more kids

Two food-and-kid-related, from my lovely wife.
First of all, my two bundles of awesomeness showing off their mad knife skillz. Actually my son is just CRAZY for knives, and takes his little kiddie butter knife to town on everything: the table, the carpet, the wall, chair seats, your leg...

Secondly, size comparison: 9 kilos of toddler vs Bag of Kirkland Lightly Salted Potato Chips. One of these will give you a heart attack...the other one will give you a heart attack AND pee on you in the shower, then try to cut off your toe with a green polka-dot handled butter knife.

But seriously, one of the most awesome things about my family, and specifically my lovely wife: she is not just an amazing cook, but she considers the kitchen to be a truly important place in everyone's lives. Kids are not banned from the kitchen because it is full of danger. Quite the opposite: they are encouraged to participate in the preparation of meals. Best way to learn respect for the stove, oven, and toaster is to burn your fingers a couple of times. Nothing monstrously Spartan like dousing our kids in boiling water, but my 1 year-old understands when we say "Hot! Don't touch!" now that he has tried touching a couple times and figured out what it means. And learning respect for "dangerous" kitchen utensils like knives is all about learning the proper way to use them. First thing my daughter got was a kid's knife -- basically a dull steel knife that can be used to cut soft things like bananas and veggies but can't do (much) damage to fingers.
The way my apartment is arranged, it is a continuous loop from living/dining room to kitchen to laundry room to front hall and back to living/dining room. So both kids spend huge amounts of time tearing through the kitchen on various wheeled contraptions, on foot, pushing toy strollers, carrying various bags full of whatnot, and generally making kiddie mayhem. With liberal stops to open cabinets, dump cereal on the floor, etc.
Both kids also know how the fridge works: son can reach the lower trays and loves pulling out ice, daughter gets her step stool, climbs up and opens the main door to get herself some apple juice or attempt to snag some snacks she knows she shouldn't have.
Both are starting to learn the joys of snacking on fruit, though my son benefits more since his whole exposure to real food started when I was on PCP. But they both get some grapes or a banana every day in their bento, and my son, teething with itchy gums, loves to pull various vegetables and fruit down and gnaw on them. I often find a half-chewed cucumber on the floor, and a tell-tail trail of slobbery cucumber bits leading off into the bedroom.
Daughter has developed a taste for fine chocolate (of course!) and other crappy sugary snacks that are unavoidable given that she goes to pre-school with a bunch of other 3 year-olds whose lunches seem to consist entirely of cheesy puffs and food-in-a-wrapper, but in general she grooves on the green seedless grapes, orange-pink salmon in her onigiri, and grilled pumpkin.
In all, having good eating habits is good for me and good for my family and good for the universe.
These consist of, in their entirety:

1. "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
2. Chant Five Reflections before every meal