Columnist Tara Parker-Pope writes a column and blog for the New York Times called “Well.” It’s about the “choices we make when we buy groceries, drive our cars and hang out with our kids.” She shares “medical research and expert opinions to help readers take control of their health and live well every day.”

I clipped her post from March 16, 2009 called “What’s Your Cooking Personality?” because healthy eating is a value that has been shared by over five generations in my family. In her post she explained that more and more people are making their own meals from scratch these days. But just how healthful those meals are depends on the person who buys and prepares the food. These “nutritional gatekeepers” as researchers call them, influence more than 70% of the foods we eat. Cornell University researchers studied nearly 800 family cooks and determined five distinct types of cooking personalities. From the descriptions I recognized myself as a “healthy” cook, which accounted for 20% of those surveyed.

During a recent visit at my daughter’s house, a scene in her kitchen reinforced that belief. Four generations stood around the kitchen counter preparing our stir-fry dinner: my mom, my daughter, my two granddaughters, and me. My mom was “lovingly” removing the strings from the snap peas. My daughter was cutting up broccoli and cauliflower into bite-size pieces. Six-year old Juliet helped me cut cubes of tofu while her little sister, two-year old Amelia, tasted it!

The scene reinforced an awareness I’ve realized over the last few years as I’ve watched my daughter introduce food to her two daughters. With each new generation the “nutritional gatekeepers” in my family have taken “healthy” to a new level.

When I was growing up, I spent many weekends at my maternal grandma’s apartment. She always cooked for me and prepared simple, delicious, healthy meals. My favorite was round-bone lamb chops and artichokes. My mom found a creative outlet in cooking and prepared dinner for my two brothers and me every night. When my dad got home from work, we all sat down together and enjoyed her delicious, well-balanced meals. Influenced by Sunset Magazine, she introduced more modern recipes into our menus and inspired me to make my own cookbooks by clipping recipes from magazines and newspapers.

As a stay-at-home mom, I enjoyed experimenting with new ingredients and continued the tradition of sitting down to dinner every night with my husband and two children. Now I enjoy watching my daughter’s cooking style evolve. Like so many in her generation, she does not eat meat. She has introduced more grains, like quinoa and brown rice, and “healthy” ingredients into her family’s diet.

For our family stir-fry the other night my mom opted out on the tofu, substituting chicken instead. But she has definitely been a strong influence in all of us loving our veggies! As we sat around the table enjoying our delicious tofu stir-fry and brown rice, I was grateful that I come from a family of “nutritional gatekeepers” with healthy eating habits. And I am even more thankful that my two granddaughters are learning to eat healthy foods by example.

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Summer time is a popular time for the grandchildren to visit. As you plan for their favorite foods, toys, and activities, don’t forget to plan for safety. We grandmas could all use a refresher course in how to child-proof our homes. The Home Safety Council offers these tips for making your home safe for the smallest visitors:

Don’t hang anything with strings or ribbons over the crib. Remove mobiles once your grandbaby starts to sit up.

Have a smoke alarm inside or near every bedroom. Test the smoke alarm monthly and change the batteries at least once a year. Replace smoke alarms that are older than 10 years.

Keep baby monitors and other cords a safe distance from cribs.

Keep all pot handles turned in over the stove area and make sure that there are no cords hanging down to entice a child to pull the coffee pot or toaster down.

Search every room of your house for small items such as buttons, coins, jewelry, and toys that could choke a child. Replace door stops that have removable caps. If an item fits in a toilet paper tube, it’s a choking hazard.

Secure pictures out of the child’s reach Don’t hang pictures or other heavy decorations directly over a crib.

Keep cribs, beds, chairs, and other furniture away from windows. Install a baby gate at the nursery door, at the top and/or bottom of stairways.

Install pinch guards on doors or drape a towel over the hinge side to prevent little fingers from getting pinched in door hinges.

Set the water heater at or below 120 degrees to prevent burns, and use a water thermometer to test bath water. It should be 100 degrees. Install special tub spouts and shower heads that prevent hot-water burns.

Put child-proof locks on all cabinets that contain cleaning materials or medications.

There’s a wealth of information for children of all ages on the Home Saftety Council website. But the one that caught my attention is an online tool to help people find and fix the leading causes of accidents in the home. Visit MySafeHome and you can take a virtual home tour, room-by-room. You’ll learn about the leading causes of serious home injuries. And you’ll see what you can do to keep your loved ones safe.

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My husband and I just spent three glorious days in Yosemite celebrating our 41^st anniversary. The last time we were there was August 1983 when we took our daughter and son on a family “outing.”  My husband has always joked that there’s a difference between a “family outing” and a “vacation.”  A vacation is without kids!

In 1983 our kids were 13 and 10. We all had fun rafting down the Merced River and took some beautiful hikes. But our four nights in a tent cabin were not something we wanted to repeat. We slept on concrete platforms that hung from the walls and endured the nightly ritual of people calling out “Elmer!” well into the evening. I remember wishing we had camping gear so we could have cooked our own meals and been more “at one” with nature.

I’m sorry I let three decades go by before returning to this national treasure. I suspect that my first experience in the tent cabins had something to do with the long hiatus. Now I realize that there are many ways to enjoy the magic of Yosemite.  Some of us just aren’t “campers”—my husband being one of them. His idea of camping is Motel 6! For those who enjoy the comfort of a bed, and want to stay in the Park, there’s Yosemite Lodge at the Falls. We had a room with a view of Yosemite Falls and fell asleep to the sounds of the water crashing over the falls. During this visit I vowed to return next year and see more of the Park.

I noticed a lot of grandparents with their grandchildren and thought I’d love to share this magical place with my two granddaughters. But I wonder how old they need to be to appreciate Yosemite. I saw children of all ages, some being carried, and others hiking on their own.

My daughter and son-in-law are “camping” people. They hiked Half Dome and backpacked together before they had children. My granddaughters are lucky—they’ll have a chance to go camping with their parents in a few years and get the experience of truly being out in nature. And maybe when they get older, we’ll take them to see Yosemite the “comfortable” way!

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Nearly six million children are being raised by their grandparents, according to a 2005 U.S. Census Bureau survey. These statistics can be hard to wrap your mind around. But, reading one grandmother’s story will give you a better idea of the depth and breadth of the problem. Last year, I discovered a blog by a grandmother who is raising her grandchildren. I was amazed that she had time to blog, given her situation. Her name is Karen Best Wright and her story touched me deeply.

Karen and her husband, Stan, married in June 2002. It was a second marriage for both of them. Life looked exciting and rather simple. But, four months after getting married, they received a phone call that changed everything. Karen’s daughter had just given birth to her third child and was no longer able to care for the newborn or her two other daughters. She asked Karen to come and take the children.

Karen and Stan drove to Texas to pick up the three little girls, ages 4, 2, and 2 months (The baby weighed less than 5 lbs. and was on a heart monitor). Karen had to stay overnight at the hospital with the baby to show she could take care of a premature infant. The next morning they packed up the girls and within hours they were on their way home, having no idea how they were going to manage everything.

Before leaving Texas, Karen’s daughter signed a notarized power of attorney authorizing Karen and Stan to make all needed decisions pertaining to medical and educational issues concerning the children. The father was and still is incarcerated and is completely out of the picture.

The day after they arrived home, Karen went to social services and applied for Medicaid for the children. Then she went to the county health department to apply for WIC for the children. Women, Infants, and Children—better known as the WIC Program—serves low-income women, infants, and children up to age five who are at nutritional risk.  She waited five months before  applying for daycare assistance because she kept thinking she should be able to handle everything herself.

When her granddaughters had been with her for eight months, Karen’s daughter finally moved closer and agreed to joint legal custody of the girls, while Karen and her husband had sole physical custody. The two youngest children have been with them for 6 years while the oldest lives with her mother.

Karen and her husband acted wisely when they obtained legal custody of their granddaughters. According to Arthur Kornhaber, M.D., author of The Grandparent Guide, without legal custody  children won’t have a stable environment and their grandparents won’t have access to the increasing number of social support services available in these situations.

Many new support services are developing in response to the growing number of grandparents raising grandchildren. Karen started a website and blog that provide links to a wealth of resources including financial assistance, dealing with stress, and legal issues.

She echoes Kornhaber’s advice that the most important step for grandparents is to secure legal rights of their grandchildren. She has great empathy for these grandparents because they often must deal with the stress of their unstable children who have caused the problem. She receives emails from all over the country and welcomes comments from grandparents facing this challenge. Her message is hopeful and reassures grandparents that they are not alone.

I am in awe of Karen and what she has done for her family. But even more, that she has created a resource for other grandparents facing the challenge of raising their grandchildren. Here are the links to her two sites:

Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Blog
http://www.grandparentingblog.com/

Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Website
http://www.raisingyourgrandchildren.com/

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