Friday Funny

Today was a fun day. Da-da! is home from work and we had a play date with another set of twins -- boys -- who are just about the same age. They prove how normal Jadyn and Liana are by their incessant desire to need new toys to play with, their high-energy and their constant obsession with food and drinks.

But, today was a first for me in many, many ways.

While potty training is still far away for us, the boys have started using theirs and today they used ours.

A few minutes later, Liana dropped her pants and diaper and began to run wild around our dining room table.

Next thing we know, four 2-year-olds are running in circles -- one naked, one in his diaper, and the other two in their pants -- but no shirts.

We have video for when they are teenagers. Shame I can't show you all. You'll just have to trust me that it was the funniest thing, ever.

I felt like we might have crossed a threshold of parenting. It was funny, but I didn't know what to do about it other than to laugh. I knew it wasn't right, but she was having fun.

All good things come to an end, though.

She peed on the floor, just a few feet away from the potty chair.

Talk about a party pooper.

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Mealtime Superstitions

If there's one word to describe me -- and I had to choose -- I would say persistent. So this means a definitive no at the dinner table doesn't really work for me. I'm sure my family thinks I'm nuts, but I have always had mealtime superstitions.

I can see my good friend MPJ laughing right now because she has more than I do, but I do wonder if we're alone?

First, I already mentioned yesterday that snacks are very limited at our house to save room for nutritious meals.

But, I have other rules, too. Like, we have to be home to eat. We rarely go out. And, while we do make exceptions, I try to limit the number of people around when it's time to eat a meal. It's just too distracting and they won't eat.

More than that, though, I use the same plates for the same meals, the same seats with their letters on each chair. I have refused to use the newer pink plates since their first use because they didn't eat well and I wondered if Pink might be an appetite suppressant. So, I use them, instead. (And, a quick search revealed I was right!)

Lately, the girls have been wanting to switch chairs. I am not happy about this. I insist, but they insist harder. They win, and they prove that my Good Luck Charm mechanism isn't needed all the time. Worse, yet, is the fact that they are switching between boosters and high chairs now, too. (Note to self: sell high chairs now!)

I never serve the yogurt with lunch; it always follows. They would fill up on yogurt if I did so. Same with fruit at dinner. I serve it as dessert. I cannot budget on any of these.

My persistence has paid off, though. They do eat pretty well and I've been able to do a song and dance to get them to try most things. For instance, if a sandwich cut in quarters doesn't work, I give them "bites." I never cut first because I can't put it back together, again. But, sometimes they want "big" pieces, which means whole.

When they've denied a food, I try giving them adult forks or spoons or taking their plates away and just giving them one piece of food so they are not as overwhelmed.

But, I do feel consistency is important -- for nothing more than my sanity. These are the few things I can control with them.

In fact, I've tried switching things up by offering a relaxed meal of muffin and yogurt for breakfast and it's been a no-go at least three times. They need high maintenance, low-prep foods that are not pre-packaged. AT home. In quiet. With no distractions. In their own chairs. With the right plates. With me present.

And then they eat great!!

Our attempts to take them out to eat has nearly always resulted in eating disasters. Oh, they were fine ... I was the one crying and upset because I didn't enjoy my meal because I was so busy worrying about if they were getting enough.

The truth is I have to keep my Good Luck Charms because, well, it makes me feel better. This does not mean I do not make exceptions. I do not force them to eat anything.

OK, I did offer an M & M once in swap of a bite of broccoli.

What's worse? Bribes or superstitions?


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Thing One and Thing Two

I have had the pleasure of interviewing Kate Gosselin from Jon and Kate Plus Eight not just once, but twice.

And, seriously, the woman makes my life seem like the Disney Channel.

Whenever we're experiencing a bad eating day, I return to her comments about meals. She offers some good advice.

First, she does not serve snacks -- at least she hadn't when they were under 2.5 years.

While we do not do this at our house, I do limit snacks greatly. It would be easy to let them eat and eat because right now at this age, that is what they want. We do snacks at the same time every day: about an hour after breakfast and as soon as they wake from nap. These times, I feel, prevent overeating. I usually pick nutritious snacks, but sometimes I cave to something more convenient. The yogurt-covered raisins, to me, are a decent choice. Yesterday they had eco-friendly crackers that are a spin off of animal crackers and they LOVED them, too. Shame I do not have more.

Kate also doesn't have time to fix a different meal for all eight of her children so she fixes one meal for all.

As I wrote yesterday, this is the plan I am trying to get to at this point. I read long ago that children should be able to eat what you eat by age 2. I think all children are different, though, and that we're going to be closer to 2.5 before we get to that point.

Kate and Jon have a rule that they have to be able to eat all of their dinner before any of the kids can have seconds of anything.

I think this is a great rule, but so far we aren't enforcing it. Once J and L understand that concept, we will enforce it for sure. I do hate getting up and down a hundred times in a meal. Even if I think I've brought everything to the table, I haven't.

As far as giving each one a different food that they will eat: I am trying not to do that. This means sometimes Jadyn will have a dinner she will devour and sometimes Liana will have a dinner she will consume quickly. I always make sure there is one thing they both love.

Most of the time Liana is the pickiest in that she only likes plain pasta and I haven't been able to get her to eat pancakes, French toast or waffles. She, on the other hand, loves edamame, but Jadyn won't even consider it. But, aside from breakfast when I will give Liana a bowl of Cheerios instead of whatever the rest of us eat, I do not make two kinds of veggies each night or two kinds of pasta.

Last night they had buttered Rotini with some dried out chicken I had messed up. Jadyn loves sauce, but I really need Liana to eat more carbs. Of course, they rejected the chicken, but I had nuggets ready in case. Then later, Dan and I ate the rotini with the chicken and sauce it was cooked in all day in the slow cooker.

Our best meal all around: Homemade pizza.

Here's our bread machine recipe that I have adapted from various others:

Pizza Dough

1 Cup plus 2 Tablespoons Water
2 T Olive Oil
3 Cups bread flour (I sometimes use half whole wheat)
2 T sugar
2 teaspoons yeast (or a whole packet of the smaller ones)

The machine does the hard part in 1.5 hours. Then I roll it out, dust the greased pan with cornmeal and top it. Lately, I've actually used spaghetti sauce since I had that leftover and it worked great. I cook it at 375 degrees until it is golden brown and crisp.

I have been making this weekly because it is such a hit with all of us and I love that I know what is going in it. Deceptively Delicious would have you hide spinach puree under the sauce ... and I hope to try that next time.

To be fair here, I am going to alert Kate to this blog post. It's not common journalistic practice to just reuse information like this, but I know you will all appreciate the advice and I'm sure she will be glad to help.


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What's for dinner? Toddler style

I have struggled with meals like all mothers struggle with meals. I have read just about everything there is to read both on how to encourage toddlers to eat and how to budget and plan meals. But there is very little in the way of meal planning and budgeting with toddlers.

No matter how much planning I seem to do, there never seems to be enough of something in the house. This leaves me feeling off. And, it never fails that the mealtime struggles begin.

In the past, I rushed off to the store to buy more "for them."

Over the last year I've tried everything from participating in Menu Planning Monday, to shopping by sales only to skimping on the necessities so there was enough for food.

When I became serious about cutting grocery expenses down by 50 percent, I realized quickly I wasn't making the right choices. The worst choice of all was trying to create meal plans on Sundays by looking at the Sunday sales circulars. This became extremely time consuming and overwhelming. Between that and cutting coupons, there was no Sunday left.

I've since come to terms with a few things and all have helped cut the food budget and my time in the planning process:

1. Buy what's on sale, but shop at home first: This means you're planning menus for what's in the freezer, not what's on the front page of the ads. This means you can still buy what's on sale, but also have your meal plan ready and waiting. If this isn't your thing, you can find the Sunday ads at least a few days ahead of time in some online forums.

2. Plan out breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for every day of the week and write it down. This trick in particular has helped me avoid buying prepackaged foods unless they are practically free, of course.

3. Shop at Aldi for the basics. I have become reliant upon Aldi's .99 wheat bread, yogurt tubes that the girls love, honey very cheap to use in recipes, and all other baking needs as well as canned fruit. And do not get me started on the chocolate yogurt covered raisins that the girls request after every. single. nap. If you didn't know this already, Aldi is actually owned by the same company that owns Trader Joes.

4. Feed the kids when they are very hungry. I fail at this at least twice a week, but I have come to realize that when Liana is starving she will eat things she won't even look at on other days (ie: pasta). Jadyn, the better eater, is more likely to eat meat when she is hungry, too.

5. Avoid making meals just for them. Breakfast is easy (most of the time), lunch is still hard for us so I just eat what I serve them. But, dinner is becoming more and more tolerable. They are close to eating what we give them so long as it's not a casserole of any sort. They might have a bite or two, but they aren't interested in those mixed-up foods. They like a meat, a veggie, a grain/starch and a fruit all separate.

6. Cut out meat. We are not vegetarians, but I want to be. I am just not a diverse veggie eater, though, so I struggle with meat-free recipes. Still, we eat meatless at least three times a week right now. Sometimes more. When only buy meat on sale. At my stores, the same meats go on sale in rotation. I know to have recipes for the following: ground turkey, chicken breasts or drumsticks, and ground beef.

Here are two toddler-friendly recipes that have yet to be pushed away from the table, at our house. They happen to be fairly low-budget as well.

Dump Chicken: I cut these up, but they have enjoyed eating them off the bone. I worry too much, though.

Italian Meatloaf: This is from Deceptively Delicious, which I borrowed from a fellow mom. I have never seen Jadyn eat this well before or since. This was a big hit with us adults, too. This gave us at least another day or two of leftovers. Oh, and I didn't puree anything for this. I just grate the vegetables into it.

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Twins: Lessons in Nature vs. Nurture

There was a point in my life I would have argued to the grave that nurture, environment and everything a family did created the human being.

Then I had two of my own.

I imagine that some parents who have only one -- or one at a time -- might not understand exactly how much children are fully formed when they are born.

Here are the THREE most SURPRISING things I realized are purely genetic and entirely not influenced by anything other than just being born:

1. Being a picky eater (I can only vouch for the toddler years right now)

2. Good posture (You either got it, or you don't so should we tell that child who doesn't to sit up straight?)

3. Patience

P.S. By picky, I mean that the child dislikes more foods than likes; refuses to try new foods.

So, when you have TWO very different toddlers, how do you plan the day's activities and meals on a budget? These are the things I want to dive into this week: Meal planning and activity planning and how I struggle with both!










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A thing or two about writing, and books

I've been tagged. Twice.

First, by the lovely Shelli who's asking me to share some writing tips, "because I get paid to write." How funny that statement is to me.

And, the awesome Jena tagged me with a Meme about books, specifically to find the closest one and pull a paragraph out of it -- specifically, a very specific paragraph.

Here's the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages)
2. Open the book to page 123
3. Find the 5th sentence
4. Post the next three sentences
5. Tag 5 people

So, for inspiration (and since I'm in my office), I'm going to pull from my writing books shelf. I chose three to scan and reflect on.

Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott
On Writing, by Stephen King
The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield

I first decided to pull from Bird by Bird because it is by far the most inspirational writing book I know, but when I got to the right place, I realized it was going to be a bit flat.

I nearly chose On Writing, since the sentences talk about passive voice, which I always struggle with when writing.

But, in the end, I chose The War of Art to quote.

I believe it. I believe there are angels. They're here, but we can't see them.

Now, on to Shelli's meme offering three writing tips. I certainly don't want to repeat my previous writing tips, but they are probably much the same anyway.

Pressfield had a specific point by talking about angels in a book about being creative. He continued later with this:

"When we conceive an enterprise and commit to it in the face of our fears, something wonderful happens. ... Angel midwives congregate around us; they assist as we give birth to ourselves, to that person we were born to be, to the one whose destiny was encoded in our soul, our daimon, our genius.

I wanted to continue quoting Pressfield here because it is exactly my first writing tip, and one that I have recently realized I had been doing all wrong for years.

BEGIN: Don't just begin today. Begin tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. Set goals of what each day's beginning will be. Maybe today your goal is to begin a letter, a lede to an article, the last paragraph of your novel. Whatever it is, begin again and again and again. It is not enough to just begin once just like none of us are born just once. We are born over and over and over in our lives.

GET OUT OF YOUR WAY: This is a tip I might have read a million times, but it's always worth repeating. This means get rid of your ego, sure, but it also means let go of what you thought it should be or would be or wanted it to be. Let go of the preconceived notions and let the writing flow and turn and twist like a river. The second you start looking back to see where you came from, you will hit a block, a rock or some other object that will stop your creative process. See. First. Tip.

SET DEADLINES: So, yeah, I'm a big deadline person. Try writing a (real) murder story in a couple hours and you will become rather proficient at churning out words without emotion, without too much thought, without a care in the world about a damn comma. If you want to finish a novel, do what I did last week ... set up an appointment to meet with an agent. That might be a bit progressive for some, but it's precisely what I needed to put that spark back into my novel and what I knew I needed to finally finish the dang thing. I need deadlines. I would never produce a thing if I didn't set them for myself.

So, now I tag THREE savvy souls and readers for BOTH of these. My dear girlfriend, Shannon, who doesn't have nearly enough on her plate (cough, cough), MPJ and Susana from Mama's Village.

I tried to pick three writers and readers ... 'cause I'm tired and running out of steam here. Tag, you're it.

Please feel free to offer your thoughts on angels, beginnings and writing in the comments section.





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Pitter, pitter, pitter Pat

These are the sounds where I am at
as two little girls run and jump.
I can't see a thing, but I know
that fun often sounds like thump.

Babysitters rule, people! Rule.

Back to work ...


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