introducing 'Activities to Zucchini'

Greetings to the Dayton Children’s Community! My name is Becky Gonter-Dray and I am taking on the role as the newest blogger for Dayton Children’s! As part of the “Activities to Zucchini” blog, I look forward to sharing with you my nutrition expertise along with my real life stories of how we incorporate healthy eating in our own home, especially in today’s busy lifestyle. But first I would like to take this time and introduce myself to you.

I have been a dietitian now since 1995 and with Dayton Children’s for 12 years. My, time has flown by! About 1 year ago, my Dietetics and Nutrition manager invited the dietitians to start blogging. I contributed a few times with the group. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed blogging and sharing about my family and our own nutrition struggles and triumphs in our own home. Just recently, my manager (again) invited me to consider being the (regular) Mommy Dietitian blogger for the hospital. Wow…am I (and my family) up for this?

I am a native Daytonian born number 8 in a family of 9 children. I attended Chaminade-Julienne high school and later, graduated college from the University of Cincinnati. While in high school, my mother suggested I consider dietetics as I was enjoying cooking. What was dietetics?? I didn’t know I was in for a college journey of chemistry, food science and work experiences in a nursing home (clearing pureed eggs off plates in the dish room) to working at collecting menus/in a diet office for a hospital in Cincinnati. Oh, and in the middle of all that, after transferring colleges and needing money + work experience, I was also Chuck E at Chuck E. Cheese’s! I was lucky to complete my dietetic internship through Miami Valley Hospital (and thus, move back home). I have had the opportunity to work with the Women, Infant, Children (WIC) program, adults, nutrition support (feeding through veins and tubes), neonates (Level III nursery) and now, in the Pediatric Intensive Care unit, Homecare (Children’s Home Health Care of Dayton) and Nutrition Clinic (outpatient nutrition counseling) here at Dayton Children’s. I also have enjoyed teaching at the college level to future dietitians within the Health and Sport’s Science department at the University of Dayton.

My husband, Alex, and I have 3 boys ages 8 years (Patrick), 5.5 years (Matthew) and 3 years come September (Edward). Alex works from the home with traveling a little every month. We do use daycare and babysitters when I am working my three days a week here at the hospital. We juggle together the house and kids with our work schedules. We both enjoy cooking and that is something we always enjoyed doing together from day one. When we were pregnant with Patrick, we decided to go with the midwives at Lifestages and go with the Bradley Method Natural Childbirth I also pointed out to Alex in the grocery how much formula was and financially (easier to sell him on $ at first) why we should breastfeed. He later, after breastfeeding the boys each 12.5-13.5 months, understood the emotional and physical benefits of breastfeeding for both the boys and for myself (maybe that will be another blog?).

As you can see, food and healthy eating is a passion in our home. I also love to welcome friends and family into our home and share new healthy recipes with anyone who will listen! I hope to get to know all of you and enjoy your stories of healthy eating in your homes as I try and share mine with you!