Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Turning "Greenish" and Saving Green: Lessons we have learned as a family of 6
Over the last 10 years, my lifestyle has changed considerably. My husband has gone through grad school and gotten a job. I've quit working full time and started a family. And kept going. We have four kids, and one of our big concerns is the environmental impact of having a larger family. We want our kids to be good citizens who live mindfully, but that's not how our progression toward "greenish" living began. Nope, it began with grad school and soul-grinding poverty. We do this stuff because it has solved problems that we have faced, it saves money, and it actually simplifies the shopping process that would otherwise be taken up by extreme couponing. I consider us "greenish" because I don't sweat it if we can't recycle or compost an item. We don't drive a car that gets anything resembling good gas mileage. And of course we eat bananas that are more well-traveled than I am!
When my husband was in grad school, and we were living on a tiny stipend with kids, I learned to make many of our favorite foods from scratch from bulk ingredients, saving money and packaging, and improving our health. Our first had feeding issues, so I had to experiment to get him to eat anything. After that, making baby food for our second child was a breeze. I had thought about cloth diapering our first, but my mother-in-law talked me out of it. Had I known how long my sons would take to potty train, I would've investigated a bit further, but the initial cost scared me. After my boys spent 3.5 to 4 years in diapers (long story) and I was still washing out funky underpants, I decided to give modern cloth a try for child #3. I loved it, and it brought about a laundry revolution in my house!
With the residue-free detergent needed to maintain cloth diapers, I no longer needed fabric softener (1/8 cup Epsom Salt in the wash for clothes). Also, if I left a load overnight (always), I didn't need to rewash it because there was no build-up on our clothes! I started making my own detergent and scenting it with eucalyptus oil, yummy! I've had to tweak it for Wheeling water, but I have a new formula that's working great! Baby #4 is happy and dry in the same diapers her sister wore, and child number 3 potty trained much younger than her brothers did. I also found that hanging diapers in the sun made them smell clean and look great. We make wipes out of old t-shirts and wet them with a little soapy water.
We cut paper items like paper towels, napkins, and plates early on to save money. Then I mixed up my own cleaners with a few cheap and safe ingredients, and I found that cleaning didn't make me feel sick! When we had kids, we didn't plan for them to be breastfed until just before the first one was born, and he nursed for 9 months. The next three have never had formula because they didn't take bottles, and they've been with me most of the time anyway. Even though we've always qualified for WIC, we haven't had a need for formula for long, which has saved a lot of containers and washing water.
Having a lot of kids means that everyone figures you need clothes and gear and toys and books, and lemme tell you, it's so TRUE. We have been blessed by this fantastic form of recycling, and we are happy to pass it on when we are finished with it! And at our kids' ages (6mo to 8 years), they absolutely don't care whether they are the first to wear something or not. We have found that chasing deals for this stuff takes gas money and time, and amassing too much stuff requires a lot of storage, so we keep enough off-season clothes for one kid's size in a tote bin, and we get rid of anything that doesn't fit in the bins.
Now that our family constitutes a "large family", or so EVERYONE in Kroger tells me, I have to work to keep healthy food in these growing bodies. By slow cooking and then freezing beans, I have a ready supply of BPA-free beans for 1/7 the cost, and the ones I cook are organic! It also cuts out a lot of trash from all those bean cans. By using one container of Stoneyfield yogurt to make all our yogurt each month, I'm saving about $30 and lots of plastic containers (yes, we eat a quart of yogurt every other day!). We make bread that has no icky additives and doesn't require a plastic bag each time (it doesn't last that long with all these kids to eat it!). We're getting back into gardening this summer, and I'm excited to see our seedlings sprouting in the basement.
What I like about our lifestyle is that my kids don't have a sense that we should go out and buy things as a first resort. It has made them more resourceful to see us make things, reuse things, and use things until they're worn out. It helps them to have sense of thankfulness when they do get something new and to take care of their belongings. They are more creative when the toys don't do the playing for them, and that's why they're out in our green yard building a ramp and a catapult at the moment.
Curious about making some greener choices for your family? We have a good thing going at Wheeling Mountain Sprouts, a support group for parents who are interested in any aspect of natural parenting. Check us out on Facebook, or join us at 10am on the 3rd Saturday of each month at Edgwood Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Chaos with a side of bacon
I often find myself in this odd predicament of standing in the doctor's/dentist's office making appointments figuring "I'm a SAHM with a flexible schedule currently surrounded by boisterous small people who just want a lollipop and to get out of this office". This is true. However, there is a serious flaw in my system when my kids have run the battery down on my iPod battery down during the visit, and I can't access my iCal to check for conflicts. I make the appointment, shove the card into my purse, and try to get out of that office without any incidents. Thank goodness most of these offices call us with reminders later!
What has been happening recently is that I have accidentally scheduled appointments on a random day off in the Ohio County Schools schedule. I took all four kids to a dental filling, and they were great, including the kid with the cavity. Last Tuesday, however, was much more complicated. It was Election Day, which means that I needed to vote AND there is no school. It was also review and final exams week at WJU, where my husband is a professor. And the baby had a check up that resulted in 3 prescriptions. It all started out fine but went downhill from there!
Dr. O', husband extraordinaire, offered to keep the big kids while I took the baby to her appointment. In the spirit of fairness, I took two kids and left him with two. What should've been a routine check-up turned into multiple diagnoses requiring a stack of prescription slips. I filled them all but cleared her up just fine with one, by the way. Lesson learned. The office visit lasted two hours and resulted in yet another visit tomorrow. We rushed home to let Dr. O' get to his noon class, and I left my stuff in the van planning to drive him in so that he could avoid getting rained on and we could get the prescriptions filled.
When we got in, the other kids were eating lunch, and the baby was hungry. Dr. O' kissed me goodbye and left, and I assumed he was walking to work. An hour later, I had the kids all ready to go get the baby's prescriptions, and one of the kids shut the door behind us at the EXACT moment that I realized that we didn't have the van. Or my keys. Or my purse with my little-used cell phone. No windows were open to shove a skinny kid through to at least let us all back inside.
THIS is why we bought a house near campus, because I have locked myself out half a dozen times! I informed my kids that we were walking to campus. I found an umbrella stroller on my porch along side the double jogger stroller that I would have taken had the front wheel not been in the van. We had no way to carry the baby's heavy carseat that far, but I decided we'd figure something out. I pushed preschooler girl in the stroller and carried baby girl in the Boba carrier while carefully instructing the boys on safety as we walked to campus.
We arrived safely and found Dr. O' between classes! Eldest child said "we should've known better than to leave travel arrangements to someone as absent minded as Dad!", which was true but not very kind. Dr. O' took baby girl to his class, much to the delight of the undergrad girls. I drove the van home with the rest of the crew and picked up baby girl's carseat. Dr. O's class didn't have any questions about the exam, so class was brief. He watched the kids for a few minutes while I ran to the WJU gym to vote. Civic duty done, I piled the kids back into the van, kissed my beloved, and headed to Kroger.
We had 20 minutes to wander the store while waiting for her prescriptions. Baby slept in the Boba, and two kids rode in the cart. They were remarkably well behaved, and I was informed several times that I "have my hands full!", which is the stupidest thing ever to say to a mother. Ever. While we were there, I picked up some nitrate and nitrite free bacon and let the kids pick out some fruit for a fruit salad.
That night we enjoyed Breakfast for Dinner, one of my family's favorites. A bit of bacon, whole wheat pumpkin waffles, scrambled eggs, and fruit salad. The waffles freeze well, and I make a double batch of these on a regular basis. I highly recommend them with a drizzle of real maple syrup, not that corn syrup junk.
I of course posted the bare bones of this day on my Facebook page because I found it funny. A few friends offered encouragement or registered their shock at our survival. I admit that at one point, I would've probably just cried and been completely overwhelmed. Last Tuesday, though, I was actually glad that all the crazy happened on the same day because it seemed less surprising that way! My advice to one Facebook friend who was once my little ninth grade student and is now a momma of two is to "just keep calm and keep moving". We can TRY to be organized, but life with kids IS chaos. Success or failure each day is in how we deal with the chaos!
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
My White Flag in the Mommy Wars
I've been reading some reviews of Elizabeth Badinter's "The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women" and at the same time feeling so much in agreement with many of her points, yet feeling that we would never be able to have coffee together. I would agree with her that women can have it all, but as someone I read years ago put it, "just not all at once".
Like this French philosopher and feminist, I am an educated woman and also a mother. I think mothers should be able to choose what kind of family life they want to have for themselves and their children. We are both alarmed by the burden of guilt that mothers are carrying today. However, our viewpoints diverge when it comes to parenting philosophy. She feels that the cause of feminist equality as a societial value is more important than the decisions of an individual mother, that when one mother makes the decision to stay home, she's making a choice that when combined with all the other mothers who make the same decision leads to an aggregate weakening of the strides made by previous generations of feminists. She believes that all women need to be in the work force. She sees natural labor, breastfeeding, cloth diapering, and making homemade baby food as forms of modern maternal slavery. Bottles, convenience products, vaccinations, and childcare are the means of feminist freedom in her mind, and many young women are abandoning them in favor of a cult of all things "natural".
What Badinter seems to not see is that fidelity to the cause of feminism also robs women of the right to parent the way that some of us wish to. I have been home full or part-time for the last 8 years. I like to work. I like the feeling of earning money and contributing to our family's financial health, but working isn't the only way to do that. With small children in my home and a husband in school, I felt that my efforts would be better spent in trying to make the most of my husband's stipend rather than getting a teaching job and watching my paycheck go to daycare expenses and feeling less control over the quality of our family life. Now that my husband has a job that allows me to stay home full time, I continue to manage our resources carefully so that I can stretch our budget to fit our growing family's needs. My plan is to finish up a master's degree by Spring 2014 and get back into teaching when my children are all in school in Fall 2016, and for now I am reasonably content to be at home. I don't always like my choice, but I ackowledge that it's mine and live with it.
The problem is that women are becoming so polarized on the issues of motherhood. Instead of providing support to all women to parent the way that works best for their families, many women are quick to engage in the "Mommy Wars", with women like Badinter on one end of the spectrum and the hippie Earth Mommas (for lack of a better term) at the other end. The moms in the middle of all this are left feeling guilt and pressure and alienation from all sides. I find myself there too!
Traditional feminism relies on a degree of "choice" that denies the nature of women and motherhood, I would argue. It requires that women be unencumbered by their families, and these requirements come from other women. It requires a control over one's personal life that just does not exist with small children, who are creators of chaos and do not operate on anyone's schedule but their own. Guilt among working moms is common, as is the pressure to get quality time with their children and to be successful in their careers.
On the other side of the Mommy Wars is this trend toward natural parenting. In its extremes, it reveres and glamorizes all that is natural (although let's face it, asbestos is natural) to such an extreme that either alienates mothers or draws them into its tractor beam of guilt. Pressure is common in this demographic as well, as is rampant fear. It reminds me of Charlie Brown's Christmas Special in which he is diagnosed by his friend Lucy with "panto-phobia, the fear of everything!". Women like me have enough free time to Google all kinds of scary things, and we either become paralyzed with alarm or become empowered to find solutions. I am careful to make sure that my interactions are about empowerment as mothers rather than a monolithic movement based on mutual guilting. I see some young moms determined to embrace all that is natural in order to follow this doctrine of Good Motherhood, and I want to say to them, "you're wearing yourself out for nothing! Enjoy your baby, and do the stuff that actually helps your family". Natural parenting at its best empowers parents to find non-corporate solutions to the common problems that young families face, and its environmental and social impact can be powerful when it is spread by positive example and not by pressure, guilt, and fear.
Feminism at its best empowers women to make the choices that work for themselves and their families as well. It involves women speaking out about their needs at work and making sure to support each other in getting those needs met.
I don't view my life as maternal slavery at all, even on the days when I've handled more poo than I'd care to elaborate on. It's my way of parenting with the least amount of guilt. I see my life as voluntary service of my family, training them to become independent and thoughtful people. And it will be voluntary service of my family that motivates me to go back to work some day. As I sit and breastfeed in my bathrobe while typing, I'm looking forward to it!
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sabrinaparsons/2012/04/11/is-modern-motherhood-working-against-women/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/12/france-feminism-elisabeth-badinter
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/has-motherhood-replaced-sexism/
Like this French philosopher and feminist, I am an educated woman and also a mother. I think mothers should be able to choose what kind of family life they want to have for themselves and their children. We are both alarmed by the burden of guilt that mothers are carrying today. However, our viewpoints diverge when it comes to parenting philosophy. She feels that the cause of feminist equality as a societial value is more important than the decisions of an individual mother, that when one mother makes the decision to stay home, she's making a choice that when combined with all the other mothers who make the same decision leads to an aggregate weakening of the strides made by previous generations of feminists. She believes that all women need to be in the work force. She sees natural labor, breastfeeding, cloth diapering, and making homemade baby food as forms of modern maternal slavery. Bottles, convenience products, vaccinations, and childcare are the means of feminist freedom in her mind, and many young women are abandoning them in favor of a cult of all things "natural".
What Badinter seems to not see is that fidelity to the cause of feminism also robs women of the right to parent the way that some of us wish to. I have been home full or part-time for the last 8 years. I like to work. I like the feeling of earning money and contributing to our family's financial health, but working isn't the only way to do that. With small children in my home and a husband in school, I felt that my efforts would be better spent in trying to make the most of my husband's stipend rather than getting a teaching job and watching my paycheck go to daycare expenses and feeling less control over the quality of our family life. Now that my husband has a job that allows me to stay home full time, I continue to manage our resources carefully so that I can stretch our budget to fit our growing family's needs. My plan is to finish up a master's degree by Spring 2014 and get back into teaching when my children are all in school in Fall 2016, and for now I am reasonably content to be at home. I don't always like my choice, but I ackowledge that it's mine and live with it.
The problem is that women are becoming so polarized on the issues of motherhood. Instead of providing support to all women to parent the way that works best for their families, many women are quick to engage in the "Mommy Wars", with women like Badinter on one end of the spectrum and the hippie Earth Mommas (for lack of a better term) at the other end. The moms in the middle of all this are left feeling guilt and pressure and alienation from all sides. I find myself there too!
Traditional feminism relies on a degree of "choice" that denies the nature of women and motherhood, I would argue. It requires that women be unencumbered by their families, and these requirements come from other women. It requires a control over one's personal life that just does not exist with small children, who are creators of chaos and do not operate on anyone's schedule but their own. Guilt among working moms is common, as is the pressure to get quality time with their children and to be successful in their careers.
On the other side of the Mommy Wars is this trend toward natural parenting. In its extremes, it reveres and glamorizes all that is natural (although let's face it, asbestos is natural) to such an extreme that either alienates mothers or draws them into its tractor beam of guilt. Pressure is common in this demographic as well, as is rampant fear. It reminds me of Charlie Brown's Christmas Special in which he is diagnosed by his friend Lucy with "panto-phobia, the fear of everything!". Women like me have enough free time to Google all kinds of scary things, and we either become paralyzed with alarm or become empowered to find solutions. I am careful to make sure that my interactions are about empowerment as mothers rather than a monolithic movement based on mutual guilting. I see some young moms determined to embrace all that is natural in order to follow this doctrine of Good Motherhood, and I want to say to them, "you're wearing yourself out for nothing! Enjoy your baby, and do the stuff that actually helps your family". Natural parenting at its best empowers parents to find non-corporate solutions to the common problems that young families face, and its environmental and social impact can be powerful when it is spread by positive example and not by pressure, guilt, and fear.
Feminism at its best empowers women to make the choices that work for themselves and their families as well. It involves women speaking out about their needs at work and making sure to support each other in getting those needs met.
I don't view my life as maternal slavery at all, even on the days when I've handled more poo than I'd care to elaborate on. It's my way of parenting with the least amount of guilt. I see my life as voluntary service of my family, training them to become independent and thoughtful people. And it will be voluntary service of my family that motivates me to go back to work some day. As I sit and breastfeed in my bathrobe while typing, I'm looking forward to it!
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sabrinaparsons/2012/04/11/is-modern-motherhood-working-against-women/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/12/france-feminism-elisabeth-badinter
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/has-motherhood-replaced-sexism/
Friday, April 13, 2012
My Sanity Clause
Today has been one of those tremendously productive days, although you wouldn't necessarily know it to look at my home.
I chatted with my best friend, who is really one of the most magnificent people I know. I miss her all the time.
I folded and put away about 6 loads of laundry. I lost count.
I made pizza, and behold, it was very tasty.
I thoughtfully read some articles by Elizabeth Badinter, and I saw her point yet felt that she had missed THE point entirely. More on her later.
I made a real plan for weekly and monthly home management. There are several weekly tasks (mostly of the food and laundry variety) that are now in my iCal and my iPod, and I will see them every day and know what the plan is. I have specific days for shopping, for the library, and for scheduled appointments. I also have a little 10-30 minute chore for each day of the month, and those will show up on my iPod as well. It's all kind of a loose variation of the Flylady idea. We also have a chart on the wall with pull-off cards with jobs that need to be done every day (ish).
After a month of intermittent illness, I want some peace and sanity, so I spent a lot of time writing this plan. I'd call it my sanity clause, but everybody know there ain't no sanity clause ;).
I chatted with my best friend, who is really one of the most magnificent people I know. I miss her all the time.
I folded and put away about 6 loads of laundry. I lost count.
I made pizza, and behold, it was very tasty.
I thoughtfully read some articles by Elizabeth Badinter, and I saw her point yet felt that she had missed THE point entirely. More on her later.
I made a real plan for weekly and monthly home management. There are several weekly tasks (mostly of the food and laundry variety) that are now in my iCal and my iPod, and I will see them every day and know what the plan is. I have specific days for shopping, for the library, and for scheduled appointments. I also have a little 10-30 minute chore for each day of the month, and those will show up on my iPod as well. It's all kind of a loose variation of the Flylady idea. We also have a chart on the wall with pull-off cards with jobs that need to be done every day (ish).
After a month of intermittent illness, I want some peace and sanity, so I spent a lot of time writing this plan. I'd call it my sanity clause, but everybody know there ain't no sanity clause ;).
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Of Biohazards, yelling at strangers, and peeing in a cup
M is ill with an icky gastro and respiratory virus. Her doc was worried that with the high fever, she might also have a UTI, so he had me go to the lab and get her urine tested. I forgot to put either stroller in the van. I had a baby carrier but left it in the car, thinking it was in the diaper bag. The carseat is very heavy, so I carried the baby in, planning to put her in the Boba carrier once I could take her light bunting off. M walked in fine. An idiot in a truck had to stop short because he clearly didn't plan to let us walk across the pedestrian zone safely but then realized that might end in his incarceration and thought better of it.
We got the lab paperwork from the peds office, registered, and headed toward the lab. M screamed at a stranger who tried to talk to her, and frankly he deserved it. He told her to stay with her momma, but she was afraid to walk to me because he was between us. I told him "She's afraid you're going to harm her. Keep walking!". Thankfully we got right in at the lab. I got back to the lab bathroom and realized I didn't have the carrier or any place to put the baby! She was in a light bunting, and I put a light blanket down on the floor in the blood draw part of the room and put her on it.
Then I turned my attention to M, who had a diaper on because of the tummy trouble she's been having. Turns out the diaper was full of trouble. I cleaned her up and got her on the toilet for a urine sample, which I was to collect midstream. She balked at this but eventually produced 2T of urine. Baby E meanwhile had fallen asleep on the floor. I tossed the floor blanket, packed up our whole mess into my backpack, and went out to tell the lab people that we were successful. M started screaming again that she wanted to blow her nose, but she was frustrated that she couldn't get it all out. Meanwhile, the lab people were ignoring us, which is hard to do with a screaming toddler. Finally I said, "Hey, she peed in a cup!". Then M got a serious case of ambulatory refusal, and I ended up walking out to the car with both girls (total combined weight of 45lbs) all the way to the car. That urine better be ugly!
We got the lab paperwork from the peds office, registered, and headed toward the lab. M screamed at a stranger who tried to talk to her, and frankly he deserved it. He told her to stay with her momma, but she was afraid to walk to me because he was between us. I told him "She's afraid you're going to harm her. Keep walking!". Thankfully we got right in at the lab. I got back to the lab bathroom and realized I didn't have the carrier or any place to put the baby! She was in a light bunting, and I put a light blanket down on the floor in the blood draw part of the room and put her on it.
Then I turned my attention to M, who had a diaper on because of the tummy trouble she's been having. Turns out the diaper was full of trouble. I cleaned her up and got her on the toilet for a urine sample, which I was to collect midstream. She balked at this but eventually produced 2T of urine. Baby E meanwhile had fallen asleep on the floor. I tossed the floor blanket, packed up our whole mess into my backpack, and went out to tell the lab people that we were successful. M started screaming again that she wanted to blow her nose, but she was frustrated that she couldn't get it all out. Meanwhile, the lab people were ignoring us, which is hard to do with a screaming toddler. Finally I said, "Hey, she peed in a cup!". Then M got a serious case of ambulatory refusal, and I ended up walking out to the car with both girls (total combined weight of 45lbs) all the way to the car. That urine better be ugly!
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Writing is good for me, which is probably why I'm not doing it.
I knew that this poor blog would be neglected following Baby E's birth, but I didn't know how much. I'm struggling to keep up with writing for the local parenting blog, an offshoot of the local parenting magazine. I'm struggling with laundry. I'm struggling with homework time. I'm struggling to make dinner. But I'm doing it all. Just very slowly and somewhat incompletely. I have to remind myself that that is enough.
I killed a rat last week. Yeah. I bludgeoned a rat to death. While that sounds pretty wild, it's also pretty common in Wheeling since the sewers here are old and full of little creepy nasty things that manage to find their way into the old homes here. Fortunately, I'm blessed with a helpful degree of coordination and clear-headedness in a crisis. I grew up killing gophers in the garden, so this was quite similar. I do have a twinge of conscience when it comes to taking any life, but it's their babies or mine! This one was actually kinda cute! I've since set up a series of traps in case there are any others, and we are working to seal up any possible access points. Peaches the foolish mutt was actually quite helpful in harassing the critter so that I could nab it. I have to put the traps in boxes, or Peaches gets snapped because she can't resist eating the bait. &%#@(&* joys of home ownership! A run-down home down the street appears to be the source of the critters. The owner evicted his tenants, waited 6 months, and then gutted the house, stirring up a lot of critters. That's about the time we realized we had company. We know people who have had rats in every home they've lived in in Wheeling, so we're just doing our best to eradicate and prevent them.
We're painting the whole interior of our home these days. We put in a new dishwasher, sink, and garbage disposal. Yep, tax check came weeks ago! Roman shades are going up, and clutter is heading to the curb or the thrift shop. It's a challenge to keep the bio-hazards at bay with this crowd of sticky-fingered minions transporting food all around.
On the health front, my PPD and SAD are improving tremendously. I'm taking Zoloft for the PPD, and it's March, so the SAD will continue to fade! I'm dropping baby weight. I've developed a vastly better support network of good friends who love to go out for some fun activities, with and without kids in tow. My kids have been healthier this year than any other year of their lives, with IM missing no school all year due to illness, a first for him! A-man, who's always healthy, has missed two days. The pediatrician has confirmed that they indeed have ADHD, so we work to help them develop self-control in a world that is not particularly patient with their kind of energy. M-girl has had one ear infection after her tubes came out, and she's doing great. Baby E is healthy and round and teething these days.
Dr. O' has graciously offered to teach some summer courses to help us live quite comfortably and cover the unexpected, so he will be very busy again this summer. He will also be writing an article for a theological dictionary and writing an article for his yearly conference. I'm hoping that the boys get some time at camp and swim lessons this summer. They're getting so much bigger and more independent now! They can meet up with a counselor and board a bus near our home every Tuesday for 6 weeks this summer and go to camp for the day. Now that they are both old enough, I plan to send them together.
The parenting group I'm involved in is thriving and offers a ministry of support and grace to many women in our area. I'm so thankful for this outlet! We have people planning meetups, new friendships are forming, and we are all learning so much from each other.
Our church family continues to be a source of love and support to our family. I love teaching the children and seeing their hearts grow closer to God through the work of the Holy Spirit. Dr. O' was asked a few weeks ago to preach the sermon since our pastor was out of town and the sub couldn't make it. He got to church, looked at the readings, and made up a great sermon. I did the children's sermon that day, someone else led worship, and everything went great.
A-Man had been eagerly awaiting his first communion for about a year, and he finally got to participate in the sacrament a few weeks ago. Since then, he's been prostrating himself in the center aisle, or maybe taking a rest. I'm not quite sure. He also joins our pastor for the benediction and can say the whole thing himself. He can say The Apostle's Creed and explain each article with a bit of help. I love to see his heart grow in Christ!
IM is growing up so quickly these days! He turned 8 in December and is turning into a young man these days. He's still so very innocent, and it's interesting to hear his views on life. He likes to boil everything down to facts and rules one minute and is wildly imaginative the next. He reads everything he gets his hands on and is blossoming socially. I took him to a birthday party, and all the girls from his class came up and hugged him and lifted him off the ground!
M-girl turns three this week, and I'm in awe of how rapidly she's attaining new language and new skills. The period between 2 and 3 is simultaneously so fascinating and frustrating for me. All my kids have gone through a period of being so curious about the world that they have this rapid explosion of social and verbal development. The downside is that they also get into insane amounts of mess-making and trouble-causing at this age. I realized that age 3 is when I start thinking about preschool for each of them, so M is off to preschool in August. She's bored and needs some stimulation and structured activity.
Baby E is still pretty much the nicest little baby ever. She's sweet and smiley and easy-going. She waits pretty patiently for me to get to her, she throws her self backwards to indicate that she wants to be put down, and she falls asleep in any position when she's tired. She sleeps 10-12 hours straight at night and wakes up all smiles. She has her fussy days, but those are typically due to teething. Quite a remarkable little chubby cherub, and I can't imagine life without her. Her hair is falling out a bit/ getting thinner on her growing scalp, and her eyes are slowly turning brown.
Me? I'm doing what I do. We've been over that ;)
I killed a rat last week. Yeah. I bludgeoned a rat to death. While that sounds pretty wild, it's also pretty common in Wheeling since the sewers here are old and full of little creepy nasty things that manage to find their way into the old homes here. Fortunately, I'm blessed with a helpful degree of coordination and clear-headedness in a crisis. I grew up killing gophers in the garden, so this was quite similar. I do have a twinge of conscience when it comes to taking any life, but it's their babies or mine! This one was actually kinda cute! I've since set up a series of traps in case there are any others, and we are working to seal up any possible access points. Peaches the foolish mutt was actually quite helpful in harassing the critter so that I could nab it. I have to put the traps in boxes, or Peaches gets snapped because she can't resist eating the bait. &%#@(&* joys of home ownership! A run-down home down the street appears to be the source of the critters. The owner evicted his tenants, waited 6 months, and then gutted the house, stirring up a lot of critters. That's about the time we realized we had company. We know people who have had rats in every home they've lived in in Wheeling, so we're just doing our best to eradicate and prevent them.
We're painting the whole interior of our home these days. We put in a new dishwasher, sink, and garbage disposal. Yep, tax check came weeks ago! Roman shades are going up, and clutter is heading to the curb or the thrift shop. It's a challenge to keep the bio-hazards at bay with this crowd of sticky-fingered minions transporting food all around.
On the health front, my PPD and SAD are improving tremendously. I'm taking Zoloft for the PPD, and it's March, so the SAD will continue to fade! I'm dropping baby weight. I've developed a vastly better support network of good friends who love to go out for some fun activities, with and without kids in tow. My kids have been healthier this year than any other year of their lives, with IM missing no school all year due to illness, a first for him! A-man, who's always healthy, has missed two days. The pediatrician has confirmed that they indeed have ADHD, so we work to help them develop self-control in a world that is not particularly patient with their kind of energy. M-girl has had one ear infection after her tubes came out, and she's doing great. Baby E is healthy and round and teething these days.
Dr. O' has graciously offered to teach some summer courses to help us live quite comfortably and cover the unexpected, so he will be very busy again this summer. He will also be writing an article for a theological dictionary and writing an article for his yearly conference. I'm hoping that the boys get some time at camp and swim lessons this summer. They're getting so much bigger and more independent now! They can meet up with a counselor and board a bus near our home every Tuesday for 6 weeks this summer and go to camp for the day. Now that they are both old enough, I plan to send them together.
The parenting group I'm involved in is thriving and offers a ministry of support and grace to many women in our area. I'm so thankful for this outlet! We have people planning meetups, new friendships are forming, and we are all learning so much from each other.
Our church family continues to be a source of love and support to our family. I love teaching the children and seeing their hearts grow closer to God through the work of the Holy Spirit. Dr. O' was asked a few weeks ago to preach the sermon since our pastor was out of town and the sub couldn't make it. He got to church, looked at the readings, and made up a great sermon. I did the children's sermon that day, someone else led worship, and everything went great.
A-Man had been eagerly awaiting his first communion for about a year, and he finally got to participate in the sacrament a few weeks ago. Since then, he's been prostrating himself in the center aisle, or maybe taking a rest. I'm not quite sure. He also joins our pastor for the benediction and can say the whole thing himself. He can say The Apostle's Creed and explain each article with a bit of help. I love to see his heart grow in Christ!
IM is growing up so quickly these days! He turned 8 in December and is turning into a young man these days. He's still so very innocent, and it's interesting to hear his views on life. He likes to boil everything down to facts and rules one minute and is wildly imaginative the next. He reads everything he gets his hands on and is blossoming socially. I took him to a birthday party, and all the girls from his class came up and hugged him and lifted him off the ground!
M-girl turns three this week, and I'm in awe of how rapidly she's attaining new language and new skills. The period between 2 and 3 is simultaneously so fascinating and frustrating for me. All my kids have gone through a period of being so curious about the world that they have this rapid explosion of social and verbal development. The downside is that they also get into insane amounts of mess-making and trouble-causing at this age. I realized that age 3 is when I start thinking about preschool for each of them, so M is off to preschool in August. She's bored and needs some stimulation and structured activity.
Baby E is still pretty much the nicest little baby ever. She's sweet and smiley and easy-going. She waits pretty patiently for me to get to her, she throws her self backwards to indicate that she wants to be put down, and she falls asleep in any position when she's tired. She sleeps 10-12 hours straight at night and wakes up all smiles. She has her fussy days, but those are typically due to teething. Quite a remarkable little chubby cherub, and I can't imagine life without her. Her hair is falling out a bit/ getting thinner on her growing scalp, and her eyes are slowly turning brown.
Me? I'm doing what I do. We've been over that ;)
Friday, February 3, 2012
Picky eaters series for local parenting blog - triple post!
Picky Eaters Series - Strategies for Peaceful Mealtimes
I have picky kids with food sensitivities and allergies, so planning meals that they can eat and will eat is a challenge. However, that doesn't mean that we're doomed to eating hot dogs and chicken nuggets every night!
Strategy #1. Hide the good stuff
This strategy gained national attention when Jerry Seinfeld's wife Jessica published a cookbook called Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food. I own a copy and use it as inspiration for boosting nutrition in the meals I already cook rather than as a straightforward cookbook. She includes ways to sneak purees of veggies and fruits into meals, snacks, and even desserts (Brownies with carrot and spinach hidden!). If you've got a baby, you can use the purees for baby food and to fortify the rest of the family's nutrition. My kids like her chicken nuggets that are dipped in veggie puree before being coated with breading. This strategy works best for kids who truly cannot abide the sight of veggies in their food. My oldest was this way and actually required occupational therapy for eating as a toddler.
Some examples of other sneaky strategies include using garden vegetable spaghetti sauce and pureeing it first before serving it over pasta or on pizza. Many breads can be baked with shredded zucchini when that's plentiful in the summer. Rather than using regular juice, try the juices with vitamins blended in. Smoothies made with blueberries can also have leaves of fresh spinach in them. One my favorite strategies is making and freezing a Central and South Amercian cooking sauce called sofrito. It's a chunky puree of green peppers, a red pepper, an onion, garlic, and cilantro. To use it, sautee 1/4c sofrito in oil, then add rice or beans or meat, then cumin, chili powder and paprika. It goes great with any Tex/Mex food!
I also make whole wheat waffles with pumpkin puree. They're full of fiber and vitamin A, and the whole wheat is very filling. The pumpkin pie spice makes them smell fantastic, and with just a drizzle of maple syrup they are like a treat. When I can, I make some to store in the freezer for a quick breakfast. They heat up great in the toaster or microwave!
Whole Wheat Pumpkin Waffles (adapted from http://www.eating-for-england.com/whole-wheat-pumpkin-waffles/)
Mix in one bowl
•2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
•2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
•1 teaspoon baking soda
•1/2 teaspoon salt
•3 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (I double this!)
In a separate bowl mix
•1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
•4 large eggs
•2 cups well-shaken buttermilk (or milk with 2t vinegar, or yogurt)
•1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin (or make your own pumpkin or butternut squash puree for a twist)
•3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
Mix the wet and the dry ingredients together, and bake as your waffle iron directs, and you may need to oil the iron.
For another sneaky veggie treat, check out http://allrecipes.com/recipe/whole-wheat-pumpkin-applesauce-muffins/detail.aspx I make a double batch, and they never last long!
Strategy #2. Be a good example and allow a range of choices
We can't expect our kids to eat well if we don't! And don't we deserve healthy bodies too?
For the reluctant child, Jessica Seinfeld recommends putting raw veggies out with a healthy dip while dinner is cooking. This provides a healthy appetizer that won't spoil anybody's dinner and takes the pressure off of a kid to eat veggies during mealtime, where the showdown typically occurs. My kids like this because they want to see what I'm doing in the kitchen, and they snack on the veggies or fruit I put out while we spend a little time together before dinner.
At mealtime, my kids have a choice between eating the veggie side that I serve or eating a handful of organic raw spinach. My boys usually choose the spinach with no dressing or dip. I try to keep in mind for my toddler girl that a serving of vegetables for her age is really just a few tablespoons, so if she eats a few peas, most of the corn, and all of the carrots from her mixed vegetables, then she has made a good effort. All my kids will eat broccoli, but my toddler who is not fond of green veggies will only eat the very tops of them. I figure that's where the nutrients are, so great! The key is that she is willing to touch and to try the vegetables. When I make soup, the kids have to eat at least half of what is in their bowl. They're getting a lot of the vitamins in the broth, and they find that the veggies are more palatable when the flavors have all mingled.
A friend of mine recently reminded me of her afternoon years ago with my firstborn, who was a preschooler at the time. He was my kid who had sensory problems and was terrified of the feeling of vegetables in his mouth. She had a house rule that everyone had to eat a small amount of veggies before they got down to play. No big deal. For my son, this led to total meltdown! Years went by, and she now has a child with sensory difficulties and who can't handle food textures. She understands completely!
The best strategy in this case is a gradual approach to introducting new foods, even if the child is school-age. My son had to smell a new food, touch it, kiss it, lick it, and finally taste it, possibly several attempts later. This worked great for us, and he now eats a wide variety of foods. He's still picky, but he rarely melts down over dinner at age 8. I also allow my big kids a few "no thank you" foods. They may be exempted from eating a very short list of things that they have tried as long as they are polite about it and agree to try it again later. If the child wants to put honey, ketchup, salsa, barbecue sauce, cinnamon, or any other favorite flavor onto the food, it's fine by me! It's not worthwhile to fight with kids over food, so it's best to avoid power struggles.
I will admit that we occasionally have a grown-up meal and feed them what we call "kids pick". This is for when we want to eat something that is utterly delicious and totally not kid-friendly. Our kids hate curry, and they don't have an appreciation for Mediterranean food. Fine, more for us! You can have your nitrate-free all-beef Kosher hot dogs, kiddos.
Here are two practical ideas for a way to serve a meal that allows each family member to choose what foods they like best but still eat the same meal. Keep in mind that with practice these are quick meals. I make them regularly during afternoon chaos while parenting 4 kids, 8 and under.
1) Pasta Bar
Boil an appropriate amount of pasta for the family (try whole grain!)
Provide pasta sauces such as marinara and alfredo
Bake and slice one or two chicken breasts
Sautee a green pepper, an onion, and a zucchini with some garlic and olive oil. Season it with Italian seasoning and maybe a little drizzle of balsamic vinegar.
Provide parmesan cheese
This way, family members can customize their dinner with their favorite pasta toppings. My husband doesn't like pasta, but he took the rest of the leftovers to work the next day.
2) Chipotle Night - no need to make all of these unless you want a little leftovers!
Provide wholegrain tortillas and tortilla chips
Shred some melty cheese like colby jack
Open a can of black beans, drain them, add a little salsa and cumin, let warm on the stove or in the microwave, then mash them
Stir fry an onion and a green pepper
Scoop out an avocado, add salsa, cumin, cilantro, and lime juice and blend for guacamole (stick blender rocks!)
Bake or sautee a sliced chicken breast or two. Marinate or cook in a mixture of soy sauce, lime juice, garlic, olive oil, and chili powder. Grilling makes this spectactular!
Make Chipotle rice with lime and cilantro. This recipe uses basmati, which cooks very fast! http://chipotlefan.com/index.php?id=rice_recipe
This meal can be made faster and cheaper than a trip to Pittsburgh for Chipotle, and it is so delicious!
Strategy #3 - Include them in shopping and prepping meals.
I know, I know, this one is a PAIN. If you ever see me with my kids at Mt de Chantel Kroger or Jebbias, you'll know us by the noise and chaos swirling around my cart. However, I feel like there are many good lessons to be learned in the store with my kids. When they ask for a treat, we look at the box and try to find the ingredients to make it at home and make it healthier. They are more likely to eat vegetables and fruits that they have helped to select. I have my kids each choose a fruit and a raw vegetable that they like, and it's amazing how fast the food disappears!
I'm hoping that this year is the year we start gardening here. My kids have enjoyed helping with a vegetable garden in the past, and I can't wait to try this spring! The anticipation of yummy food they have helped to grow will make the food more delicious and will give us a fun outdoor activity.
The big struggle I have is with letting kids help in the kitchen. My 8 year old likes to help with grinding wheat for bread (yeah, I'm crazy), and my 6 year old is fascinated by our compost pile, but letting any of them help me in the kitchen means that the oldest 3 will all be crowded around me, and the baby will be strapped to me, so I have to set some ground rules. Only one helper at a time, and only if the baby is sleeping. Everyone must wash their hands, and no fingers are to go into their mouths or their noses (strange what rules I have to make these days!). King Arthur Flour has a great post on baking with kids this month http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/?go=EC120203D&utm_source=EC120203&utm_medium=email&utm_content=&spMailingID=4361093&spUserID=MTEwMDMzNDU1MTQS1&spJobID=262197081&spReportId=MjYyMTk3MDgxS0
Note: no giveaway on this blog. This is just where I write my rough drafts! This post will be 3 separate posts that will go up tomorrow.
I have picky kids with food sensitivities and allergies, so planning meals that they can eat and will eat is a challenge. However, that doesn't mean that we're doomed to eating hot dogs and chicken nuggets every night!
Strategy #1. Hide the good stuff
This strategy gained national attention when Jerry Seinfeld's wife Jessica published a cookbook called Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food. I own a copy and use it as inspiration for boosting nutrition in the meals I already cook rather than as a straightforward cookbook. She includes ways to sneak purees of veggies and fruits into meals, snacks, and even desserts (Brownies with carrot and spinach hidden!). If you've got a baby, you can use the purees for baby food and to fortify the rest of the family's nutrition. My kids like her chicken nuggets that are dipped in veggie puree before being coated with breading. This strategy works best for kids who truly cannot abide the sight of veggies in their food. My oldest was this way and actually required occupational therapy for eating as a toddler.
Some examples of other sneaky strategies include using garden vegetable spaghetti sauce and pureeing it first before serving it over pasta or on pizza. Many breads can be baked with shredded zucchini when that's plentiful in the summer. Rather than using regular juice, try the juices with vitamins blended in. Smoothies made with blueberries can also have leaves of fresh spinach in them. One my favorite strategies is making and freezing a Central and South Amercian cooking sauce called sofrito. It's a chunky puree of green peppers, a red pepper, an onion, garlic, and cilantro. To use it, sautee 1/4c sofrito in oil, then add rice or beans or meat, then cumin, chili powder and paprika. It goes great with any Tex/Mex food!
I also make whole wheat waffles with pumpkin puree. They're full of fiber and vitamin A, and the whole wheat is very filling. The pumpkin pie spice makes them smell fantastic, and with just a drizzle of maple syrup they are like a treat. When I can, I make some to store in the freezer for a quick breakfast. They heat up great in the toaster or microwave!
Whole Wheat Pumpkin Waffles (adapted from http://www.eating-for-england.com/whole-wheat-pumpkin-waffles/)
Mix in one bowl
•2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
•2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
•1 teaspoon baking soda
•1/2 teaspoon salt
•3 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (I double this!)
In a separate bowl mix
•1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
•4 large eggs
•2 cups well-shaken buttermilk (or milk with 2t vinegar, or yogurt)
•1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin (or make your own pumpkin or butternut squash puree for a twist)
•3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
Mix the wet and the dry ingredients together, and bake as your waffle iron directs, and you may need to oil the iron.
For another sneaky veggie treat, check out http://allrecipes.com/recipe/whole-wheat-pumpkin-applesauce-muffins/detail.aspx I make a double batch, and they never last long!
Strategy #2. Be a good example and allow a range of choices
We can't expect our kids to eat well if we don't! And don't we deserve healthy bodies too?
For the reluctant child, Jessica Seinfeld recommends putting raw veggies out with a healthy dip while dinner is cooking. This provides a healthy appetizer that won't spoil anybody's dinner and takes the pressure off of a kid to eat veggies during mealtime, where the showdown typically occurs. My kids like this because they want to see what I'm doing in the kitchen, and they snack on the veggies or fruit I put out while we spend a little time together before dinner.
At mealtime, my kids have a choice between eating the veggie side that I serve or eating a handful of organic raw spinach. My boys usually choose the spinach with no dressing or dip. I try to keep in mind for my toddler girl that a serving of vegetables for her age is really just a few tablespoons, so if she eats a few peas, most of the corn, and all of the carrots from her mixed vegetables, then she has made a good effort. All my kids will eat broccoli, but my toddler who is not fond of green veggies will only eat the very tops of them. I figure that's where the nutrients are, so great! The key is that she is willing to touch and to try the vegetables. When I make soup, the kids have to eat at least half of what is in their bowl. They're getting a lot of the vitamins in the broth, and they find that the veggies are more palatable when the flavors have all mingled.
A friend of mine recently reminded me of her afternoon years ago with my firstborn, who was a preschooler at the time. He was my kid who had sensory problems and was terrified of the feeling of vegetables in his mouth. She had a house rule that everyone had to eat a small amount of veggies before they got down to play. No big deal. For my son, this led to total meltdown! Years went by, and she now has a child with sensory difficulties and who can't handle food textures. She understands completely!
The best strategy in this case is a gradual approach to introducting new foods, even if the child is school-age. My son had to smell a new food, touch it, kiss it, lick it, and finally taste it, possibly several attempts later. This worked great for us, and he now eats a wide variety of foods. He's still picky, but he rarely melts down over dinner at age 8. I also allow my big kids a few "no thank you" foods. They may be exempted from eating a very short list of things that they have tried as long as they are polite about it and agree to try it again later. If the child wants to put honey, ketchup, salsa, barbecue sauce, cinnamon, or any other favorite flavor onto the food, it's fine by me! It's not worthwhile to fight with kids over food, so it's best to avoid power struggles.
I will admit that we occasionally have a grown-up meal and feed them what we call "kids pick". This is for when we want to eat something that is utterly delicious and totally not kid-friendly. Our kids hate curry, and they don't have an appreciation for Mediterranean food. Fine, more for us! You can have your nitrate-free all-beef Kosher hot dogs, kiddos.
Here are two practical ideas for a way to serve a meal that allows each family member to choose what foods they like best but still eat the same meal. Keep in mind that with practice these are quick meals. I make them regularly during afternoon chaos while parenting 4 kids, 8 and under.
1) Pasta Bar
Boil an appropriate amount of pasta for the family (try whole grain!)
Provide pasta sauces such as marinara and alfredo
Bake and slice one or two chicken breasts
Sautee a green pepper, an onion, and a zucchini with some garlic and olive oil. Season it with Italian seasoning and maybe a little drizzle of balsamic vinegar.
Provide parmesan cheese
This way, family members can customize their dinner with their favorite pasta toppings. My husband doesn't like pasta, but he took the rest of the leftovers to work the next day.
2) Chipotle Night - no need to make all of these unless you want a little leftovers!
Provide wholegrain tortillas and tortilla chips
Shred some melty cheese like colby jack
Open a can of black beans, drain them, add a little salsa and cumin, let warm on the stove or in the microwave, then mash them
Stir fry an onion and a green pepper
Scoop out an avocado, add salsa, cumin, cilantro, and lime juice and blend for guacamole (stick blender rocks!)
Bake or sautee a sliced chicken breast or two. Marinate or cook in a mixture of soy sauce, lime juice, garlic, olive oil, and chili powder. Grilling makes this spectactular!
Make Chipotle rice with lime and cilantro. This recipe uses basmati, which cooks very fast! http://chipotlefan.com/index.php?id=rice_recipe
This meal can be made faster and cheaper than a trip to Pittsburgh for Chipotle, and it is so delicious!
Strategy #3 - Include them in shopping and prepping meals.
I know, I know, this one is a PAIN. If you ever see me with my kids at Mt de Chantel Kroger or Jebbias, you'll know us by the noise and chaos swirling around my cart. However, I feel like there are many good lessons to be learned in the store with my kids. When they ask for a treat, we look at the box and try to find the ingredients to make it at home and make it healthier. They are more likely to eat vegetables and fruits that they have helped to select. I have my kids each choose a fruit and a raw vegetable that they like, and it's amazing how fast the food disappears!
I'm hoping that this year is the year we start gardening here. My kids have enjoyed helping with a vegetable garden in the past, and I can't wait to try this spring! The anticipation of yummy food they have helped to grow will make the food more delicious and will give us a fun outdoor activity.
The big struggle I have is with letting kids help in the kitchen. My 8 year old likes to help with grinding wheat for bread (yeah, I'm crazy), and my 6 year old is fascinated by our compost pile, but letting any of them help me in the kitchen means that the oldest 3 will all be crowded around me, and the baby will be strapped to me, so I have to set some ground rules. Only one helper at a time, and only if the baby is sleeping. Everyone must wash their hands, and no fingers are to go into their mouths or their noses (strange what rules I have to make these days!). King Arthur Flour has a great post on baking with kids this month http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/?go=EC120203D&utm_source=EC120203&utm_medium=email&utm_content=&spMailingID=4361093&spUserID=MTEwMDMzNDU1MTQS1&spJobID=262197081&spReportId=MjYyMTk3MDgxS0
Note: no giveaway on this blog. This is just where I write my rough drafts! This post will be 3 separate posts that will go up tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)