Does anyone remember the cartoon character, The Road Runner, and how he was always running, running and running, bearly stopping to take a breath? He never had much time except to keep running. I am retired now and I am surprised to find that being retired does not mean rest and relaxation,...finally, after 44 years of running the nursing rat race I think that I am busier then ever. People who were retired kept telling me that this is what would happen and I never believed them. I also said, "well that won't be me". LOL.

I and my husband was very busy years ago while raising our three children. I thought I was busy when they were babies but little did I know that we would become even busier as they grew older. Who could have ever imagined that we could run any faster, but we did. Life, as it was, expected it. And I guess you can say society in a whole expected and demanded it of us. Let me count some of the reasons why this would happen.*diapers *feeding schedules* appointments to the Dr. *work, work work* house maintaince* activities with church* homework, and baths. I know that the list can go on.

As the children grew their demands entered even more areas such as meeting school schedules and the many programs that we needed to attend *church and sunday school and all of their programs *hosting a ton of friends that the children made and at the same time felt our house should be the meeting place. At one time we had extra kids move in due to their family problelms, pushing our kid load to six. Thank goodness we did not have diapers and formula any more. And, thank goodness for Maccaroni and Cheese, Goulash and Spanish Rice.

As they entered high school and college it still did not slow down as we were moving kids across country to colleges of their choice, and then back home or somewhere else, while working more then full time schedules. Let's not forget that sometimes as our parents age they become our children also and need much more attention. Sorry kids, thought you needed to know, LOL.

WHO HAS TIME TO PREPARE A NUTRITIOUS MEAL ANYWAY? I am proud to say that I did or tried to most of the time. When the kids were babies there was no such thing as bought formula where you just add and shake. We had to mix our formula through three kids. I think is was something like Pet Milk, water and Karo Syrup. Then it had to be sterilized. Yes, the bottles were glass and had to be sterilized daily. (A very time consuming process)

During this time we co-oped our food basics so the kids were eating natural and not processed foods, another activity once a month that meant alot of work. For the most part I tried to keep my mother's tradition of preparing all food groups every meal BY 6:00pm. And, by golly the children would sit at the table and TALK. This was of course after a few eyes rolled. Come on now....stop saying, "well isn't that nice, she is tooting her own horn about being some sort of super woman and mother". No I am not because somewhere I lost my way.

I really feel that the advent of increased techniology has made us run faster. Computers, cell phones (I wonder why God did not create us with built in cell phones in our ears). These things are supposed to help us cope and make life easier. In some respects I guess it does but, I don't think so, because society is running even faster and I don't know how much faster we can go before we crash into each other. We are already meeting obesity in adults and children plus little knowledge of proper nutrition and communication. Who do we place the blame on?

Many families have no time for each other anymore and have no time to talk or find out what is going on in their children's lives. The big reason is meals are, on a whole not prepared anymore for the enjoyment of setting down together, asking Blessing, and spending at least one hour taking a much needed breath and communicating with each other. If there is not time to communicate there is certainly no time to prepare a nutritious meal. What is the alternative? Yes...our favorite fast food resturant, or let's call the pizza place for delivery. I have been there and done the same thing as we became too busy for the important things in our life. We as parents need to quit trying to out-run The Road Runner and try somehow to get back to the basics. We are raising a generation of obese children who become obese adults who do not know how to communicate or who have no social manners. I think that Mom's may be the key to helping us get back to the basics of life and the things that really count.