting nervous and demanding to see the doctor. Ooops, we gave him too much, was the answer. Sorry. Or how about the operations? Three times was not a charm. Each time the operation that was supposed to work didn’t. Each time the doctor let my husband make the decision for the less invasive fix even though the more invasive one definitely would have worked the first go-around.

The doctor, all doctors, don’t really DO very much anymore except cut, which leads me to another  aspect of his care — everyone’s care, really — that really pisses me off: The treating the problem without looking at the big picture. Take my husband’s diet. Sure, he eats the organic stuff in our house. But he doesn’t eat any whole grains, no veggies, no dairy other than pizza cheese. No fruit other than orange juice. His food groups are beef (meat sauce), pizza, peanut butter and toast, and Joe’s Os. I am not exaggerating. After the first operation I told the doctor this, and asked if changing diet could help my husband heal. I was hoping he would tell my green-phobic husband to take better care of himself. The doctor didn’t want to give that advice, though. Sure, he said, he should eat good food, but he stopped short of telling my husband to take better care of himself. Just, “Here’s the pain medication. He’s going to need it.”

And that kind of half-assed care can be found all over America and the world. How about one  375-pound guy I know who keeps hurting his knees? His cure to date: surgery and physical therapy. No one has the guts to tell him that his knees wouldn’t get screwed up so much if he lost 200 pounds. Or the diabetic I know who can’t get her wounds to heal, but no one tells her to stop eating so much crap. Or the friend’s kid with ADHD who pounds caffeine and preservatives, watches tons of TV, and never goes to bed? Sure, he would benefit from an organic, all natural diet, and a 7 p.m. bedtime. But the doctors are too afraid to ask the parents to make such a difficult choice. Diet and lifestyle aren’t even on the table. Here, take some Ritalin. Yes, I know that healthy people who never smoke and eat raw foods often drop dead of a heart attack, stroke, cancer, or worse when they are still young. It happens. All the time, actually. But you can’t tell me that what we eat and how we live doesn’t have an affect on how we feel.

[The above language is judgmental and, although I believe doctors are not doing a good job of taking care of people rather than focusing on the problem at hand, I know my husband's problem is not because he won't eat his broccoli. I am just really upset that we are still dealing with this annoying, painful problem that is messing with all our heads.]

Getting back to my hubby: I yelled at him tonight as he was peanut buttering two slices of organic bread. After eating six English muffin pizzas. Where’s your fruits? Where’s your vegetables? He yelled back that he ate all the organic crap in the house, and he did eat healthy. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m wrong. At this point, I just want my husband to feel better. But when he does I’m hoping he’s willing to see a nutritionist. It can’t hurt, right?

My husband’s rebuttal: The doctor wanted to do the invasive surgery first. Your husband opted for the less invasive options first so he had less of a chance of PERMANENT INCONTINENCE at 36 years old. You are complaining about cutting but the other “surgeries” were to *avoid* cutting. They were surgical procedures to manipulate the area into healing on its own.

I don’t eat candy, I rarely drink soda, I don’t eat cakes or pastries or ice cream. I don’t eat anything with high fructose corn syrup in it, or hydrogenated oils. I don’t eat enough green vegetables. Oh well. I’m 6 feet tall and have spent almost my entire life under 180 pounds. My blood pressure is 120 over 80 and my bloodwork is always perfect. Clearly, my awful eating habits and unhealthy lifestyle are to blame. And of course my evil doctor with all his right-wing conservative “medical degrees” is the problem. Could never be that I just wound up with a difficult to treat condition out of bad luck.