Community Voices for Health

By: Martianne Stanger

The other day, as I was uploading pictures from our camera card onto our computer, I saw these two. They made me smile as I thought, “It’s the little things in life…”

Yes, that is chocolate cake my two youngest children are eating in the snapshots – for breakfast, no less. But, it’s gluten-free, casein-free chocolate cake fortified with blended produce, so I was okay with them indulging in it for breakfast on the day after the simple family birthday celebration when it was first served.

Sure, the cake may not be one that most children would like, but it is one my children thoroughly enjoy – especially when allowed to eat it for breakfast. Better still, my husband and I like it, too – both for its taste and for the security we feel in feeding it to our kids, knowing that it won’t result in reactions that would suck the fun right out of our savoring it.

The simple choice to eat that kind of chocolate cake brings – and keeps – smiles around here.

So does what the children are doing in the snapshots besides eating. They are taking a moment to bid Daddy farewell for the day.

It has become a family ritual here that when the children awake before Daddy goes off to work, they sit or stand on the stoop (or at the front window when weather is poor), so they can wave to Daddy and blow him kisses as he drives off. Daddy in turn slows his car and blows kisses back.

Simple. Sweet. A little thing that means a lot.

What rituals bring smiles to your family?