Leave Cookie Monster alone!!!

First a blog article I found that was awesome on this very topic.

Messing with Bugs Bunny was bad enough, now they are messing with one of the icons of childhood....Cookie Monster.....

He was never the icon of good food behavior, he was a cookie "monster". I'd tease my children about not becoming cookie monsters they loved him as he was. A big silly blue monster that made them laugh in his endless pursuit of what he loved....cooooookiessss.

You as a parent if you've done even a half assed job of it should have managed to teach your children that they of course can't eat cookies all day long they need other food. This poor little blue furry soul isn't making children fat or causing them to make bad food choices. Even the most "cookie monster" wannabe child can be told simply....he's a big furry blue monster they don't need veggies and fruit, so since you're not blue or furry? Sorry eat your cauliflower.....(trust me on this one it can happen and that does work no matter how they try they can't make themselves blue and furry...blue? yes but not furry though it's a very good idea to not leave furry rugs or glue around when you say this.)

Really how many little tots who are the sesame street fans can even say "cauliflower" but I bet most of them can say "COOKIE"!!!! I fed my kids cookies, and somehow they survived early childhood. Two of them are now vegetarians, one only eats chicken and fish or vegetarian. Two are very "carnivorish", and yet all are healthy somehow surviving the impulse to live solely on cookies and other junkfood. They learned how to make food choices and while the vegetarian bunch makes things more of a challenge for me, it's managable and I don't give up the foods we "carnivores" love to make everyone happy.

Fast food like McDonalds was a treat not something that we had often. I do the unthinkable, I cook dinner. Most times we do something even stranger, we all eat together at this square thing called a "table". Even when I did work full time I still put dinner on the table most every night. It's not that hard to cook a healthy dinner that is not only much tastier but cheaper than stopping and picking up something especially when you have a larger family. I have thru the years become the master of the quick dinner. Take tonight as an example, a quick homemade tomato sauce with garlic, basil and parmesan cheese and rigatoni; a fresh spinach salad with some cucumber, and chicken breast with some basil and garlic for the meat eaters of the bunch; some had pears some had fresh pineapple for dessert; it took me maybe 25 minutes from start to putting it on the table. Sure for those of you who are only one or two it may seem cheaper but in reality if you cooked twice a week you could easily have dinners for most of the week ready just to heat up.

Add to that how many people actually take their kids outside anymore? Mine went out almost every day, even if it was really cold you bundle them up and you go for a walk, bike ride, you don't let them sit infront of the tv or computer all day long. It's raining? Gee none of us will melt and kids have fun walking in the rain, that's why they have raincoats and umbrellas. I still try to walk every day with my youngest and when I'm having a day where I can't? She still goes out, she just takes the dog with her (thank God for little dogs she can walk them rather than being walked).

It's the lack of action by parents that's made today's kids fatter...not Cookie Monster....