My black Dansko clogs squeak-stuck to the kitchen floor while I typed in my table's order. Tour of Italy, Chicken Parm and a Fettuccini Alfredo. I tried to look busy while, Josh with the tattoos, was rounding up servers to sing the Olive Garden birthday song, but it didn't work. 

"C'mon! I've got my lighter and the cake is ready. You're not running any food so you're singing". 

"Is it really a birthday or are they faking it"? I asked as I readied myself for another round of Olive Garden's time honored tradition of singing Buona Festa.

I'm not even sure why we asked if it was a real birthday because 75% of the time, they were faking it. We were also faking our enthusiasm, but we sang anyways. Who doesn't pick a random person in their party celebrate when free cake is on the line? 

Four grumpy servers and I slapped on our happy face and started loudly clapping hands ending with a rowdy "we're so glad you came to celebrate with us today...hey!"...

"You stay on your side and I'll stay on my side" my sister said after firmly pressing her finger along the vinyl seat of our minivan on the way to Colorado from Wisconsin. 

This was easy for most of the trip since my dad had MacGyvered a way to set up a TV and VCR by running a split cable off the cigarette lighter. (My dad was a genius, still is). But some of the time, we wanted to listen to our music. Remember the hours you spent making all those mixtapes? 

My older, cooler sister in her collar up Benetton shirt was also a genius. Her mixtapes were the best. Way better than mine. I likely had some Milli Vanilli crap (blame it on the rain and their lip syncing), but she had the good stuff cut perfectly.

Guns N Roses, Def Leopard, U2. 

I would beg her to switch tapes and she usually said no while pushing me back over to "my side", but every now and then I could listen for a few precious minutes. U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Desire" were my...

"Ewwww, gross!"
"These are disgusting! I just won't eat anything."
"What's wrong with these, mom???"
"Yuck."

These were just a few of the dinner complaints from our kids this week. If you're anything like me, COVID-19 has resulted in your kitchen being either overstocked, understocked or stocked with odd replacements from an instacart order**. 

The offender of this particularly terrible meal? Maria and Ricardo's tortillas made from Quinoa. We're obsessed with Maria and Ricardo's regular flour tortillas and devour them on Taco Tuesdays, but these dairy free, wheat free, made with avocado oil imposters were bad. Really bad. And I fully admit they were gross and happily tossed the four untouched quinoa burrito imposters.

This reminded me of how badly I used to try to like foods that I thought were "healthier". Which really meant that I thought if I ate certain foods or avoided certain ingredients, I'd be able to maintain or lose weight. In my dieting days, I would've tried...

Last week we managed to escape to Acadia National Park after a five hour drive in the car. When we arrived at our rental house, we were immediately struck with the salty ocean smell. The kids were bursting to explore our little rocky beach so we quickly unloaded our bags and walked two flights down the wooden steps to the shore. 

The rocky landscape that met us at the bottom of the steps gets covered and uncovered twice daily with the changing six foot tide. It was the perfect spot for my five year old and I do indulge in our beach obsession.

We're completely obsessed with finding sea glass. So much so, that we have to remind ourselves to look up and enjoy the view every few minutes. If you've never done this, it's basically a hunt for tiny pieces of glass in the sand and rocks. The glass is formed when the sea salt chemically weathers it over time giving it almost a frosted appearance. 

We love the thrill of finding frosted pieces of all sizes. Bonus points...

Have you been to a restaurant since COVID-19 started? While we were able to enjoy our first dinner out in Maine this past week, we're sticking to take away or curbside pickup at home. 

One thing that's nice about eating at home is that you eliminate the potential for a bad date. I'm not talking about the awkward high school, sweaty palms kind of date. I'm talking about the date that comments on your plate.

Picture this, you're scanning the menu at your favorite restaurant and you and your bestie decide to get the same thing. The waitress brings your meal and your bestie says something along the lines of "Wow, this is so big, there's no way I can eat all of this! I'm going to take the rest home for lunch and dinner tomorrow." Meanwhile, you're looking at your dish, thinking it's going to hit the spot and there won't be might not be any crumbs left because you're feeling super hungry. 

What you're left with is feeling badly because you've just been food shamed...

I still have diet thoughts come into my head. The patterns in my brain that told me to restrict and measure and stop and avoid were used for many years, so as much as I've tried to erase them, I sometimes find myself in those old thought loops. 

One of those loops goes like this. Enjoy a nice lunch, come back to the kitchen an hour later, eat something sweet and then listen to my brain say, "why did you just eat that? You shouldn't be hungry again. What's wrong with you?". Then some sort of guilt and shame and self flagellation follow. Sound familiar? 

In my dieting days, this mini conversation would've spurred on a new dedication to the next diet. I would've thrown out all the "bad" foods so I wouldn't dare be tempted to eat them again. I would debate locking up my pantry. How many times have you heard people joking (or serious) about this during COVID-19?

The only thing I need to lock up right now is my ability to recognize these diet thoughts and continue...

I've mentioned that I'm on a quest to organize and streamline our house. Before our baby was born, I did a major office clean out. I'm talking, threw out my grade school report cards and poems that I had written in 4th grade kind of clean out. Never mind that I've kept these things through too many moves to count. Eliminating junk and creating space is very satisfying to me. 

I love getting rid of big items and replacing them with smaller, sleeker items like my old clunky printer. Yes, it could print, scan and copy, but it didn't meet my aesthetic standards. Big, gray, bulky, meh. So off I went to amazon to purchase my cute little white HP Tango printer after taking the old one to the dump. 

The printer arrived and my husband gave me the side eye and said "that thing is going to last you two weeks. It might break if I look at it the wrong way." I assured him that it would be perfect. Enter COVID-19, homeschooling and WFH and that Tango started dancing multiple times a day....

Our sweet baby girl is already 5 months old. After some minor bumps (hello, thrush), we're into a groove with breastfeeding and are juuuuust starting solid foods (hello, avocado). I can't wait to see what foods she likes. 

This girl is so intuitive. She tells me exactly when she wants to eat, if she's had enough or if she needs more. She doesn't need to check and see what her siblings are doing. She doesn't care if she's following the get-your-baby-to-sleep-by-twelve-weeks-using-this-daily-formula plan. She just knows exactly how much and what she needs.

You know who else just knows what and how much food they need? You do. We're all born intuitive eaters and inevitably loose our footing somewhere along the way. Family, friends, a doctor, a teacher, a celebrity, or a book sends us off course. That's normal and not your fault since you live in a diet culture obsessed nation. Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch are the dietitians who developed the model of Intuitive Eating...

Hey Mama,

I tried something new this week! You can listen to the newsletter HERE!

Camp mom here reporting that we've survived our 3rd week of "summer".  My friend and I laughed that our white visors and whistles were already broken.  Ten more weeks to go. Lots of deep breaths. 

Just like you, our summer plans don't look like we had hoped. No camps, no trips back to see our family and friends for 6 weeks and limited sports activity options. One of my summer highlights, our family picnic, was even canceled. Our annual tradition of gathering three to four generations is on hold until next year. 

My Aunt who organizes this picnic sent out the cancelation announcement with the best picture of my nana and her five sister-in-laws who were the matriarchs of our family. Something about this picture made me stop and really think about my roots. Even though I look at a picture of my nana almost daily, I really looked at her in a different way...