food

Are you hungry? I ask. I thought you were asleep, ‪mom‬, my nine year old ‪daughter‬ responds. You only got one hour of sleep. That was two nights ago, I say. I got eight hours of sleep last night after I got ‪home‬ from the ‎UN‬ and now I am okay. What do you want for ‪Sunday‬ ‪breakfast‬?

Yesterday, I spent fifteen hours with ‪amazing‬ people at ‪the Speak Up Women conference. I walked to the train station in darkness, pulling my ‪pink‬ rollbag behind me. Bright lights spilled onto ‪NYC‬ sidewalks as ‪weekend‬ ‪partygoers‬ hailed taxis and entered restaurants. I thought about stopping for ‪dinner‬ but decided against it. The streets in the town where I live would be crowded with revelers celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. With an early morning on the horizon at ‪Liberty Science Center to watch model airplanes take to the sky both live and on film, the ‪best‬ move is to get home early.

Yesterday morning, it took me twenty minutes to get to the United Nations. At the last minute, I decided to call a car to take me into Manhattan rather than risk being late by taking the train. One of the reasons why I live in the New Jersey perched on the Hudson River is because of the proximity to Manhattan. A trip that would consume days for most people takes me minutes. And all the time I save? I can devote to caring for my young family.

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Kathy Zucker is an international social media Shorty Award winner, mother of three and a startup founder at companies including the Metro Moms Network®.

I made a new ‪invention‬, my eight year old ‪son‬ says. Want to come see it? I follow him into the kitchen, where he shows me a plate of scrambled egg on toast. He is supervising his ‪toddler‬ ‎sister‬ in cooking Sunday ‪brunch‬. And now? They are going to ‎eat‬ their ‪creation‬.

For the last nine years, my ‪children‬ have been keenly interested in ‪cooking‬. Every time they see me or their ‪father‬ in the kitchen, they beg to ‪help‬. An affirmative answer leads to a race to tie hair back in pony tails. Wash hands. Don aprons. Plastic knives cut ‎fruit‬ and ‪vegetables‬. Tiny hands whisk eggs. In the past, my eldest ‪child‬ has supervised kitchen activities. Now that she is absorbed with her brand-new laptop, it is my middle child’s turn to be in charge.

Over the last ten years, my weight has ballooned up and down during the course of three pregnancies. With the birth of each child, the challenge grows to feed them healthy food. For years, my husband threw out rotten food. Fruits and vegetables went bad as tiny people refused to eat them. In my sleep-deprived haze, I often forgot about prepared meals sitting in the refrigerator. How did I solve the food dilemma? By cooking with my children. I found that when I take them grocery shopping, thy are much more likely to eat foods they choose themselves. When we cook as a family, parents and children eat healthy vegetarian meals – and finish the leftovers.

Cooking became a fun activity to fill cold winter days. As my children grew older, they grew in confidence, to the point where my eldest child is able to produce three-course meals on her own – complete with homemade dessert. Do they make messes? Absolutely yes. But with every experience creating food for themselves and family members, each kid grows in confidence and independence.

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Kathy Zucker is an international social media Shorty Award winner, mother of three and a startup founder at companies including the Metro Moms Network®.