by mayberry on January 20, 2010
I have learned a new secret to compliance and pleasantness at the dinner table. I trust you’ve heard the one about letting kids help plan the menu and cook. This really does work, at least when you can get them to actually do it. Last week we made “Brownie Soup,” which doesn’t actually contain any chocolate or any little girls in uniform. It is a recipe from the Brownie Try-It book. I hooked the children by suggesting we make it. Then I reeled them in by allowing them to help, and most especially by allowing them to use knives. Sharp ones. Sure we ended up with some 1/2-inch pieces of celery and some 6-inch ones, but who cares?
Finally, the big finish: I left my laptop on the dining room table and set up the screensaver option that plays a slideshow of photos randomly selected from your files. Kids can never get enough of seeing pictures of themselves. So use their natural egomania to your advantage, I say. It’s not like reading or watching TV at the table (which I don’t allow), because you are still talking to each other. In fact, we talk more and sit longer because of the photo display, discussing when and where the picture was taken, and so forth.
*
Via the Parent Bloggers Network, I had the opportunity to ask Dr. Dean Ornish a question about health and wellness. Dr. Ornish is the founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California. He advocates comprehensive lifestyle changes as a means of preventing and reversing disease, so I asked him about how to lower our kids’ risk or high blood pressure (there is some history of it in our family). I mentioned that my children are pretty active and eat fairly well, but there is always room for improvement. Thanks to PBN, I received an answer from Dr. Ornish in the form of a personalized video he made after reading this blog. I tried to embed it here but could not–I hope if you click on the link you’ll be able to see it.
by mayberry on December 16, 2009
(aka: Captain Obvious cuts back on a Starbucks habit)
This year I started making my own chai lattes. Given the cash flow and the metabolism, I would get a grande nonfat chai from Starbucks every single day. But that is 1400 calories, 294 grams of sugar, and about $20 … every week. So, no. Here’s what I do instead:
Buy a box of chai tea bags (about $3 for 20, so 15 cents each).
Buy a carton of chai tea concentrate–the exact same stuff they use in Starbucks and other coffee shops (about $4, this lasts me at least 4 weeks, so let’s say 13 cents per serving).
Brew a cup of tea with the tea bag. Resist urge to make horrible joke about teabagging.
Add a splash of concentrate. I don’t know, maybe 1-2 tablespoons. There are 133 grams of sugar in the entire 32-oz. container, so if I get 30 servings/container that’s about 4.5 grams per serving (and about 21 calories, based on 630 calories in the whole container).
Add a splash of skim milk.
Enjoy! It doesn’t have the yummy foam of a storebought latte (although I could invest in a little countertop steamer/frother for about $25 … maybe I will!), and it’s not nearly as sweet. But I see that as a benefit. Total cost is under 50 cents and calories are probably between 40 and 50. The milk and the concentrate have similar calorie counts and I use about the same amount of each.
And that is the best tea of ’09!
by mayberry on November 6, 2009
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to get swine flu, because it’s really no fun at all. Just to recap:
Week One (10/26): Opie misses 1.5 days of school due to fever. Jo’s school is closed for 2.5 (different) days for teacher inservice.
Week Two (11/2): Jo misses 4 days of school for coughing, congestion, and oinking.
Week Three (11/9): Jo will miss 2.5 days of school due to parent-teacher conferences.
Did you notice that the week she was sick was the only full week of school in the series?
And somewhere in there, I got a migraine that won’t go away. I even dragged the flu kid to the doctor’s office to seek help. Got drugs so expensive my insurance would only cover four of them. That’s four pills. They didn’t work. Awaiting further instructions from Dr. Feelgood right now.
Here’s my swine flu advice, by the way. Buy yourself a case of Kleenex right now, before anyone gets sick. A CASE, like at least 24 boxes. You will need them and you will not be able to go to the store and buy them (oh, did I mention my husband was out of town for umpteen business trips recently?).
by mayberry on October 4, 2009
I have had headaches almost as long as I can remember. As a tween/teen/young adult, I saw general practitioners, neurologists, dentists, rheumatologists, and gynecologists. I got X-rays and MRIs and answered, ad nauseam, the question “on a scale of one to 10, how painful is your headache right now?” I was variously diagnosed (and then undiagnosed) with conditions ranging from TMJ to lupus. There was nothing to see or quantify objectively. I was treated with painkillers, antidepressants, and biofeedback therapy.
Nothing really worked. Things got a little better, life went on. Until I started having babies. With each successive pregnancy (and with every cycle in between), the headaches got worse and worse, and were enhanced with a heaping dose of nausea, lightheadedness, exhaustion, and heartburn (you know, the fun stuff that pregnant women get to enjoy anyway). My doctor smiled ruefully and handed me some T3s. Those don’t work, by the way. Neither did acupuncture.
Nowadays, my head hurts during PMS week and then any other time that routine deviates even slightly from the norm: a little too much work/not enough sleep; travel beyond a 100-mile radius from home; two glasses of wine instead of one. Today I’m at the tail end of a 10-or-so-day span, and that’s after I took one of those aforementioned T3s and slept for 11 hours straight. (Sleep usually is the only remedy.)
I’m not sure what the point of this whine is except to say that it’s hard to think of much else when I’m in the clutches of one of these headaches. I wasn’t going to write about it, on Captain Obvious grounds. Then I heard about this. Son of a …. scooped again. (And no, I haven’t tried Vicodin, only because I know that narcotics make me feel even crappier than I started out feeling.)
by mayberry on August 11, 2009
Captain Obvious reminds the world to never ever ever say:
- Are you pregnant?
- When are you due? (unless preceded by a voluntary announcement of pregnancy)
- Are you planning to have [any more] children?
- Don’t you want [any/more] kids?
- I thought you had more than two children. Are you sure?*
- Are you trying?
- Are you sure there’s only one in there?
Captain Obvious notes that one can comfortably say:
- I love your [hair/shoes/necklace/spinach dip].
- How about this [weather/local sports team/lovely venue]?
- How do you know [host/mutual friend]?
- I’m going to the bar, can I get you anything?
*Yes. Personal experience with this one. I wish I were kidding.
by mayberry on July 22, 2009
I haaaaaate cooking dinner. I also hate feeding my children too much take-out (or consuming it myself, or for that matter, paying for it). So I have found ways to cheat. Herewith, my favorite ways to slap together a meal that’s reasonably healthy. If you are a real cook (Maggie) you might want to look away. These all happen to be vegetarian, too.
- Pasta with jarred sauce and frozen vegetables. To boost the health quotient I get the pasta that has protein and omega-3s in it, or the kind with some vegetables cooked in. I buy sauce that doesn’t contain corn syrup. I throw frozen vegetables into the pasta water. Fifty percent of my children pick them out, but I continue to try. I give each child an individual portion of parmesan cheese (not from the green can) to control intake.
- Amy‘s frozen spinach pizza. If I make pizza myself (which is another one of my fake dinners–with storebought shells) my vegetable-averse child will not eat it. But Amy’s, with spinach no less, she will gobble right down.
- Breakfast for dinner. Scrambled eggs, whole wheat toast, fruit smoothies–with lots of diner participation on that last item. For my own portion of eggs I chop in some broccoli if I have it around.
- Tofu and noodles. Cubed tofu, whatever leftover vegetables are available, and Thai Kitchen noodles with sauce. I used to have to set aside a sauce-free bowl of noodles for you-know-who, but we’ve managed to move beyond that now.
- Egg rolls (frozen) and edamame. Little miss “no thank you” loves edamame. She would eat an entire bag if I let her. She also can’t really tell the difference between vegetable egg rolls and chicken ones.
So, two food posts in a row. A little exercise in compare-n-contrast. What do you eat when you can’t be bothered to cook for real?
Also, on that glass of water: Remove pitcher of cold, filtered water from refrigerator. Pour into clean, ice-free pint glass. Enjoy.
by mayberry on July 15, 2009
I am feeling a little stumped for blog fodder right now, not to mention pressed for time. It didn’t help that I had some kind of one-day guinea pig flu (not as bad as swine flu, but crappy nonetheless) on Sunday, accompanied by a nauseating migraine.
Anyway, sorry, I hate posts about why I haven’t been posting. So I’m cruising through my reader today and come to a post on The Blog Herald which is a “wow, this is great” item about someone else’s post describing his writing routine. It’s basically: start with an idea, put calls out to sources, do research while waiting for sources to reply, talk to sources, write.
Really? This is news??? Marshall, I am sure you are very talented and all and your blog probably has about 500,000 more readers than mine, but … wow. There are lots of things I don’t blog about because I think, “Everyone already knows that.” Clearly I need to rethink this position.
Next week, look for posts on how to pour a glass of water (I will reveal my stance on the all important question: ice or no ice?) and the best ways to put on socks.
