Tell your kids to play with their food

Last month, a second grader surprised me with her baking skills. We were finishing a week-long summer program and planning our celebratory party. She offered to bring in brownies that she emphasized she would make entirely by herself. The next day, she proudly came into our class with 27 brownies carefully cut into generous squares. She emphasized that there were just enough for everyone to have one, and watched carefully to make sure that no one took an extra. I was impressed—not just by her organizational skills, but especially that she had baked a dessert all by herself.

Clara is just a year younger than this girl, and I questioned whether a year from now she would be volunteering to bake something all by herself. We are still at the stage of her helping out as sous chef or kitchen's assistant. She has never made an entire dish by herself. I know brownies are not the hardest dessert to prepare, but still this situation got me thinking about Clara and cooking. 

At the same time that I was thinking about Clara's culinary future, she received a hand-me-down copy of Strawberry Shortcake's book, Cooking Fun. This book from 1980 details ways to make a typical meal more interesting through food layout and design. Clara especially liked the Snakey Snack "recipe" (alternating slices of carrots and cucumber with cream cheese in between and arranging it to look like a snake). She was proud of herself when she made this mostly by herself for her friends when they came over for a playdate. Another favorite was Crackerwitch Castle (a tower of cheese and crackers).   

Clara was very happy to find a radish tail that worked perfectly as a
snake tongue.

Clara followed the directions to make Crackerwitch Castle and added her own embellishment with
cracked cracker topping and red pepper boats with carrots.

For any one who is looking for fun food ideas, this site has 60 ideas to get you started. I like their Loch Ness bagel monster and the Octopus' Garden. I'm not a fan of all of their recipes, though. The Banana Dogs look just wrong. I am lucky that Clara is a good eater, so I never had to trick her into eating her vegetables by making them look like something else. (But if she was a picky eater, I think I would go to Play with Your Food first for ideas! I love the way they give peppers and other veggies such a personality in these photos.)

Not all experiments have been a success. Clara's attempt at making the Octopus Garden resulted in a mishap when the pepper dipped a bit too far in the hummus.

I am not one of those moms who cuts out fancy shapes for my daughter's sandwiches every day or makes whipped cream smiley faces on her pancakes. I tend to have just enough energy to make sure she gets healthy snacks—slicing her apple into pieces rather than giving her a whole apple feels like an accomplishment. The only exception to the norm is on her birthday in which case I have been known to prepare cutesy presentations like butterfly sandwiches to please the birthday girl. However, I'm enjoying the delight in which Clara is expressing towards contributing to the cooking, even if at this point, she's mostly helping with the presentation rather than the actual food. 


Our next step is creating a meal together. It turns out we have a couple of other kid's cookbooks that I forgot we owned: Lidia Bastianich's Nonna's Birthday Surprise and The Silver Spoon for Children: Favorite Italian Recipes. Both of these books have real recipes like for Fish Kabobs and Pesto Spaghetti. Lidia's book is accompanied by drawings and a children's story that reinforces growing one's own food and making seasonal recipes. Another kid's cookbook that looks promising is Mollie Katzen's Pretend Soup. Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook was a classic in my house when I was a teeanger trying to experiment with vegetarian cooking. 


Yesterday, I read in the Motherlode blog on the New York Times site about a 9-year-old cooking Pasta with Tomato and Mushrooms and an 11-year-old making a fruit tart. I would love to help Clara develop the confidence and skills to try these recipes in a couple of years. The Times has been offering a series called "Kids in the Kitchen" where they share kid-friendly recipes. We definitely plan to put some of these on our list of recipes to try with Clara.

Clara has developed a curiosity about the kitchen and cooking through playing with her food. I encourage you to consider telling your kids to play with their food this summer and see what they create. 

-Ellyn

Don't yuck my yum

"I like double-decker peanut butter and radish sandwiches!, and I told my friends that they couldn't eww my yum" Clara proclaimed giddily one day.

"Radishes?" I asked. She had never eaten radishes. "And peanut butter sandwiches?" Our school is firmly nut-free so the idea that Clara ate this meal at school seemed truly perplexing.

Finally, I learned that the rabbits of David Cleveland's book "The April Rabbits" were making aforementioned peanut butter radish sandwiches, and Clara was delighting in taunting her classmates with the promise of eating these sandwiches.

It is true that Clara is a good eater. I feel blessed that she will eat nearly any fruit or vegetable, almost always devouring the broccoli or salad on her plate before anything else.

Many six-year-olds have a more limited palate, and so on more than one occasion, Clara came home from school saying that the other kids made fun of her for eating something they wouldn't touch.

"Don't eww my yum," Clara said earnestly one day to her classmates as she munched on a smoked salmon, caper, and cream cheese wrap. Her teachers taught her this phrase, more commonly known as "don't yuck my yum," and it is so simple and so true. 

Live and let others live seems to be a pretty good maxim for most things in life.

I'm happy to have a daughter who is willing to try different foods, but most of all, I am grateful to have a daughter who is not afraid to be different from her peers, a girl who doesn't let their "yucks" ruin her "yum."

Clara gets ready to eat sushi.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Lila and Clara are such good friends. Lila is also quite the adventurous eater! Just dare her to try something: a grilled hot chili pepper, a sautéed rooster comb, sour cream and onion crickets... she is totally game. (Yes, these are things she has actually eaten and enjoyed!) What throws people off the most is that Lila appears to be "picky" because she rejects the typical foods that kids are "supposed to" like such as mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, and happy meals. She takes her food selections very seriously and the food activist in her becomes compelled to inform her peers about the dangers of a junk food diet. (I've had to sensor her from yucking their yums sometimes.)

Her gourmet taste can get expensive but it's worth it. I love that she'd rather go to a farmer's market than a toy store or when showing her pictures of an upcoming vacation she'll hone in on the entrees being served above all else. I have to say, we are really lucky. My husband and I would love to take credit for her eating habits, but it's hard to know if we had anything to do with her willingness to try new things. Also, what has worked with Lila may not work for other kids. A couple of things that we think may have helped: We have a household rule-- "try it before you say you don't like it." And we get her involved with cooking-- according to her, whatever she makes is delicious, of course. (Actually, it usually is.) I agree with Ellyn, I love that our girls enjoy a variety of foods and are not afraid to eat outside of the box

According to Lila, Crickets are not only tasty, they are also a great source of protein.

-Ellyn & Tara

My six-year-old is in charge of Mother Earth

My ears perked up when Clara came home from a kindergarten science class last year with the proud and earnest proclamation, "Guess what, Mama? I'm in charge of Mother Earth."

Clara comes from a long line of environmentalists, people who took care of the earth even before the term environmentalist was in vogue. 

For generations, members of my family worked the earth as farmers even as recently as my paternal grandmother's family, working a small farm in a small town in Illinois. While other members of our family didn't farm for a living, nearly everyone in the family kept a vegetable garden. They kept connected to the earth.

In high school, my sister was the president of the Environmental Club, and I was the vice-president. We were activists, changing school policy about frog dissection, organizing a city-wide Earth Day festival, educating others about factory farming, and at times probably too self-righteously advocating to others about the benefits of vegetarianism. 

One of my most memorable protests was picketing outside of a McDonald's urging passing cars to "honk for a McVeggie burger." Looking back on that high school photo, I think the short shorts my classmate and I were wearing might have been provoking more honks than our cause.

 ***

I admit with some sadness and regret that as an adult I never learned to set up a vegetable garden of my own, and my environmentalist activist days of high school seem far in the past. The closest connection I have to the environment these days is taking long walks through the woods and supporting a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) where we get farm vegetables once a week.

I am happy that Clara has a sense of urgency and caring for the environment even if the nudge in that direction came initially from school rather than home. 

 ***

Over this past summer, we explored Clara's interest in caring for Mother Earth in a few ways:

1. We started an herb garden. In the spring, we bought basil, thyme, and rosemary and planted it in a small container outdoors. We watched the herbs grow abundantly, using them occasionally in our cooking but mostly enjoying their exuberant smells. Inside, Clara planted a basil plant from seed that has grown steadily much to her delight.

2. After seven years of being a member of the CSA, and never actually seeing the farm, we finally visited the farm for garlic harvest day. We had a great time getting our hands dirty and seeing the beautiful land where our vegetables come from. 





Our experience at the farm indicated that Clara may be prone more towards entomology than gardening. She picked a few garlic bulbs, but she spent the majority of her day collecting worms and keeping them moist and happy in a pile of dirt!




3. Clara joined a camp called "It IS easy being green" where she learned about composting and growing things. One of her favorite activities was making pickles out of cucumbers.








4. I finally got Clara to join me for walks in the woods. I enticed her with descriptions of the wildlife we would find. However, this was a bit of a gamble on my part since many times I don't see much beyond a sparrow or squirrel. I felt a sense of victory when in our most recent journey, we spotted almost a dozen frogs, a snake, many friendly dragonflies, and a monarch butterfly.

How many frogs do you see?

We still have a long way to go to being the environmental family I dream we can be. I would like to grow an actual vegetable garden rather than just herbs. I would like to compost and keep our waste at a minimum. However, last summer did feel like a step in the right direction of re-connecting with Mother Earth.


I am proud to be the mama of a six-year-old who feels she is in charge of Mother Earth. Her enthusiasm is helping me to feel hope for the future of our planet and to re-energize the teenager environmentalist in me.

-Ellyn

Halloween Party

This past Sunday, we hosted our big Halloween bash. We had our first Halloween party when Lila was a little too young to go trick or treating. Since then it has become an annual tradition. It can be a lot of work, but knowing that Lila and her friends have a blast makes it all worth it. After 6 years of hosting, I think we got it down to a science. (Although this year the grilled cheese caught on fire, it was a minor hiccup that added to the chaotic excitement!) Here are a few highlights that may offer some "tricks and treats" for hosting a Halloween bash for kids.

Sarah, Clara, Elisa, and Lila-- ready to party!

If you really want those snacks, you have to get passed the giant spider.
Don't get caught in her web!

FOOD: The autumn season, for me, means hearty comfort food. Our lunch menu included chili, wings, rice, beans, grilled cheese, corn bread, and salad. We had a few Halloween-inspired snacks such as monster green guacamole and black tortilla chips, eyeball deviled eggs (use a sliced olive as the eye), and jack-o-lantern clementines with black grapes.

Decorate clementines with a marker to look like jack-o-lanterns.

PARTY GAMES & ACTIVITIES: Each table was stocked with Halloween crafts that included crayons, construction paper, stickers, coloring pages, activity books, and DIY Halloween decorations. The kids mostly enjoyed running around and playing with the balloons and hula hoops, but we also had a few organized games. 

• Pin the heart on the skeleton: This is the same concept as pin the tail on the donkey. (Supplies needed: a large cut out skeleton, paper hearts, a blind fold.)

• Donuts on a string: Children try to eat a donut on a string without using their hands. Whoever eats the entire donut without it falling on the floor wins. (Supplies needed: small donuts, string, a long pole or broom stick.)

• Mummy wrap: The team that wraps their mummy the quickest wins! (Supplies needed: toilet paper or white streamers.)

Clara as a mummy.

Halloween crafts.

DESSERT: After the games, the kids settled down to watch a movie (It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown). This always gives us time to clean up lunch and put out the desserts. The spread included: pumpkin pie, sugar cookies, donuts, Halloween cupcakes, apples and caramel, and lots of Halloween candy, of course.

Apples and caramel are a classic Halloween treat.

Sugar cookies in Halloween shapes.

Worms in dirt and eyeball cupcakes.

The best part of Halloween is definitely enjoying the treats!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
-Tara

"What did you say?": The Selective Hearing of Children

Clara's selective hearing:

Nearly every morning, there are a series of seemingly simple tasks that I ask Clara to complete: get dressed, eat breakfast, brush your hair, put on a headband, brush your teeth, and put on your shoes. 

Yet, somehow, nearly every morning, despite multiple reminders, with just five minutes left before we are late for school, one or sometimes all of these six tasks have not been completed.

Those remaining five minutes often become increasingly stressful, and I feel like some monolithic mom barking out orders. With little time left, the earlier requests that began with pleases and thank you's instead turn into "HAIR! HEADBAND! SHOES!" and sometimes details like brushing her teeth get dropped along the way and breakfast becomes toast in the car instead of a sit-down breakfast.

I would love for these mornings to feel more relaxing, and I would love to feel that I could communicate effectively rather than giving a bazillion reminders escalating in cavewoman talk.

What the experts suggest:

I did some Internet searches to see what other parenting experts recommend about selective hearing and getting children to listen.

1. I found the "Never Ask Twice" method by Noël Janis-Norton. The recommendation here is to stop what you are doing as the parent and basically stand next to the child until what you ask is completed. This method seems promising on a lazy weekend day, but on a busy workday morning, I, too, am struggling to get ready in time, and the idea of standing next to Clara while she completes each of her morning tasks feels like it would be too frustrating.

2. Another parenting expert, Jane Nelson, author of "Positive Discipline, suggests that the issue is that parents don't listen enough to their children, that they talk too much and tell them what to do instead of teaching the child to understand what to do. Again, the recommendation here takes extra time, but it seems to get to the core issue in a better way. Nelsen suggests that instead of saying, "put on your shoes", you instead ask, "What else do you need to have on before you go outside?" This method empowers the child to be thoughtful and responsible for herself. I think I will give this one a try.

My selective hearing: 

I have to admit that this topic of selective hearing hits a chord very close to home. When I was exactly Clara's age I pretended to not be able to hear for several months-- literally.

A photo of me when I was about Clara's age... at the time of my "hearing loss."

“Ellyn, it’s time to set the table,”… my six-year-old self heard these words coming out of my mother’s mouth, but I chose to ignore them. I was playing outside, and I wanted to keep playing outside.

When I returned later to the kitchen, my mom asked with an exasperated tone why I had not come inside when she had called me more than five times.

I weighed my options internally. I could say that I didn’t want to come inside because I was playing and didn't want to come inside. That didn’t seem like a good option. Or, I thought, with a certain amount of pride at the brilliance of my idea, I could say I did not hear her.

 ***

I was typically an obsessively honest child. I apologized if I said even a white lie. Given my truthful track record, my mom took my statement at face value and immediately became concerned about my hearing.

After a week of exhibiting my hearing loss at home, there happened to be the once per year routine hearing tests given at my school. I failed the hearing test at school, and my parents took me to a professional audiologist for more tests.

I went to another doctor, and another doctor. The test results were all over the place, and they were having trouble isolating my problem. Eventually, one of the audiologists, who happened to be a member of my church, put together the pieces and recognized what was happening.

I remember the audiologist kneeling down to my level and saying, "Ellyn, I know you can hear."

My ruse was up! She told my parents. We had just moved to a new house in a new state, and in retrospect, it seems that my actions were an attempt to get attention during a stressful time.

 ***

I guess I should be grateful that Clara has yet to make up any chronic health problems to get my attention. For now, I just have to work through the day-to-day stuff about how to communicate so that she will listen. 

Like Jane Nelsen suggests, I think every kid (and even every adult) wants to be listened to, and so I'm hopeful that one key to resolving Clara's selective hearing is for me to be more open to not just hearing Clara, but really listening to her. 

-Ellyn

Making time for Mama

Anyone who has been reading our blog for a while knows the gist: we are four moms who write about our "milestones, moments, and mishaps" as we raise our four vivacious daughters. Our entries tend to focus on the adventures of our fabulous four but behind all of the stories we share about them, there is US. We began our journey as new, inexperienced moms and over a short time we've developed a bond in supporting one another "as we go along." While our little girls have played, explored, giggled, and become BFFs, we have talked, vented, laughed, and developed our own sisterhood out of the shared experience of motherhood.

Being a mom is hard work. The hardest job I've had by far. Each time I think I've gotten over the learning curve, things switch up and I find myself trying to figure out the next stage and phase. It's exciting and I love experiencing each new development. However, at times it can be exhausting! When I think about what has kept me sane, it has mostly been the support of the wonderful women behind the blog: Ellyn, Annabelle, and Lisa.

Ellyn and I have supported each other's art and writing, by setting aside "artist dates." One of us will take the girls, while the other gets to have 2-3 hours of uninterrupted creative time for whatever project we are working on. Without this, my artistic interests would surely be neglected instead of nourished. It's a win-win-- the girls get to have a fun play date and we can totally indulge in "me" time without feeling guilty.

We celebrate each other's birthdays. Sometimes because of busy schedules it's a month after the fact, but we always eventually find a time to go out for a birthday dinner. We spend so much time and effort planning creatively themed birthday bashes for our little ones, why not set aside a night here and there to celebrate each other? Birthdays are the perfect excuse for a girls' night out. It's just the mamas while the little girls have daddy-daughter time at home.

We are each other's babysitters when needed. Days I've had to work when school is closed, both Lisa and Annabelle have been so generous to have Lila over for all day play dates. (I still owe you...You have childcare credits in the bank with me!) Ellyn and I have exchanged childcare so that we can have date nights with the hubbies. Clara and Lila are always thrilled with this arrangement because they get to have a sleepover!

Play dates are for the little girls and the big girls too. When we can, usually at the end of a busy week, we get together for dinner and a play date. Our girls play so nicely together that, while they run off, we get a moment to relax, eat, and chat.

I'm so thankful that our daughters' friendship has brought us together. Here's to more good times... as we go along. Cheers!

-Tara

What's in Lila's Lunchbox? Healthy school lunches

Lila loves school. The school lunches, not so much. When a child has an aversion to cheese, you realize just how many "kids' meals" are made with cheese. At a glance, in a given week, the lunch menu consists of grilled cheese, mac and cheese, cheese burgers, cheese quesadillas, and cheese pizza. On the rare days that a non-cheese option is served, Lila still has difficulty stomaching items such as fried chicken fingers or corn dogs. But, it's not just school lunches. Most restaurant kids' meals consist of the same cheesy menu items. Lila, who since 3 years old has been wanting to be a chef when she grows up, has always rejected the kids' meal option. You can't take Lila out to dinner and expect she will be content with the $5.99 kids' burger, fries, and soft drink. She'll have what you're having. And why not?

My husband and I like to take credit for her healthy habits and wide-ranging palate, but we realize that we did luck out with Lila. We know parents who struggle with picky eaters despite their best efforts of exposing their children to a variety of healthy foods. However, a problem does exist in our country that the typical kids' food is fast food. We truly need a revolution to change the food that is being marketed and offered to our kids. Two moms started Revolution Foods "to transform the way America eats by providing access to healthy, affordable meals to schools." Fed up with lunch, children's food activists are popping up all over-- Mrs. Q, a teacher at an urban school, ate the school lunch with her students every day and documented it to show the reality of what makes up the majority of our kids' diets. I noticed a refreshing effort on our school's latest menu, highlighting that they are offering fresh, local fruit and veggies. YAY!

At a parent's night at school, a mom came up to me and said "I just love the lunches you pack for Lila." So, echoing Ellyn's school lunch post from 2012 (which gave great examples of colorful, healthy lunches), I thought I'd give a peak of what's in Lila's lunchbox. Perhaps it can provide some helpful examples of healthy options outside of the kids' meal norm.

As far as it being cheaper to order the kids' meal (which I often hear), each of the lunches below are made with mostly organic ingredients and are between $4.00-$8.00!

Happy eating! -Tara

Hard Boiled Egg Whites, Organic Peach,
Garden Salad made from Local Ingredients, Triscuit Crackers 

Organic Black Beans, Star Fruit, Stone Ground Corn Tortilla Chips,
Olives, Locally Grown Tomato and Green Peppers.

Organic Yogurt, Graham Crackers, Local Raw Veggies, Organic Blueberries

Brown Rice Cucumber Rolls, Local Raw Veggies, Roasted Seaweed Snack,
Unsweetened Pear Sauce, Miso Soup

Turkey Chili, Stone Ground Tortilla Chips, Oranges, and
Locally Grown Raw Cauliflower.