I’ve struggled this year with feeling like the snobby organic mom who won’t let her kids eat what the other kids are eating. We had to bring our own ice cream and toppings to the homeschool ice cream party. Through that I had to remember to focus on the question, what are we gaining here?

Last year I embarked on an adventure into the kitchens of 3 families who are taking on a whole food diet. Well, it’s a year later and I thought it might be time to revisit these families and see what has changed, adapted, and transformed over the past year.

The garden reminds me to be still. To feel.
It is there that my mind is cleared of the fog and chaos that builds up from too many hours spent staring at a screen. With my hands in the soil, my elbows brushing bean pods as I yank green weeds from around the pepper plants I learn to feel, so that I can think again.

Each morning I wake groggily and find my way to the kitchen. I pour a steaming cup of coffee and head out to the garden. Slowly I make my way around mounds of soil and baby plants to see the growth that took place over night. They are always growing. New sprouts– where nothing was yesterday, today there is green life, new leaves, and finally–first fruits.

There was always a bit of commotion when my mom was making chocolate chip cookies. Along with the warm, sweet aroma wafting from the kitchen came a distinct “whack!” “whack!” “whack!”; the telltale melody of cookies coming out of the oven and being dropped onto the counter top.

Today was full– full but not busy, not hectic, not frenzied, just full and fulfilling. We hunted for the perfect tomatoes, rode a lawn mower train, bought our garden’s worth of transplants, planted half of them into the earth. Today I taught my son what a baby broccoli plant looks like, and how to place it into the soil so it can grow. So he can eat it. So he can grow.