The eye of the Goldfish

I have discovered another perk of being a mom. The snacks. I've always considered myself a healthy eater, there are times I spurge and indulge, but for the most part I do my best to eat well. And Max, so far, will eat anything we put in front of him, except birthday cake (you know the story.)

In my efforts to be a good mom I want to feed him healthy foods, so I cooks lots of veggies, lean meats, whole grains, and no desserts. Snack time, though, is a different story. I give him the regular kid snacks, like Goldfish. And this is where the perks come in. I love Goldfish, love Goldfish, love Golfish. But I always felt a little guilty buying them before I had Max. Mostly this guilt stems from an incident in college that involves hurricanes, evacuations, and my parents.

I'll give you a brief synopsis - it was my sophomore year in college and I loved Goldfish even back then (loved Goldfish.) I bought a gigantic box of the little tasties, and munched on them nonstop.

I happened to be in college in the late nineties when over the span of three years we had at least four major hurricanes hit the NC coast. There was a particularly bad storm that forced my parents to evacuate off the island they lived on, and they decided to stay with me. I lived inland and in a well built apartment complex. My mom called to ask if I had food. Of course I had food. To a kid in college, who ate sporadically and poorly at best - I had my gigantic box of Goldfish. I assumed the storm would pass quickly and we could run to the store if we needed food.

Well, the storm lasted longer than expected, knocked out power and caused major flooding. Going to the store was not as easy as I had hoped, and we found ourselves stuck in my tiny apartment with only Goldfish to eat. Imagine - hot, sticky, no air in September in the south, small cramped apartment with a college kid, her parents, their dogs, her cats, no TV, no real food. It was a bit traumatic for us all.

And here we are ten years later, I'm finally over my guilt, and I am buying Goldfish again. While Max snacks on them every afternoon, so do I. It's my little splurge. It's my afternoon treat, my tiny but significant perk that I intend to take full advantage of for as long as snack time lasts.