22 // What’s it like having a dietitian for a mom?
What’s it like having a dietitian for a mom?
A kids tell all episode
In this special edition Mother’s Day episode, I interviewed my daughters, Claire and Brooke. Maybe next year I will include Owen too (who is 3) but for now, I felt like his attention span may not be up for the chat! So, while he watched an episode of Paw Patrol, the girls and I chatted it up after school to answer the questions you all wondered about on, What is life like with a dietitian mom?
You get to hear a bit of their honest input on my cooking, my job, and many things food and feeding in our family. Unscripted and unfiltered, this was a fun chance to hear things from their point of view.
We wish all the moms out there – biological moms, adoptive moms, stepmoms, grandmothers, aunts, sister friends, and all those who rise up to help us raise the next generation – a Happy Mother’s Day.
Listen to this episode of The Veggies & Virtue Podcast now!
Full Episode Transcription
Please note this a raw transcription. If something doesn’t read correctly, toggle to that timestamp in the show so that you can listen in on what was actually being said!
[00:00:00] Hey, and welcome to S special veggies in virtue episode. In preparation for mother's day, we did a fun little episode with my girls and Owen didn't make an appearance this time, even though you hear him a little bit in that. But I had a really fun time just getting to chat with my girls. I kind of very entertaining what little tidbits of things they pick up on and what they wanted to share about our life as a family.
[00:00:23] Who's obviously in the feeding space and with the dietician mom directing a lot of our feeding based decisions. So I hope that you will get a good little chuckle and some solidarity. For the kids who are still learning to like salads, but are making us laugh and learn along the way. Hey mama, I'm Ashley, and welcome to the veggies and virtue podcast.
[00:00:47] In this podcast, you will find simple menu ideas, kitchen, organizational systems, spelled out for mom life and feeding tips and tricks that are both evidence-based and great. I believe that you can find flexibility when it comes to feeding your family so that you can feel calm, capable, and connected in the kitchen as a registered dietician and Christian mom of three myself, and want you to break free from the mealtime battles and to feel equipped while feeding your kids all day long, pull up a stool at my kitchen counter.
[00:01:12] And let me pour you a cup of coffee and say a quick prayer for you. It's time to chat about the mealtime messes moments in ministry of motherhood.
[00:01:22] I girls, welcome to my show. Um, Ashley, who are you? Can you guys introduce yourself for me? And I'm Claire and how old are each of you? Six, eight and eight. Do you know what we're doing right now? No. No idea. No idea. What is this? That mommy's recording and before Tim or us? That's right. What were you thinking?
[00:01:51] And now where's the interview. We have no idea where onto the internet so everyone can see right. People watching us right now. So they just listened to us. Yeah. It's called a podcast. And your mommy likes to sending to podcasts. Yeah. We can have Alexa play this podcast for us live and you guys can hear yourself on the air.
[00:02:22] Oh, that'd be fun. Okay. So guys, we're going to go through some questions that other mommies and maybe even other kids want to know about what it's like to have your mommy be me. Do you guys know what mommy does? What's mommy strong take care of your kids. That is a good news. I was on the news. What else do you guys think?
[00:02:45] What is mommy's job? I think that is my most important job. Yes. I think it's to show people what's food is healthy. What does that to show people the right way to go for food? He, we eat ice cream every day. If that would be that good. But if he had the things put in a little dessert everyday, he comes together to be good to use, like show them.
[00:03:13] Tarian lately, what does the vegetarian mean and means they help people see what you like if you like cookies every single day and chocolate, every single day, you would get very tired of eating. And if you like eat fruits and vegetables, I like on Sunday, you eat strawberries and Sunday carrots, then they would come to bed, gather to make up that are yummy food, budgetary, and also means you do not eat meat.
[00:03:51] Does mommy maybe? Yes. Yes. So what kind of dinosaur would I be? A carnivore carnivore eats. You, we sometimes do we think you might be a carnivore and a herbivore? We need only what
[00:04:11] I think Brooke and I are probably omnivores. All right, girls, let's go ahead and jump into the questions that people wanted to know from you. Okay. So we talked about what you think I do, Brooke, do you think I'm a vegetarian and what would you call my job, Claire? Do you know? What is. When you say my mommy is a Maya.
[00:04:35] very good. I was gonna say, do you think I'm a veterinarian? And then I got tongue tied and said, okay. So what do you guys think might be the most cool thing about my job? Hmm. I don't know. Do you have anything? Is there anything cool about my job? Oh, that you were on the news. It wasn't going to offend one time.
[00:04:56] Did you think that was fun? I feel like you are super good making dinner and barely.
[00:05:08] All right. Let's start out with some easy questions. What is each of your favorite food? Probably desserts desserts for Claire. What about for you? Rookie strawberries. Strawberries are your favorite? What do you guys think? My favorite. What do you think? Bread, salad. Solid. I do love salads. Don't I? What is your favorite thing that I make for you?
[00:05:36] Cookies? Hmm, that's a good one. What about you? Knit? Pasta. Okay. That's a good one. What is your least favorite meal that I make for. Is there anything that mommy puts for bond out for breakfast or lunch or dinner? That's not your favorite. I'm still learning like the pasta. You put out
[00:06:02] the broccoli plain without like the roasted broccoli and the roasted peppers. I'm still learning you normally like them. If you have some butter with plain broccoli.
[00:06:20] Like roasted pepper. I'm not really into those. Yeah. I'm still learning. Are there any foods that you think that mommy feeds you guys now that you're still learning to? Like now when you're like in elementary school, but when you get bigger, you might learn to like broccoli salad in Brooklyn. Do you guys remember some of the foods that mommy's told you that when I was your age, I was still learning.
[00:06:44] Like, but now that I'm in this. Yeah,
[00:06:50] that's right. I think I might've always liked broccoli, but mushrooms, Clare, your mushrooms is one that it took me like 30 years to learn to like how many times does mommy say you guys have to try something before your body knows? If you like, what about for you? Ricky? Can. Before you turned six, we have to try it.
[00:07:12] How many times 10 then as you get older, it goes up to what? 20? Oh my goodness. And then 34. And then and then do you then do you get to decide and you never are ever going to ever like something if you've tried it 10 or 20 times, and then you're like, Nope, I still don't think I like it. Does that mean you won't like it ever?
[00:07:33] No. No. What does that mean? That means just still pretty much. We got a lot of things to learn hot. So let's see. What is one of your favorite things to cook? Knacking road macaroni. That's a good one. What about you? You like to make salads taco you like to make, do the salad spinner. Don't you, Brooke. Is there anything in our garden that you guys like to grow watermelon?
[00:08:03] Melon. We'll get some good melons as summer clerk, maybe. So anything you like, you like peppers? I have a seed of an apple, so we like Freeman. What is something, do you guys know, remember how, when we just did teacher appreciation, we talked about what was one of your favorite memories with your teacher?
[00:08:28] What is one of your favorite memories with mommy in the kitchen? Learning how to cook knacker well, you liked getting to know how to make a box of macaroni and cheese. Can you hold on one sec, what did you like about that? Claire? I liked learning how to not make the cheesy stuff stay in there. Yeah. It make it taste better.
[00:08:50] Okay. Do you feel like you're not gonna make it now? Yes. Not too much. Yes. What about you, Becky? What's one of your favorite memories? Is there something you'd like us making together or sometime when we did that, he told me how to make. Not too much like lattice and too much character, not too much like sweet stuff.
[00:09:19] Like what kind of sweet stuff like strawberries are pretty sweet. Do we put strawberries in ourselves? Sometimes, sometimes cranberries. Yeah. We put candied pecans. Sometimes those tastes yummy on it and sometimes we meet. We do, we do make free solids. That's right. I love fruit salads. So what is a food that I make that makes you feel special?
[00:09:50] Like, is there any like comfort foods, something that just makes you feel like at home or makes you feel really loved tacos, tacos. That's one of your face? Huh? What does that make you feel when I make you tacos? Clearly? It makes me happy and it makes me feel joy. And it makes me feel like I'm at home.
[00:10:11] Do you have a favorite kind of taco? Probably beef and beef tacos, chicken tacos. Are there any tacos? You're still learning to like, I don't like the tomato talk, but I'm still learning. Don't like them. That's good. Yeah. Good tomatoes. Do you like salsa? I like them on my chips, but I don't like them on my not yet.
[00:10:36] Not yet. What about you Brookie? What's a food that makes you feel loved, are really special when mommy makes it for you. Okay. Grinch muffins. Is that your favorite right now? How many Grinch muffins do you think you could eat in one day? Is there anything you ever get tired of mommy cooking where you're like, oh goodness, not again.
[00:11:02] Check-in when Clara was little, she loved check-in. That's when she first became a carnivore. And then now not so much lately, I think you've been a little burnt out of chicken. Maybe you're on a kick with talking about salads today. You think I make too many salads, but that's also your favorite thing to make with me.
[00:11:22] Yeah. Oh, all right. Well maybe we'll have to find any favorite to make. I, but I don't really like, like salads with like, yeah. All right. Well, we can find lots of different types of salads to do. Okay. What's another question. What is something I always say it could be when we cook or when it's time to come to the table or when we're at the table, say.
[00:11:52] He wants to pray. What do you want to do? Or what your high,
[00:12:02] well, those, those big mommy, happy to hear. Those are things we talk about at the table. Huh? Is there anything I always say like about food or eating or like.
[00:12:16] Take it back to put your tippy toes and your foot in the water body, in the water, or dive down deep. And what does that mean? It means you, you either take a little nibble, take a bigger nibble or take a giant nibble. And who gets to decide how much you put in your mouth? You all me? You meaning yourself?
[00:12:38] Yes. Yes.
[00:12:43] You take you pipe, a tippy toe and you put your legs and then you play your body and then you get out and then you die. Then, um, sometimes it takes some time to get used to the water, our family. What do we do? Take us swim. We try new things. We don't want to live our whole life. It's not on the side.
[00:13:04] Right? You don't want to just look at everything for it's okay. To take a while and say, ah, I'm not sure how I feel about the water at a certain point. We have to take, I don't like that. I've never tried it. Yeah. And then there's going to be a lot of things that we won't know. Is this something we like or something that we're still going to have to learn until we give it a try?
[00:13:28] How are you always like. Make us like always tastes. And that's what I like about all the stuff that you make. These all other stuff that you made is taste. So is there anything mommy makes it not very tasty? Um, some stuff that tastes is plain as a wall. That's true. That's not mommy's fault though.
[00:14:01] Anything I make that you guys are like, no, my favorite mommy's made some not very yummy things before. Huh?
[00:14:11] Who is a better cook? Mommy or daddy? You think mommy is? What about you, Claire? I have a feeling. I knew what Claire's going to say. Do you think mommy or daddy is a better cook? Daddy? Why is daddy better cook? He makes more meats and more desserts. That is, daddy's probably better at the ice cream sundaes than mommy.
[00:14:31] Huh? I definitely knew it because I like mommy. She doesn't give us as much desserts. Yeah. What does mommy normally offer for dessert at dinner? You have a lot of fruit for dessert. Huh? What's your favorite dessert that we ever do? Claire? You said chocolate chip cookies. Is that your. Ice cream, anatomic two cookies, chocolate chip cookies.
[00:14:54] Great. Woo. Together, yours is fruit. Is your strawberries, strawberries, bananas, raspberry, favorite dessert, caring, carrot, vegetable, but it can still be a dessert. You like hearing some chocolate hummus? That's kind of like a dessert, huh? All right. So what else. You never had to eat one food ever again. If I never made something ever, ever, ever again, what would it be?
[00:15:20] Broccoli and mushrooms. Those would be the two things you don't ever want to eat again. Yes. What about you, Brooke? I never eat again. And. Not fruit salad, salad, not fruit salad. I want to eat for a silo, but not plain salad, but I thought you said when you're an adult, you think you'll have learned to like sell it.
[00:15:44] Just not right. So from like age six to age 26, no salads,
[00:15:57] but like when I'm 26, Yeah. So it's a little bit of a process to learn, to like sell a tongue, like you're starting with the fruit salad and yeah. And then you like go on to like, like a vegetable, like learn to like, like normal salad. Yeah, yeah. Process. Yeah. Do you like when we do the build your own salad bar and you get to kind of make, decide what you put them on,
[00:16:27] uh, You like fruit salads, Claire likes carnivores salads. She likes the meat salads, bacon eggs. What else do you put on yourself as clear? I normally put, so every time, like we have those little bread bulls went in the sidebar. I'm only put the bacon, the egg and all the car. And then like put it in the bread, roll and not eat it.
[00:16:52] So, so that's what you like about talent next decks, a little bread sandwiches you make? Yes. What about you? Do you think you'll learn to like solids though? The more we have salad bar? Yes. I like these. You get to build your own. And I feel like a better process. Like if you made your own side to make like, wait yeah, you get to kind of put what you like and less of the things that you're still learning to, like on it.
[00:17:26] So do you think other, other, do other kids eat salads? Do you know other kids that eat salads? I know some kids sides, but not a lot of kids in my classes. None of my kids in my class, like tomato, leave them. Um, so do you think it would be cool to be the one who has learned to like those first and like could show other people like, Hey, this is how you can learn to like salads or this is how you can learn to like tomatoes or does it feel not very cool to be the one that likes salads or tomatoes?
[00:17:56] Not very cool because like then the people say you're discussing. Do people ever say that to you? I know any of that. So you don't need this Alger tomatoes in the house. Has anyone ever said that to you, Brooke, about something? What have they said it to you about Ariana knowing Caitlin really odd. Doesn't like to me.
[00:18:18] So they said you broke that so gross. Did that make you feel like you want to eat the tomato or not so much wanting to tomato? What'd you say? Well, because you're still learning how Bowie try some tomatoes and let's see if you like tomatoes. So try something new and take a little die. you tell them how they can take a little swim with new foods?
[00:18:50] Yeah. Maybe we could have them over the summer and they could all try our tomatoes from the garden. Those are the best tomatoes, huh? That might be fun. So is there anything you guys noticed that like, we have a lot of awesome neighbors and you guys get to go play at lots of friends and neighbors houses.
[00:19:06] Is there anything different about our house and other friend's houses? Yes. What do you notice? Um, most of our friends, mom are not dietitians, so like they have more like more chocolate bars, more. Jeez, it's more girl Scouts, you know, more those things, because we normally have apple sauce and red Ritz and to compared to those other houses, what do you think about that?
[00:19:38] I like our options, but at the same time, I wish we had the other options like these options together to do you feel like if you came to mommy and you said. Hey, mom, could we get some of blank? Yeah. Like whenever you see like a taco bar, what do you think mommy would say? Yeah, that it's fair that everyone actually has an upstairs, but it's like, everyone knows that, like it's kind of hard.
[00:20:13] The person that has no swings in their back yard and. We used to have all those stuff, but then yeah. So some of the stuff we have is different than people that just like, we have different foods that other people, we also have like different toys and different things in our yard. Oh. And like Spiderman and I don't see Bryce like it spreading.
[00:20:39] Yeah. So everyone kind of likes different things, but it's kind of the same way with food too. Right. Different superheroes, different princesses, different toys, different sports, different foods, everyone has their different preferences. So what advice would you guys maybe give other kids who maybe are listening or who's mommy's or maybe listening?
[00:20:58] Would the, is there anything you would say, Hey, you know, this is something I think that maybe could help you and learning to like new foods. I have one thing. They could make their own anchor charts at home. If you're listening right now, you could grab a dry erase markers, a whiteboard or paper, or a pencil and pen.
[00:21:21] And you could have made your own gender chart, like with waves and it says, take a dive and you draw your own anchor chart and say, what does it smell? Like, what does it taste? Like, make their own. That's a great idea. Yeah, we did that. Huh? In our kitchen. So you can kind of see if you, the questions you might want to ask before you get in the water.
[00:21:41] So you feel comfortable getting in the water and then the kind of questions that you may be asked as you start to touch the water. And as you maybe taste the water and as you're fully submerged cannon balling in the water, what questions you might ask? That's a good idea. I bet. Especially with it almost summertime, a lot of kids might be able to relate.
[00:21:58] What would you think, Brooke
[00:22:02] now just make a piece of paper and then grab a pen and pencil to like write down what you have Aiden. And if you liked it, putting check on what food you love and if you didn't. Oh nice. You didn't like it. But eventually I had a bunch of check boxes. So eventually like then the next day record your record because the next day you start liking it a check.
[00:22:35] But if you, because you're getting more the next day, if you're like, I don't like to swim anymore. You put an X, so like you add your day schedule. So like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, that's a creative idea. So you can kind of keep track of like, it's going to take us a lot of times to learn to like this or just.
[00:22:57] And just now to go and kind of learn, right? What Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, if you liked it and the horn weak, you can put a double check. Oh, because you liked it for a week. So that's what I think you should start doing when, like you start liking it for a whole entire week. So what if someone doesn't like it yet?
[00:23:33] Would they could, instead of maybe a checker and ex what, something we've maybe done like a scorecard, what things could they read? What are some things that we rate foods on when we're not ready to take this? That's right. One through 10 and then each day on their check, little checkbox, you could write, I find like this a five.
[00:23:50] I can put a five, but like just the 10. Like, I really like it. I can write a 10 if I didn't really like this, I haven't write a one, two or zero or things like. Yeah. So sometimes we kind of rate it, like if we're not ready to taste it, we say, well, on a scale of one to five or on a scale of one to 10, what do we think it looks like, what does it smell like?
[00:24:11] And you would give it a five piece that's in the middle of one and 10. Very good. Yeah. So we sometimes rating things helps for us to know kind of where, how we feel about it. Huh. And how comfortable we are. do you guys have anything else that you'd like to share or say. Anything else you want to say? Oh, and the sassy, yummy cookies.
[00:24:35] There's some cookies. There's some cookies waiting for us, Hans. So should we wrap this up? Thank you girls. Very much for being on mommy show. Was this fun? Can we do it again sometime? All right. Well, thank you girls very much for making me a mommy and for sharing all this information with all the other.
[00:24:52] Bye. Bye.
[00:24:58] It has been a joy having you on podcast today, and if you've enjoyed it as well, I have a quick favor to ask. Do you mind hopping over to apple podcasts and leaving me a written review? This will only take you a hundred. But it truly blesses me every time I get to read one of you right over there. And it allows me to bless others through this podcast and the episodes to come.
[00:25:18] The other thing that you can do is to take a screenshot of this episode and tag me over on Instagram at veggies in virtue, I would love to see what action steps that you're taking from this episode, and also to support your family in the journey moving forward until next time. Thanks for coming over to chat at my kitchen.
[00:25:34] Remember that you will always have a seat and a snack waiting for you here.
