5 for 1

On days when I'm home, and times when I'm not at the gym, or cleaning, or walking and running errands, I have a guilty pleasure. It's a pretty common guilty pleasure: reality TV. But now that I'm growing a human being, I've found a particular penchant for pregnancy-themed TV shows. I've watched something on breastfeeding versus bottle feeding, on feeding junk food to toddlers, and - my personal favourite - Missbehaving Mums-to-be.

Though some of the cases are a bit annoying - mostly all the smoking pregnant ladies who don't seem to get that the baby is more important that their addiction - some of them are quite enjoyable to watch. My personal favourite are the girls with junk food problems: either eating too much generally, or only eating McDonald's and KFC and the like, or not eating enough AND only eating deep-fried crap.

I have a certain sympathy for the girls subsisting on fast food and oven fries and fizzy drinks. Though I admit that aside from the occasional diet cola or Dr. Pepper, I've really lost my taste for fizzy drinks. Everything's just too sweet now - or pregnancy makes my sweet-sensing taste buds go into overdrive, which makes me like really sweet things less. I'm still not that keen on chocolate bars or truffles. I can do hot cocoa or the occasional fun sized Twix, but that's really it. Mostly, I sympathise with the women who have a hankering for a huge portion of fries or fried chicken or a burger. The other day I had to go make myself some oven chips with mayo because seeing this girl eat them on the programme was driving me nuts.

To be fair, I do love me some salads. Huge, plate-full salads with kidney beans and croutons and carrots and broccoli and cheese and chicken and hard-boiled eggs. It's the sort of thing you almost want to feel smug for, because I got into the best shape of my life eating food like that every day...and climbing my butt off on the StairMaster in the gym at school. :) That said, I've always been a sucker for Papa Johns, and Chipotle, and sweet potato fries, and sesame chicken with beef lo mein.

It's the TV programme, though, that's got me considering how much more I could be doing. Don't get me wrong: I'm not incapable of cooking or phobic of fresh fruits and veggies. Au contraire! I just think I could do more than open a can of corn or boil and season some frozen peas. So, with that resolve, I went and bought a giant stalk of broccoli the other day and we've had some with the past two dinners. Tonight will involve grilled chicken breast, seasoned potatoes (thank you, Momma, for the Lipton onion soup mix!), and some green beans. I'm not sure yet what I want to do to the green beans, but they're fresh and I'm going to cook them!

The problem is that the Husband and I are both quite picky about veggies. We only eat tomatoes when I put them in chili - otherwise the texture is too off-putting. We don't like cucumber (at least, I don't) or zucchini...or eggplant. I don't mind lima beans or parsnips, but he hates them both. Personally, I'm considering making him eat lima beans at least once. Basically, I don't want our kids growing up without having decent nutrition. While I don't necessarily want to be on the other side of the fits I threw as a kid - sitting at the table for an hour crying until I dry heaved, just to ensure I didn't have to finish some Brussels sprouts - I also don't want them growing up unacquainted with carrots or broccoli or leafy greens. Though I'm the first person to admit I probably won't be making kale or spinach or collard greens any time soon.

So, with malnurished babies on the brain, I'm more committed to insisting on tossing apples and grapes and broccoli and green beans and corn on the cob into our shopping trolley. Not that I think my kids will ever look like a Christian charity advert, but I refuse to have a toddler wandering the house attached to a bag of sweets, or who doesn't eat anything other than chips and chicken fingers. So there it is: 5 fruits or veg a day for 1 tiny baby! Here's to pretending to know how to be a good parent.