Confessions of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mother

I claimed at the outset of this blog that we are far from perfect and today I get to prove that to all of you.

I took the kids to McDonald's for lunch.

It is not something I like to do very often, but we went to the free summer movie this morning and had some errands to run in that part of town and the next thing I knew, it was lunch time and we were 30 minutes from home. Yes, I suppose I could have made a healthier choice, but I have to admit I am lured in by that ginormous playplace that keeps the kids occupied and happy for hours.

Well, as we were sitting there I glanced over at the Happy Meal bag in front of me and noticed that it had some nutrition facts on it. After I read through them and did some calculations I announced to the kids that this would in fact be one of our last trips to McDonald's. Ever. Unless it is some sort of emergency.

Isaac had ordered a Mighty Kids Meal and I calculated he consumed about 950 calories in the 45 seconds it took him to inhale his food. A boy his age should have an average daily caloric intake of 1,970. My lunch today consisted of 3/4 of a McDonald's plain hamburger--about 200 calories. So Isaac's lunch had over 4 times the amount of calories that mine did and it represented 48.2 % of his recommended daily calorie intake. Don't even get me started on the 34 grams of fat or 1390 mg of sodium (more than half of what he should have in a day.) And--get this--he still had room for ice cream! (We did NOT indulge!)

FYI:
Just a regular hamburger Happy Meal with fries and a soda certainly isn't as bad--590 calories, but still. And yes, I know, they have healthier choices available but unfortunately when given the choice of apples or french fries, my kids have never really taken the higher road. I shouldn't even give them a choice, but sometimes as a parent you have to pick your battles. So we will just stop going to McDonald's.

None of this should be a surprise to me, as my all-time favorite documentary is "Supersize Me." It is soooo good and very eye-opening and I HIGHLY recommend it. I need to watch it again tonight. After I saw it the first time we didn't go to McDonald's for about 3 years. But once again, I fell victim to convenience. NO MORE!!