Confession Time

This is where I bare my soul, unloading my deepest, darkest innermost secrets to the internet.
Or, more precisely, this is where I confess my egregious child-feeding sins.

For the past three nights Caroline has eaten macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets for dinner.
There, I said it.

Typical kid food, yes.
Easy to prepare, yes.
Wholesome and balanced, weeeeelll, not really.

In all honesty, the macaroni and cheese started out as organic. My intentions were pure, I promise. I opened the box of Annie's mac and cheese, added the pasta to the boiling water and then discovered that the powdered cheese sauce was as hard as a rock. With the expiration date looming, and being the neurotic expiration date nazi that I am, I chucked the packet (when in doubt, throw it out) and grabbed a cheese packet from another box. You know, the "blue" box kind.
At least the noodles were organic. Can't say the same for the powdery unnatural orangey cheese-like packet product.

And, she did have steamed broccoli as a side dish.
Broccoli is good.

Except I ran out of broccoli tonight, which led me to search the pantry and open a can of corn.
Easy, yes.
Tasty, yes.
Nutrient dense, eh, not so much.

Looking at her plate with the neon orange mac and cheese, processed chicken-like nugget product and the corn made me feel like a bad mom. A lazy mom, uninterested in concocting a dinner that required a whole lot of thought. A mom serving her child a sad monochromatic meal.
The ketchup added a nice splash of color, I must add. Yep, a high fructose corn syrup laden color splash.

I used to buy organic ketchup to help eliminate some of the guilt of feeding my kid food that requires ketchup as a dipping sauce. That is, however, until Craig declared that the organic stuff was inferior to his beloved Heinz.
You know, I've known this guy for almost fourteen years. I know how he likes his hamburger and Subway sub and his favorite ice cream at Baskin Robbins. And yet, he still remains a mystery in some respects. I've bought MANY bottles of ketchup throughout our marriage and very few of them were actually Heinz. I mostly buy Hunts because it is generally cheaper, which as you may have guessed, guides many of my purchase making decisions.

Just recently we had a very important and deeply meaningful conversation regarding ketchup. As it turns out, Craig has preferred Heinz all this time, but never said anything. Nothing declaritive, anyway. He actually prefers packet ketchup, which I think is nasty. Too tinny. This wasn't some sort of explosive confession; Craig hasn't passive-aggressively harbored any hatred towards Hunts, or me for that matter, all these years. And he never gave me the stink eye when I plopped the bottle of Hunts on the table because, quite obviously, the brand of ketchup in our refrigerator hardly warrants bad behavior and hissy fits.

We had a civil discourse.
But afterwards I vowed, as an act of wifely kindness, to always buy Heinz, because I'd hate to deny him his truest ketchup love. He's already denied so much, as it is. Besides, what's a few more cents added to our already astronomical grocery bill going to do?

You know, Heinz actually offers an organic variety. I may have to slowly wean him off the HFCS laden stuff and get him hooked on the evaporated cane syrup kind instead.

I can do the old switcheroo buy refilling the old Heinz bottle with the organic stuff. Just like our moms did when they refilled the name brand Honey Nut Cheerios box with the generic "honey nut oaties."

Nah, he'd figure it out.
And I'm not that sneaky.

Lady Gaga would not be proud, because you definitely can read my poker face.