Enjoyed your vids… capoeira is the coolest! I was in Brazil some years ago and the guys there hang out all day at the beach doing nothing but capoeira. Awsome to look at!

Take care now! And that hippo you talked about… where is it?!??!

Treats are okay now and again, but make them healthy treats. Sugary and greasy snacks are not necessarily a rite of passage for kids. Just model good eating habits and they’ll join in, mainly because they rely on you for their example when they’re young. Once school hits, you’ll have to contend with their peers’ eating habits, but hopefully by then a healthy lifestyle will have been ingrained on them. I’m a good example for this; I grew up on McD’s and unfortunately so have my kids. Trying to get them to taste the healthy foods now is difficult. Thank goodness for some fast food joints switching to healthier alternatives, like apple slice instead of fries. It’s making things a bit easier, but the best bet would have been to drive right past McDonald’s and head for Subway instead.

Now that I’m more health conscious, it’s rubbing off on the kids. For example, in our house, the perfect "snack" for our kids (all 5 of them!) comes in the form of Nabisco’s 100 calorie snack packs. It’s just the right size for them, it’s a break from the norm, and it’s not too much. My kids love the sun chips.

So yeah - my advice: model healthy eating and don’t pay any attention to those staples of our own childhood if at all possible. And if you do, make it a very special event, a family night out. After all, your kids will need to learn that it’s okay to let go once in awhile, so long as it’s not the norm.