Everyone told me this day would come...

Today dropping my daughter off at school was the hardest thing to do! Worse than the first day actually. Why? well, today they were having an "Ice Cream Party" to celebrate the end of school. Okay, call me crazy, neurotic, overboard protective, silly.. whatever you want. But the truth is that I have not introduced my 2 1/2 year old to sugar yet.
I believe in introducing sweets and treats in moderation, to slowly teach your child about these things and hope that they can grow balanced and as excited about fruits as they are about candy. My goal, and recommendation with children is to slowly add treats to their diet, and try to make them as healthy as possible. Why? why not! This is their foundation to their food choices for their lives. So if you can teach them now that you can have your cake and eat it too, isn't that better.
When introducing ice cream, add some sliced bananas, blueberries and strawberries instead of sprinkles, fudge and M&Ms. It is a good opportunity to get some extra fruit intake and make them just as fun as the ice cream itself. There is nothing wrong with a child eating ice cream, the problem is usually on the additives and the portion sizes.
So yes, I was the annoying mother who had to go and ask the teacher to please give my child just one serving of vanilla ice cream, and please add some banana slices and hold off on any other toppings. The teacher looked at me and said:
WHY? is she allergic or something...
No, she is just a healthy child, with a mother concernced about her health and teaching her child how to eat sweets and treats in moderation.
Sure enough the party today will be fun, teacher told me there will be lots of ice cream, fudge, sprinkles, chocolate, and whipped cream. But my little monkey will be having bananas with her ice cream, and I am happy about it!
We worry so much about which lessons they are learning at school, how the teacher was educated, which educational toys they have available, what the curriculum is like.. but we don't seem to pay too much attention to what they are feeding our kids at school.
I would like to think that today at the ice cream party all of the kids would be having fruit toppings with their ice cream instead of suggary toppings.. but that would require some "Food Revolution" to happen... and I will be the first one at the line of battle if that revolution ever gets here!
Power to all the moms who try their best to control what their kids eat! It is part of our jobs as parents :)