Archive for the ‘Raising Children’ Category

little people

Saturday, February 19th, 2011

The last couple of weeks have just been one two of those weeks. It has taken every ounce of energy to complete the myriad of things that needed to be done around here. I’m not sure if I left my house except to go to church and one field trip with Arwen. (We did go to the park one day.)

This can only mean that I have at least six blog posts bouncing around up in my head and we are due for an explosion of thoughts any day now.

I’m picking this one first because I just have to jot down this conversation before I forget it.

Charis: “Mom, I prayed for Arwen in the night, that she would be ready for her art class today.”

(Arwen got to go to an art class, but Charis was below the age requirement and had to stay behind. Turns out she would have been fine to go, but she still had a great attitude about getting left out. Characteristic of Charis.)

Arwen: “She didn’t do it out of the goodness of her heart. She did it because I asked her to.”

Me: “Oh? Were you nervous about your art class?”

Arwen: “Well. I felt like I was getting sick and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to go. I wouldn’t want to make other people sick. So I asked Charis to pray for me and she did!”

I clarified with them that all of this took place in their room after we had put them to bed the night before. I love these little glimpses into the lives and relationships of my children. I had only one sibling growing up- a brother. Whom will always be one of my dearest friends and confidants. I know that he will always love and support me, and he knows he can expect the same from me. We also had a little brother added to our family when I was almost 12, but the relationship isn’t the same since we didn’t “grow up” together.

Charis, who didn’t get to go to the art class, wasn’t even bitter about being asked to pray for her sister to not get sick so she wouldn’t miss it. And the vulnerability in Arwen to ask for prayer was touching!

These are little people, Mammas and Daddies. Little people with real souls and real minds and really real and valid thoughts and ideas. Have you looked your children in the eyes today? Have you talked with them about what is on their minds?

It’s hard to squeeze in, in weeks like these last two. When you can’t go potty without someone interrupting you, you barely get to bathe, and every stinkin’ ounce of energy is squeezed out of you just in keeping clothes on their bodies, food in their tummies, ideas in their heads, and gum out of their hair.

Love them. Respect them. Teach them. Serve them. You’ll get a good return on your investment.

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Posted in Raising Children |

A deeeeeeeluxe apartment in the sky-y-y

Friday, November 26th, 2010

We’ve turned a corner. A nice big smooth corner. And no one busted a chin or a forehead on it.

Last year during the holidays I remember feeling really frustrated. Wanting to do special things, but also knowing that I couldn’t do it without wanting to pull my hair out in the process. Every “project” I tried to do with the kids ended in tears and tantrums… and sometimes the kids got upset too. ;)

This year, in part because we’ve matured as parents, in part because I’ve figured out great shortcuts and re-prioritized what is actually important, in part because we’ve finally crossed over into having a kid over 5 years old, and in part because I’ve got some really great helpers (FINALLY!), we’ve had some really successful special moments. And ironically, I did most of this on days when I didn’t even have a helper on hand.

The Glitter Pinecone Craft. Completion of this project may have had a little something to do with glue fumes. There was a lot of glitter. A lot.of.glitter.

The Endless Amounts of Whipped Shea Butter being mixed in the kitchen

(THIS is how I “get it all done”. Little bit by little bit. Mixing here, mixing there, picking up forks off the floor and doling out kisses to sweet little people.)

The Return on lots of Patience in Schooling

Indians In the Making

(Note: Ezra was involved in all of this, I promise. He’s one of those kids that doesn’t like to have dirty hands and was inevitably in the bathroom washing up every time I happened to grab the camera.)

And here is where I’ve learned to re-prioritize. I handed each of my stinkers an old undershirt of their Daddy’s and some paint pens and markers and said, “Draw some Indian stuff.” I did not read stories about Pilgrims and Indians. I did not even make the effort to find a brown shirt that actually fit them. I didn’t have time to. Normally, I would feel like a failure and really blow the whole thing by yelling and insisting on perfection (from myself, not the kids). And they don’t exactly care that they didn’t have perfect headdresses with real feathers. Okay, they didn’t have headdresses at all. They had a flippin’ blast decorating their shirts and they proudly marched around in them for at least three days straight. And they’ve got the Pilgrims and Indian stories pretty much down pat. Sometimes letting go of that “perfect mother” ideal and just loving on our kids and doing our best goes a long way.

We’re movin’ on up, ya’ll. Finally getting some glimpses of sanity and life with big kids who can “do stuff”. I’m likin’ what I see.

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It’s the sincerest form of flattery

Thursday, October 14th, 2010

I’m not planning on wearing any denim jumper dresses anytime soon, but I’ve been attending monthly homeschool mommy meetings at our new church. Sssshh. Don’t tell any of my high school friends. They’d laugh you out of town!

Last Tuesday night the guest speaker had some very thought provoking things to say and it really ties in with some things I’m seeing in other places. Briefly, here are my notes:

On Shepherding Our Children (speaker-Tammy Horton)

  • PRAY- there are no guarantees
  • CULTIVATE SOIL (You cannot lead them where you haven’t gone. Become a true disciple of Christ)
  • Have the courage to face your inadequacies and ask the Lord to help you become who you need to be….she said “daily” but I’d like to add “moment by moment”.
  • Start early SERVING THE WORLD. Teach your children to serve. This goes back to the second bullet point. They won’t be servants if they don’t witness you serving.
  • Develop a strong family identity. For my notes, I wrote “Who are the Burgesses?” This is something that Brent and I will be praying about as I’m not totally sure either of us has an answer to that question.

“Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” 1 Corinthians 11:1

And there I was minding my own business on Wednesday when a conversation about discipline styles popped up on one of my Charlotte Mason lists. I generally try to stay out of these conversations, but someone made the comment about a suggested child training website. The reader thought the website seemed to be promoting the idea that you are training your children to be like you. The reader was appalled by this and insisted that she could never think of herself so highly as to have such a goal and instead, she wanted her children to be like Christ.

Mammas, whether or not we like it, our children are going to turn out a little like us. Okay. A LOT like us. If you have a child that is constantly complaining, look in the mirror. If you have a child that is lazy, look in the mirror. This goes without saying that obviously they are going to develop individual traits all by themselves and that by the grace of God wonderful people do come from completely detestable parents sometimes. But we should feel this weight on us, this responsibility to constantly be refining our character to be more like Christ, as we take the hands of our children to follow us in that pursuit. Know this, they are watching and they are soaking it all up. Every moment. Every word. Every action.

With all of this on my mind, I was amused to come downstairs this morning and find Arwen wearing my apron and Charis clopping around in my shoes. This imitation is flattering, but not so much when I hear a harsh criticism towards a sibling…and know that they got it from me.

Yesterday I was gone for a few hours and do you know what my sweet big girl was doing while I was gone? Brent had started some laundry and she was sitting at the table coloring. The dryer stopped and suddenly she sprang from her chair and walked into the kitchen to unload the dryer and transfer the clothes from the washer into the now empty dryer and turn it on. She sees me working around the house all day long and it came naturally to her to do it, I guess, since I wasn’t there.

This brings me to my (I lost count, 4th?) point: Your children are capable of a whole heck of a lot more than you think they are!

Under the influence of way too many hours spent reading Laura Ingalls Wilder and Charlotte Mason, we’ve been doing chores every morning. I’m not really organized about it because that just isn’t the season we are in right now. We just clean whatever is the dirtiest that day. And most of our “cleaning” is just to get things manageable. But we don’t do anything else until the house resembles a place that everyone wants to be in all day.

We clean and I say, “We don’t want bugs in our house, so we need to sweep under the couch!”

We clean and I say, “Isn’t it nice to be able to find your toys when you want to play with them? Put all the train tracks here.”

We clean and I say, “Arwen, you are going to be such a wonderful wife and mamma one day! You are learning how to keep house!” (Yes, I do try my very best to sound like Michelle Duggar when I say that one.)

We do lighter cleaning on heavier school days and stop by 10 am. But on lighter school days we’ll go until 11. Please don’t think I mean cleaning until everything is spotless. I mean cleaning so that we can find our clothes when we need them and the baby can crawl across the floor without contaminating herself with God-knows-what, and so that I have dishes available for the next meal. That kind of cleaning.

Do you think they are enjoying it?

A dish might get broken, but she’s learning important life lessons. And she gets to wear Mamma’s Apron!

“Mamma watch me jump!” She’s still 6 on the inside. =)

Quick Tips:

  • If your kids cannot pick up after themselves they have too much stuff. Inform them of this and then get rid of a lot of it. You are doing them a favor! It shouldn’t take hours to put toys away.
  • If you cannot keep up with all of your stuff, YOU have too much stuff! It does no good to keep every single birthday card you ever got from anybody if you never actually look at them or have a special place to put them. Look at them, say a silent prayer of gratitude for grandma betsy and then throw those suckers in the trash!
  • The stress you lose as a result of getting rid of your stuff is worth more than the weight of all said stuff in gold. Trust me. Get rid of stuff. Throw it out. Donate it to charities. Have a yard sale.
  • Your children feel important and needed when they get to help out with daily maintenance around the house.
  • If they complain, it’s only because you have conditioned them to believe that work is always bad and playing is always good. Change your attitude about your duties and theirs will follow suit.
  • If you are charging down the steps with a leaking diaper baby and see that the AC repairman left a mess when he changed your filter, don’t get overwhelmed about it. Call out to your four year old to grab that hand broom and dustpan and sweep it up. So what if she doesn’t do it perfectly. It’s just dirt, people.
  • When your two year old asks for a spray bottle and a rag never say “No.” Give it to him and try to persuade him to clean something that actually needs cleaning. If he wants to clean a window that is already clean, so what? It’s just a window, but he is feeling important to get to help.
  • When your kids are running around fussing at each other and being goofy, distribute baby wipes and send them to clean the walls. Walls always need cleaning.
  • I firmly believe that at the age my children are in, establishing good habits is more important that sitting and doing school lessons all day.
  • Sit in the room they are cleaning up and instruct them. They are not born knowing how to clean. “Charis, pull everything out from under Ezra’s bed.” Then help her see that she can get all the blocks and put them in the block box at once. Then point out the books she pulled out. Then the hairbows, etc. You can’t just send them into a room and say “Clean it.” It won’t get very clean and they won’t learn how to do it right. With time, you will be able to do that though!
  • I find that explaining to my children that we don’t want bugs or mice, or that we don’t want to get sick over and over, is great motivation to get them to clean up.
  • You have all that energy just sitting in your house mammas. Put it to good use!!

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Pump up the Jam

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Allow me to be self indulgent for a moment while I make a desperate attempt at pumping myself up for the day. I figure other tired mammas might need to hear it too!

Brent and I are learning about hard work, ya’ll. I thought that I knew a definition of “exhausted”  but I’m finding out I hadn’t quite experienced bone deep exhaustion.

And truth be told, we’re loving {almost} every minute of it.

It feels really good to be successful at something and know that it took a lot of hard work to get there. (I think this may be the definition of the good kinda “pride”.) But the hard work part gets tiring, and it can be really discouraging when you don’t quite see the fruits of your effort yet. Occassionally you lose sight of what it is you are even working towards.

For the most part, this summer has been a blur of farmers markets. In between the hours in the heat at some pretty busy markets we’ve been attempting to shepherd our children’s hearts and continue to run our home in a nurturing way.

It’s fun and the kids are getting some fantastic life experiences and adventures that we hope they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. But on the grown up level, it’s been extremely challenging. Juggling lots of littles in the heat for several hours while also trying to answer questions about soap and make sales… Shoot, for one market, just the road trip to get there has the possibility of exhausting all of our patience!

But we’ve honestly been “counting it all joy” along the way.

And then all that other stuff broke. And whatnot. And we felt like we had been placed inside of a pressure cooker! Nay, a furnace. (Nay? Excuse me while I go get another cup of coffee.)

Anyway. Where was I? Oh yes. We were being cooked. By the grace of God we realized it. So we counted that all joy as well. I recall telling you all that I would be back to report of God’s goodness, and I am!

We were able to take care of both van repairs, the AC repair, the new washing machine, the plumbing repair, and whatever the heck else we were facing at the time. We did it all debt free, and were able to absorb most of it into our normal budget and without touching any of the money we have been working our butts off to make to pay off our business loan. In fact, the washing machine came gifted to us from Brent’s parents! Totally unexpected!! (Thanks Nana and Papa!!!) We did have to use a small portion of our “emergency fund”, but that’s what it’s for, right?

So, what does this all have to do with jam?

Umm. Nothing really, but I can make a stretch and tell you that when you are pressed, what’s on the inside comes out.

Just normal everyday life presses us plenty, doesn’t it? Then you add a bunch of hot kids, grumpy parents, demanding customers, hunger, extreme exhaustion, and a plethora of house repairs… and you’ve just become fit for jam.

I was super tired after last night’s farmers market. I knew that the baby was probably going to keep me up all night. (Again.) I made sure to do the dishes before bed so that I was not greeted with a dirty kitchen in the morning (which is the worst way to start the day). We had the kids clean up their toys before bed so we could have  a fresh house to wake up to. We went to bed at a decent time. We made ourselves get up early for coffee and prayer together. We gave ourselves every chance at a good start.

And then there was a super annoying email to deal with. Brent left for work, and then the kids got up too early. And my quiet time has evolved into time with Ezra on my lap and  trotting up and down the stairs making the girls get back in bed so they don’t wake the baby up.

First reaction is to throw my hands up in the air and say, “Great. This day is really going to suck. I’m tired of being squeezed. God, can I just have one day of not being squeezed?? Haven’t I been working hard? Don’t I deserve a rest???”

But my husband prayed for me this morning, and I’m pretty sure he’s probably still praying (because he’s awesome like that). And I’m going to continue counting it all joy.

Today, while I’m being pressed, I’m going to count on God to continue working all things for my good, to continue keeping His promises, to continue to be faithful, and to make really yummy jam out of all this pressing.

He’s a good God. And He presses us for our own good and His own glory. What a privilege it is to be used by Him. That is what it is all about anyway.

Pour yourself out today, ya’ll. Be used. Become jam….reallly yummy jam. Not the sugar free junk. The real stuff. Guard your hearts, keep them clean and honest with the Lord. Love on your kids. Look them in the eyes and realize that they are really small persons that deserve respect and consideration. When you are tired, have a plan and just “do the next thing”.

That’s what I’m going to be doing today. =)

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Lifestyles of the Crunchy and Hippie

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

This is  part of a series. Go here to read part One.

I have to give a disclaimer at this point: I don’t know how effective natural remedies are going to be when paired with a junk food diet and whatnot. I think that a lifestyle overhaul might be necessary for some people.

For instance, part of Aviva’s recommendations is always going to include rest… If your child has a fever she recommends staying home even after it is gone an additional day for each day they’ve had the fever. So, a 3 day fever would result in 6 days of house bound rest. Most people’s schedules are so hectic that it would really take a serious commitment to see this through. And some may feel that they’d rather just give ibuprofen than stay home that long. The problem with this is that you risk passing the sickness on to others (which is extremely inconsiderate in my ever so humble opinion), and you forfeit the body’s opportunity to actually heal itself,which would result in a strengthened immune system. So you see, in the long run, it is better to stay home and rest as much as possible during illness and for a follow up period. You’ll end up with healthy kids who don’t get sick as often, and you’ll avoid making other people sick by spreading your germs which is really inconsiderate.

If you’ve been doing antibiotics for every illness and eating a junk food diet up until now, but want to change, it’s not too late! It’s only too late when you’re dead. Chances are, if you are reading this, you can head right out and get you and your kids a good probiotic. I recognize a good probiotic when it gives you gas. Some people swear that they take a good one and it doesn’t give them gas. But I’ve tried them all, and the ones that I could actually FEEL working were the ones that resulted in a healthier me/kid. They even make powdered probiotics for small kids who can’t swallow pills. The reason for the probiotic is that antibiotics and other allopathic medicines, paired with a bad diet, really destroys the healthy bacteria in the gut. If your gut isn’t healthy, nothing else is going to be either. So, repairing the gut, in my opinion, is Priority #1. (We use Nature’s Way powdered probiotic for the kids, and I really like Healthy Trinity and Garden of Life’s Primal Defense for myself, but occassionally I take the coated Nature’s Way capsules.)

Factors involved in a crunchy and hippie lifestyle involve:

  • Fresh air
  • Dirt (play in it. It’s good for you and your kids.)
  • Rest
  • Reduced Stress (I’m a hypocrite in this dept, but we’re trying to reduce the stress levels in our home)
  • Good diet
  • Eat simple slow food and try to start limiting your processed/fast/junk food intake. You don’t have to make some major switch overnight! Just pick something and stop it. Get it out of your house and don’t let it back in. When you are out driving around and feel like your only option is to pull through the fast food joint because it’s getting late, just pretend like you actually live in 1952 and there is no fast food and your only option is to go home and at least throw a carrot stick and a chunk of cheddar cheese at your kids. You’ll actually get home faster and get to bed on time.

I don’t want to overwhelm anybody. You don’t have to be perfect to have healthy kids. People always get very relieved when they hear that we eat Pizza Hut every now and then and get frappaccinos when we can afford it. I look at it this way: I feed my kids super duper healthy 95% of the time. But we live in America, we have friends and family that do not eat like us. If we want to see and eat with other people, we have to lower our standards some. Not to mention, this Mamma and Daddy weren’t raised to eat like Hippies, so we still have nasty cravings. (GASP!) A meal out every now and then is not going to hurt. Sorry, super crunchy folks, but that’s just they way it is. ;) (Can you believe I just referred to other people as crunchier than me?? I know you are laughing. But believe me, they’re out there.)

So, some of the above points are going to overlap with future posts. I hope you guys are getting something out of this! Now is a good time to ask questions and stop lurking, by the way! ;)

    4

    A Reader is a Leader

    Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

    This is the second part in a series. Go here for part one.

    It really helps having a husband whose job is to be well informed about natural health products. But before that, as the Mamma of this house, it was my job. When I was pregnant with Arwen we both decided that I would learn myself some stuff and become the family doctor.

    I called my midwife about 73,000 times that first year with questions. After all, what do you do for yeast infections, flu, strep, fevers, colds, runny noses, etc. when all of the medicines that you are familiar with are suddenly off limits. All I knew was that that stuff only covered up symptoms and I wanted my kids (and myself) to actually be healthy. And the more you use the allopathic medicines, the more often you are sick. It’s a vicious cycle, isn’t it? She patiently held my hand and walked me through the ins and outs of all the vitamin c’s, the herbal teas, the balms, how to figure out how much to give my baby, etc.

    I’m so thankful to her for helping me even when she was “off the clock”. And I’m more than happy to help others when they call or write, for free, because that is the way it ought to be. But if you want me to, I can type this all up and sell it to you in e-booklet form for $5.99. ;)

    In fact, whenever someone calls/writes with a question, I generally consult the same two books Naturally Healthy Babies and Children by Aviva Romm and the latest edition of Prescription for Nutritional Healing.

    A lot of mom’s have expressed interest in learning how to be more independent and knowledgable about their family’s healthcare. It can be scary when your child is running a high fever and developing a rash. But with a little bit of knowledge, you can know whether or not a trip to the doctor/ER is actually necessary, or if it is a simple case of childhood Roseola (for example).

    • Read the following booksHow to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor by Dr. Mendelsohn (Dr. Mendelsohn was a living treasure in that he respected the body’s natural ability to heal itself and practiced noninvasive medicine as much as possible), and Naturally Healthy Babies and Children, by Aviva Romm (Aviva has been a home birth midwife for years, but has also gone through medical school and is a well recognized authority on herbs and natural remedies). The former has excellent advice from the perspective of a medical professional about when it is appropriate and necessary to seek medical advice or take an antibiotic, and when you can get by just fine without one. The latter assumes that you have no knowledge of herbs and walks you through the steps of practicing natural remedies and even teaches you how to make your own concoctions in plain easy to read directions.
    • Mommy Diagnostics by Shonda Parker is also probably a very good book. By the time I heard of Shonda I felt like I had sufficient information at my fingertips, but I’ve read some of her other books and this woman really knows her stuff. She’s also a Christian, while Aviva practices from a New Age perspective. I’ve learned to drown out the New Age stuff, but if you are super sensitive to that, you might want to go with Shonda.
    • When I’m desperate, I look stuff up on the internet. If you haven’t developed a common sense about herbs and natural remedies, avoid this. You could easily find 50 references both for and against something on the web and if you don’t have any knowledge to chalk it up to you can easily be led astray. A good resource for online info for herbs is Bulk Herb Store. I’d also trust most of the books and educational resources they have in their online store.

    Now, GET STARTED! I remember when I first wanted to make bread. I bought flour and yeast and I read about it. And then I read about it and thought about it. And then I thought about it and read about it. The idea of making my own bread seemed so intimidating. Finally one day I worked up the confidence to try. I nervously measured and mixed and preheated and baked. Magically, bread appeared in that little pan.

    Get yourself some of those resources and the next time that illness presents itself, try to let go of your safety net and give your body a chance to actually heal. You might be surprised.

    Go here for the next installment in this series.

    3

    Numb3rs

    Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

    You like that? Thought I’d keep it relevant and steal the name of that popular tv show. I don’t watch it. Is it popular?

    Anyway…

    two Pictures, Images and Photos

    2:  The number of times Evie woke up last night!

    fourteen Pictures, Images and Photos

    14:  Approximate number of times I have cleaned some manner of liquid off of the floor in the past 24 hours.

    #9 Pictures, Images and Photos

    9:  Number of health related questions I got from you people in one week. 5 of them were all related to the recent recall on children’s medications for fever/pain relief, allergies and whatnot.

    I’m going to answer those now.

    First of all, I’m not a doctor. I’m a Mommy, and I know what’s good for my kids and can only make recommendations for yours.

    I know everyone thinks that I have special knowledge and skill with herbs and natural remedies… and I do. But I wasn’t born that way. Through a lot of reading and a little experience I’ve been able to find ways to help my family avoid allopathic medications completely and stay in relatively good health. It should also be mentioned that so far I have only proved useful in keeping a child alive and well up until their fifth birthday.

    My {strong} opinions have come from different places: the way I was raised, my midwife’s influence, and several books.

    Halfway into this blog post, I realized that this really just needs to become a series. (I know you are just breathless with anticipation.)

    For those of you who like non-detailed bullet points, everything I know about raising a healthy child can be summed up by the following:

    • Read Books
    • Good Diet
    • Healthy Gut
    • No Sugar
    • Lots of rest at appropriate times
    • Stay home when sick and long enough to recover completely
    • Avoid allopathic medicine like the plague. LIKE THE PLAGUE, PEOPLE!
    • Trust- in both your body’s ability to heal, and the Creator that made it and His ability to heal
    • Avoid vaccinations as much as you are comfortable with

    For those of you that need more details, stay tuned. Go here for the next installment.

    5

    How to become a Food Snob.

    Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

    Candi asked:

    I’d love hearing how you started on the healthy journey. I buy what I can organic, but I’m wondering how you manage to do so much from scratch with everything else you do. I have quite a few days with toddlers where I forget to thaw things, etc…and then throw something (not so healthy) together last minute. :/ How do you balance? What do you suggest are good starting steps? I’ve heard some from others, too, but I’m curious :)

    My answer comes with a disclaimer: You will develop a discriminating pallet, and so will your children. You’ll start to discover what it feels like to FEEL GOOD. Skittles will never taste the same and fast food will begin to gross you out. Your children may start to inquire about ‘xactly where those tortilla chips came from and do they have genetically modified corn in it?

    How I got started…. Before we got married, I survived quite literally on soy milk, luna bars, and CiCi’s Pizza. After we got married we lined up at Sam’s for frozen tilapia, pork hot dogs, white buns, bulk chips, precooked hamburger patties, and vats of Heinz ketchup. The very first thing I did when I found out I was pregnant with Arwen, my first child, was take a multivitamin. Then I bought What to Eat When You’re Expecting and printed out a chart so I could check off all the food groups every day. I promptly gained 20 pounds before my first visit with the midwife at 16 weeks. She told me to trash the book and begin to work with me on cleaning up my diet. I finally submitted an acceptable 7 day diet journal to her at 8 months pregnant. It took almost my entire pregnancy for her to teach me to eat well!!

    What I did first… The very first skill I mastered was that of all things doughy. I requested a bread machine for Christmas and started making bread. Ironically, I wouldn’t really consider that bread “healthy” now, but it was a start! If it started as dough, I started making it from scratch. This eliminates a ton of weird preservatives and high fructose corn syrup. I also started to learn the way of the legume. I had no idea that beans didn’t come from cans. Hopefully, you are a little ahead of me and have had some experience with soaking beans. I quickly discovered that a properly prepared bean was something that could not be rushed. I still rely on canned beans for those days when I forgot to thaw something.

    Free your mind and the rest will follow…

    • Redefine your terms- when I read “flour” in a recipe, I automatically use my own freshly ground flour, oftentimes even using ground seeds and beans as “flour”. When I read “can of chicken broth” I use vegan bouillon cubes. When I read “can of cream of chicken soup” I use bouillon cube + milk. When I read “shortening” I use butter. Sometimes I sub out some of the sugar for honey or agave nectar, depending on the recipe. Instead of serving chips, I like to use sliced cucumber for my family. You can even sprinkle on some salt and garlic powder.
    • Make up your mind and go cold turkey. For example: I don’t feed my kids boxed Mac N Cheese. I really can’t be convinced that even the organic variety is healthy. So I don’t buy it. And if I don’t buy it, it’s not in the house, and then when I find myself stuck and needing some quick food, it isn’t an option. If you know that something isn’t good for you or your children, don’t bring it in. If it has high fructose corn syrup, MSG, artificial colors, or artificial flavors, I don’t buy it. Period. If you have picky kids this is especially important. Eventually they will get hungry enough to eat what they are given and if Frosted Flakes are not an option, they’ll eventually settle for yogurt (for example). If you find that you forgot to prep for dinner and need to “throw something together” and ALL you have is ONLY healthy options, you will wind up throwing together healthy stuff…trust me.
    • Relax a little… Don’t over think it. Some people make eating healthy their god. If you find yourself stuck out at mealtime and you have no other option than eating fast food, it’s okay! One meal isn’t going to hurt too much. Don’t sacrifice time with friends and family for healthy food. We eat whatever people give us when we are invited over, and we enjoy it! It doesn’t matter if it’s organic or if it has high fructose corn syrup in it. If we know that we are going to be somewhere for several days, we do take some of our own food because our bodies don’t have much tolerance for some of the preservatives and other toxic things found in most people’s everyday food. After a couple days of eating it, we start to feel really bad.

    Rules for Starting

    1. Cut out all white flour. Now. When you’ve done that, try to cut out as much wheat and “bread” as you can. Americans eat way too much of it.
    2. Drastically reduce the amount of milk and cheese you are eating. Switch to raw milk for drinking if you can.
    3. Challenge yourself to make a dinner without meat at least twice a week. If you already do that, make it 4 times a week!
    4. Try to eat at least one thing raw at every meal.

    How I make it work and still do “everything else”…

    • Super Baby Food- This book was foundational in my attitude and ideas towards growing healthy children through nutrition. Tons of great info on the nutritional needs of children. She recommends not focusing on the amount of food consumed in one day, but rather in a full week. This is really liberating as you try to think about whether everyone is getting enough protein, calcium, etc. I have also noticed that this diet produces kids that are not picky eaters. Her advice helps me to try a wider variety of foods safely with my little ones that I might not be daring enough to try on my own accord. (I don’t follow the time line since I try to start my babies on solids as close to their first birthday as possible. I don’t have the time or interest to grind and mash stuff, so I wait until they are able to just pick it up and eat it.)
    • Eat Simply… my children are not impressed with gourmet meals that took hours to prepare. Occasionally I do this just for me though. ;) This means that a snack is simply an apple, OR a pear, OR some grapes. I generally do not give them a choice and they all eat whatever everyone else is having or go without. Lunch is simple stuff… a spoonful of peanut butter, a few grapes, and maybe even some cheese squares. They LOVE stuff like that. The other day we were having  a H O R R I B L E day and I got stuck out in traffic and it seemed like fast food was my only option. We had just had fast food a couple of days before and I really didn’t want to have to feed it to them again. So I pulled into walmart and found a little tray deal with sliced turkey breast, sliced cheddar cheese and crackers. We pulled into a park and had a little picnic. It wasn’t perfect. The cheese wasn’t organic. But at least it wasn’t deep fried and topped with processed “cheese food” and high fructose corn syrup ketchup with a side of MSG. Sometimes I just quick cook up a bunch of plain rice noodles and some frozen mixed veggies. Add a little salt and parmesan cheese and voila! Lunch.
    • I try to make sure that everyone has some protein at every meal. This may include peanut butter, beans, quinoa, meat, cheeses, whole raw milk, eggs, almond butter, cottage cheese, nuts and seeds, yogurt, etc. A meal sort of low in complete protein, such as oatmeal, is followed with a high protein snack. A meal high in protein can be followed by a carb snack, like fruit.
    • We have the same breakfast every other day. Oatmeal, which can really vary greatly with additives (Granola Oatmeal- we add granola, duh; Fruity Oatmeal- we add cut up apple or frozen berries, Cinnamon Raisin Oatmeal, Almond Butter Oatmeal topped with fresh strawberries, YUM! etc) And eggs with some kind of toast, muffin, bagel, etc. We only buy the sprouted grain bagels. We don’t use jelly- too much sugar! And we try to only have pancakes and such as special dinners. We avoid sugar and honey as much as possible for breakfast and have seen a marked improvement in our children’s behavior and ability to focus.
    • Plan your menu. Plan your menu. Plan your menu. It’s worth saying three times. Just because you’ve written down “Monday- Dinner- Roast Beef” doesn’t mean that you actually have to do it on Monday. I try to only plan one or two meals per week that require a lot of forethought, such as thawing. That way on a day that I actually ponder dinner at 10 a.m. I can go ahead and do one of those. It might not be Monday or whatever day I actually planned that meal for. The idea is to have all your meals planned out and not have too many that require too much planning ahead. I use to only schedule dinners, but as our family has grown it’s become necessary to plan all meals and snacks. And snacks are the same way. If it’s Tuesday and I have a hankering for yogurt for the afternoon snack, but it’s not listed until Thursday, I’ll just have it when I like. ;)
    • If I don’t have time to make bread, we just don’t eat bread. I realize that most moms with lots of littles have some sort of sandwich everyday. I’m just not sure how great that is for our kids. Consequently, I make bread about once or twice a month. So we have sandwiches like twice a month I guess. =) When grains aren’t an option, you have the freedom to combine other foods and get in a lot more variety.
    • Convenience food for me… uncured organic beef hot dogs, pre-sliced fruit from the produce section, veggie trays with dip. If our lunch sucked, that afternoon I can pull that veggie tray out and slap it on the table. It takes five seconds to do and my kids gobble it up (broccoli, carrots, celery, and grape tomatoes usually. It’s organic and only costs about $7 and last us about 2 weeks.)
    • I think that “organic” only gets expensive when you are trying to buy organic breakfast cereal, organic frozen waffles, organic juice, organic cereal bars, etc. All of those things are completely unnecessary. Organic yogurt isn’t to expensive, especially when you buy it plain and add your own thawed organic frozen fruit to it (also inexpensive.) Organic oats are cheap. Cereal bars are mostly sugar whether they are organic or not! Sometimes we have these when we get them free or something, but they aren’t a staple around here. If you want your kid to have some fruit, give them FRUIT, not a cereal bar. ;)
    • Or juice. We never have juice, unless I juice it myself and that is only as a treat. Do you know that it takes several apples to make a glass of apple juice? There is a reasonable amount of sugar in one apple… one servings worth. But several? Juice gives you all of the sugar and very little of the fiber. It’s a No-No.
    • For myself, I don’t do as well, unless I”m pregnant. I’m trying to do better on this. I try to make every meal count for me, since I don’t eat as regularly as the kids do and I don’t get ANY wheat. I have a glass of water with chlorophyll in it every day and try to regularly consume herbal teas with high nutrient counts. Sometimes I might just grab a hand full of something and eat it simply because I need the nutrients and not worry so much about how it tastes. When I have time, I try to make my own food presentable too. We eat a lot of ice cream and stuff after the kids have gone to bed and we really need to stop this!

    Lord have mercy, this is quite a daunting list to some, I’m guessing. In short…

    • SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY. Have some veggies every day. Have some fruit every day. Cut out most of your grains, whether they are “whole” or not.
    • GO COLD TURKEY. Stop buying those convenience or addictive foods that you know you or your children shouldn’t be eating. Put your proverbial foot down. Snack on peanuts or something when you think you might cave. Most sugar cravings are really an indication that you need some protein anyway.
    • FOR PICKY KIDS. I suggest just matter of factly informing them that “this is what we are having.” If they don’t want it, they don’t have to eat it, but nothing else is going to be offered. What favor are you doing them by always giving them what they want? Does life do this for us? Nope. You are only creating a picky eater and potentially creating a social handicap. You know those people who don’t like to go out with friends because they might have to go to a restaurant they’ve never been to before… Point is, eventually they’ll get hungry enough to eat what you are offering them.

    I don’t have it all figured out and need some tips too! So ya’ll share what you do to make healthy eating work for your family!

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    Evelyn’s Life was Heroically Saved By a Stranger in the grocery store.

    Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

    Don’t you just love parenting advice from people who don’t have any children?

    I know. Half the time they mean well. But really? I wouldn’t go up to the man working on the phone lines outside and attempt to instruct him. I would never give advice in a field in which I have absolutely no experience.

    The other night we stopped by Whole Foods for dinner with Brent. While we were waiting on the kid’s pizza slices Evelyn happily sat in the sling on my hip.

    I’ll be honest. Normally, when I go out with all four kids and have Evie in some sort of carrier, I get stares that communicate the goddess-like status I hold in the eyes of those who have only 1 or 2 kids and left them at home because they can’t handle shopping with them. (These people are clearly deceived. I have no goddess powers. I’m just crazy.)

    But the woman next to me was staring with concern.

    She finally piped up.

    “Umm. Have you heard that babies are, like, dying in those carriers?”

    I was feeling merciful, due to the humbling experience of flying by the seat of my pants skirt. And whatnot.

    “Not this one,” I told her. Forget that maybe even my type of carrier has been to blame (it hasn’t). My child is almost 6 months old. Sitting up on my hip. And I obviously had three older breathing kids standing right next to me. Seriously?

    “Well, I just have heard a lot about that, and I would want someone to tell me if something could kill my child.”

    REALLY? This woman still wanted to chat about it and clearly was not satisfied that I indeed was concerned with whether or not my child was in danger of dying right there in the store in my very arms.

    “It’s not this kind of carrier that those 2 babies died in.”

    “Oh really? What kind was it then?” I’m not exaggerating, people. She was calling my bluff. Except I wasn’t bluffing. Turns out I’m informed.

    “It was the Infantino SlingRider and I’d never use one of those carriers anyway because they are cheap and dangerous.”

    Then I smiled.

    You can get the facts here if you haven’t heard all the stink.

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    Posted in Raising Children |

    my husband is better than yours (nanny nanny boo boo)

    Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

    Okay, so the title is a bit self-indulgent.

    First of all, you need to know that my husband is a mac-daddy and potty trained Ezra last week in one day!

    You can go to his blog to read all about it. We’ve done all of our children this way, and even used the technique to potty train our nephew for a week when he stayed with us. It’s awesome and I hope we never have to do it any other way.

    I’m busy and I like to stay busy. This means there isn’t a lot of time for cleaning poop out of people’s pants or asking if they need to go potty fifty bajillion times a day. And, I’ll just say it… I’m super impatient. (I know you’re surprised.) And I’m prone to being easily discouraged.

    Consequently, Brent sends me as far away from the house as possible while he works his potty training mojo. Last Thursday the girls and I headed out to run errands all morning while Brent and Ezra got busy with our little black potty doll. By 10:30 the boy was controlling his bladder like a pro. (He’s 28 months old, by the way.) And Brent fixed it so that Ezra could do the whole shindig independently. I don’t mind getting excited for them for a couple of days, but after that I don’t want to be involved in the potty process.

    Only he wasn’t pooping. For some reason, the kid seemed to be totally confused about what all was going on to produce a bowel movement. He held it for days, and then would have a big accident in his pants, which he then pretended didn’t exist. The stench gave him up every single time.

    We promised him everything short of his very own car if he would put his poo-poos in the potty next time.

    Yesterday was bad. He pooped in his pants before I even got out of bed. (Read between the lines: I hadn’t had any coffee yet.) This was very bad. I hosed him off in the shower and re-dressed him. We came downstairs and  I began my own magic in the kitchen. I had not yet finished perfection when the boy pooped his pants again.

    I made him revel in it while I sipped my latte. Sorry, bud. Mamma’s got needs too.

    Then I put a diaper on him and considered the entire ordeal over with.

    Only the kid wouldn’t stop peeing in the potty. He kept yanking his cloth diaper down and obstinately depositing his waste in the toilet and yanking it back up. (I swear he gets his stubbornness from his father.)

    So, I put underwear back on his little bum and dared him to make.my.day.

    I’m still having trouble getting over that recent whateveritwas that tried to claim both my lungs and my sanity. (Ooohh, alright. I don’t have any sanity to be claimed. But I do have lungs.) At some point I came neartonervousbreakdown and my knight and shining armor appeared home, several hours early.

    I could have collapsed. At that very moment I was trying to clear a path in the kitchen. I heard the door open and assumed one of the kids was making a break for it; perhaps trotting down the street for help. Lo and behold, my man had appeared.

    Today, before he left to go back to work, he gave me a pep talk. Like a football coach in the locker room before the big game, only much sweeter…and handsomer. He encouraged me not to give up on the poop. Our big moment was coming.

    And it did.

    This morning we spent some time studying Everyone Poops. After nap time, Ezra sat on the potty and I nonchalantly sat near him and tried to look disinterested. He lowered his head and reached out to grip my leg like a woman giving birth! (LOL)

    And the boy pooped! We celebrated with song and dance and lollipop and gum! We called Daddy and texted folks and whooped up a great racket.

    And I owe it all to my husband who wouldn’t let me give up, and who doesn’t give up on me. I love you, Brent! There is no one else I’d rather work alongside through the long nights, the stinky poop, the sloppy kisses, and the early mornings than you!


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    Posted in Brent, Ezra, Raising Children |