The Other Side of the Scale

It's everywhere: talk of the obesity epidemic in children, campaigns to improve school lunches... even one memorable article I read somewhere where someone was advocating taking obese children away from their parents. So I've felt a bit adrift recently after Ethan's one year pedi appointment where we found out that he had bottomed off the chart where weight is concerned. My reactions have skipped willy-nilly from "They must think I don't feed this kid..." to "What if there's something terribly wrong?" We were drawing blood anyway for the lead test, and so the pediatrician checked a number of things, 98% of which were fine. Low protein and low IGA resulted in a referral to a pediatric gastoenterologist.

That appointment seemed pretty anti-climactic (take a history, and yup - he seems pretty healthy) and resulted in an appointment with a nutritionist. Long story short, we're massively striving to find ways to get extra calories into this kid. I add a teaspoon of canola oil to every meal. Push proteins, fats, dairy, avocado, cheeses, butter - anything I can think of to give his calories a boost. We just had our followup appointments, and yay he gained .7 pounds! If we were pushing calories and he weren't responding we'd have to look at other problems, such as celiac disease. But I think we're headed in the right direction. Honestly, I think he's so busy/active that he doesn't pay attention to food cues. Rather than let him lead I'm going to have to be stricter about plunking him down and insisting that "We're eating now." Still roughly 2 pounds to go to get back on the charts...

The Complaint Closet

If I'd known that a whole lotta my maternity clothes wouldn't fit me anyway the second time around, I might not have held onto so much. My top half is covered pretty well, but I have yet to find bottoms of any kind that aren't annoying the heck out of me (binding, sagging, just not fitting or uncomfortable in general...). Since the weather has flipped from pretty nice to 40s and wet, I'm lucky I'm able to leave the house.

On the plus side, I'm counting my blessings that H made it out of Scotland before the Iceland volcano went kablooey. What a mess. I feel for those poor travelers, and I'd really be outta my mind if H were still stuck overseas.

I did find some only mildly uncomfortable maternity pants to wear, and got out of the house with some of my local Mom friends last night. Unknown to me and to Melissa, another preggo Mom due around the same time, the ladies had conspired to make this our "baby shower." They wouldn't let us pay for dinner, and we each got a Target gift card to look out for some baby things... Yummy appetizers and dinner, lots of laughs and conversation - I have the best friends.

Early Riser

It used to be that I got up early to get some early morning "me" time before the Mom stuff started. Summer has defeated that as Daniel has an innate internal clock that seem to tell him the moment we have daylight. Typical rising time is 6/6:30am, even with blackout curtains in the room!

I don't remember having too many food throwing battles when Daniel was younger. I suppose it is always possible that I blocked them from memory, but the battle has always been will he or won't he eat it vs. where is it going to land. So why, now when he knows better, do I get him upending his (luckily dry) cereal bowl on the carpet before handing it to me?

Our town has a hot air balloon festival this morning. Close enough to wave, and chat with - these folks barely cleared our chimney!

Lickety Split

We've been enjoying a break, visiting my family in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Basking in family time with Daniel's Grandparents, and Uncle Andy and assorted aunts, uncles and cousins. Good food, beautiful area, loads of activities... fireworks, a Fourth of July parade, trips to the park and the beach. And bedtime seems to have gone by the wayside. Our return to a regular home routine may be interesting in the days to come. But it sure has been fun!
************
I was fussing over something or other during my trip - can't even remember what it was at this point, just that something didn't look right. My Mother said that her quilt group in Elkhart Lake has what they call the Galloping Horse Rule. Can whatever you think is wrong - in their instance some bit of work on a current quilt - be seen from a galloping horse? If not, move along...

I think I like it. I may start adapting this to other areas of my life.

More Work? Less Work? About the Same?

I'm not sure if other stores have a similar program, but Daniel and I tried something a little different for our weekly Stop and Shop grocery run yesterday. Termed Scan It, you basically shop with a hand-held device, scanning your items and bagging as you go. Checking out then consists of handing over your scanner and coupons to the cashier, and paying while none of your items ever have to hit the belt in the checkout line.

I'm sort of undecided as to how I feel about the system.

Pros: The scanner keeps a running tally of items in your cart. Gone is estimating just how much money you are truly spending. Scan It-only discounts occasionally pop up on the device. (The loud Cha-Ching! when this happens had Daniel spinning, looking for the noise.) Once items are scanned and bagged, they are handled just the once and do not have to be unloaded at checkout.

Cons: The produce department is now unwieldy. If I'm buying a tomato, I have to weigh it, put it in a bag, print a sticker from the special scale, stick it to my tomato bag and then scan it. Luckily Daniel was in a mood to simply ride along that day. If he had decided to be contrary about something (anything) it would have been that much harder to focus my attention on the work I was doing. If I were a Mom with multiple kids in the store, forget it for the same reason.

I am willing to concede that I probably didn't pick the best day to try this system. It was a rainy Saturday just before Easter, and the store being chock-full with customers didn't help matters. For this reason, I'd like to try this again mid-week sometime. While it is nice to check out that much faster at the end, I'm not sure the trade-off with all the work I had to do up front made it worth it. We'll see.

Digging In

We've taken to calling Daniel "Badger" lately. He digs in his heels about everything. What to eat, what to wear, the potty, stalling bedtime... And invariably when I am occupied, say on the phone, is when he most wants my attention.

One item I decided to stop fighting about early on was using utensils at the table. I put out a spoon or a fork every time, and he dug in with his hands. We serve a lot of finger foods.

Both he and his Daddy are big on eating cereal. I've never had much of a problem with it, as we've mostly avoided the really sugary stuff: a lot of that baby-staple Cheerios, oatmeal, and Daddy's Honey Bunches of Oats. Badger has suddenly decided that his formerly-dry Honey Bunches of Oats should have milk, and he should be driving the spoon.

He's not arguing about sitting at the table for it, and all things considered he's doing a pretty good job. Now I have to find a solution for the multiple clothes changes due to milk spillage. Any ideas? Naked cereal eating? A rain poncho?

Push Me, Pull You

Meals are something of a loosey-goosey affair around our house. H works very hard for long hours, meaning he is out a good portion of the time. All the physicality his job entails also means that when he gets home he is hungry. For me, left to my own devices I tend to subscribe to the eat when you're hungry, stop when you're not routine - one not governed so much by the clock.

Enter the three year old. The three year old who is currently surviving on crackers. He's steadily shrinking his list of acceptable foods, and it's driving me a bit battier than I already am to begin with. Days often start with a request for warm juice (not sure where the warm trend started for him, blech, but I'll run with it). Then it's a request for crackers. How about some peanut butter on those? Nope, just crackers. Crackers and cheese? Oh, Okay. Only to have me discover a plate full of cracker crumbs and a mound of cheese not long after.

I recently nixed a breakfast request for marshmallows.

And oh, the wailing and screeching at not getting his way! Well then, I'm not hungry and he marches away from the table.

And we all stage a repeat of this scene, center stage, at the next mealtime.

This tug-of-war is getting to me. Thank goodness for Flintstone's chewables!

Right place, Right time

Growing up in the Midwest, lobster was always a real treat for our family. Several times I've had some packed to take with us when we visit Wisconsin. A visit from my parents often prompts a little look-around to see if there are any good deals out there. The local Stop and Shop got rid of their tank awhile back. The usual spot that H had picked out a lobster or two from was a Shaw's. After some shopping and driving, we were mightily disappointed to be greeted at Shaw's by an empty tank.

I started calling around, discovering that a local Hannaford's carried lobster - and so we headed in that direction. Mom chatted with the elderly gentleman in front of us about the best way to cook lobster. He handed the deli-guy a slip which I took to be some sort of rain check for his lobster. Dad took his place in line and requested four of the beasts from the large tub that had just been brought out for transfer to the tank. We continued with our shopping, and headed home.

Dad remarked on the way up to our place that the price seemed really reasonable for four lobsters and a few other assorted items. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that we had been given the elderly gentleman's "rain check" price of $4.99 a pound!

Sometimes the deals just find you!

I am off to take my butter/lobster-soaked self to bed.

Mama's New Challenge

We went to a small barbecue yesterday afternoon, hosted by a friend at her parents' place. Everyone had a grand time, especially Daniel. Our friend's parents have grandkids of their own, so it was a new space full of all-new toys and even a yard to explore. There was good company, and hamburgers and hot dogs never taste better than hot off a grill.

I love that Daniel is a sociable kid. When he wasn't occupying himself with all the new trucks and cars he was getting pushed on the swing by our friend's father or hopping up on the porch swing to sit next to her grandmother or showing her fiance something in a book.

Unfortunately his habit of removing his shoes at every possible opportunity has caught up with him: splinters in his feet. We got home late last night and he was completely exhausted. Any attempt at removal of the splinters only got me a shrieking, thrashing kid. I finally left it alone, and he crashed in his bed. I'm off to try a warm bath (for him, although I may need one later...) and another attempt. Wish me luck!

The Prince of Carbs

Sigh. I know that it is typical of toddlerhood to be incredibly picky about what you eat, but c'mon Daniel! At the moment you seem to be thriving on bananas and whole wheat ritz.

Seriously. This kid ate more variety as a baby. I could put most kinds of baby food in front of him (or shovel it in...) and he would at least try it - and ate most of it. The one exception was the spinach, which earned me the first all-over-body-shudder from the little guy. (I couldn't really blame him!)

I made the online acquaintance of Amy at Ice Cream is not for Breakfast recently, and have found some solidarity in reading some other Moms' struggles with this issue. I have even gotten a cookbook that talks of ways to hide the "good stuff" in food that your kids will actually eat. I've tried a pizza bagel that contained carrot, sweet potato and white beans in the sauce that actually went over fairly well. I do believe that this should be in conjunction with trying to get them to eat "non-hidden" good stuff too, but I do like the idea of taking some of the battle out of kids meals.

Now I just need to conquer my personal battle of being a "non-chef" in the kitchen. I love good food, but have a tendency to look for the four-ingredients-or-less, toss-in-a-pot, no-fuss sorts of dishes to make. Any good recommendations?

Well, if you insist...

Daniel is actually pretty up on the whole idea of "please" and "thank you." And he's even moved into using "you're welcome" without my really trying - just the osmosis of hearing me use it. What cracks me up is when he gets absorbed in something like Curious George, or driving many of his 8,459,876 cars around and we have an exchange that goes something like this:

Daniel: More MILK!

Me: Don't you mean, "More milk please?"

Daniel: OK.

Like the whole milk thing is totally my idea. Toddler psychology. Gotta love it.

Help, I'm slipping into the Twilight Zone...

Cah-ray-zee weather lately around here. I guess it pretty much amounts to "snow squalls." The sky suddenly darkens, huge fat flakes fall to the ground (or sideways if the 40-mile-an-hour winds gust up), thunder, lightning, and over in half an hour. It lasted a bit longer tonight, just in time to complicate a drive home from my mother-in-law's house.

From the "What Were They Thinking?" Files: There is a restaurant on a corner of Main Street in our little town. It used to be a Thai place, but not too long ago changed to Italian. I'm quite sure that running a restaurant is not an easy business, so I've got to hand it to anyone who tries. But they've been putting a mannequin out front, dressed in a chef's outfit, with a big "Welcome" sign between his hands. I wish I could figure out a way to drop an anonymous suggestion that it's just, well, creepy.

The Cupcake Conspiracy

I am becoming convinced that H must have whispered in the ear of both my Mom and one of my bestest buds. Not only did I get for Christmas The Cupcake Deck - a set of 25 cards with mouth watering photos, and luscious cupcake recipes - but also a silicone muffin tin and a set of silicone baking cups.

My waistline may be protesting, but I'm relishing the thought of baking again. And I'm sure that Daniel will love the funky sprinkles (stars, moons, dolphins...) that Pamela included too.

So that explains it...

Connoisseur of chocolate, chocoholic, choco-maniac take your pick and that's me. In the same way that I used to wrinkle my nose with distaste and accuse my Mother of hiding celery in dinner recipes the reverse is true if I think chocolate is in the house. I'm a veritable bloodhound for that last piece of Halloween candy, or the bag of chocolate chips hiding in the back of the pantry if there's a pinch. The local ice cream shop during my college years at MSU was a place called Melting Moments, and I was in heaven with a scoop of their "turbo chocolate."

If there's a selection on hand, H and I are perfectly matched as I will nab the dark chocolate every time and toss him the Hershey's... No selection on hand, doesn't mean I'm picky! I'm sure I don't need to go into what a certain time of the month does to my chocolate consumption either.

I was intrigued to read this article about a scientific study where they think they have linked a craving for chocolate to the type of bacteria living in a person's digestive tract. I was also amused to read:

In fact, the study was delayed because it took a year for the researchers to find 11 men who don't eat chocolate.

I wonder if they looked for any women to participate in this study??

Tag Team Restauraunt-Going

Sigh. OK, so I know, I know, he's two... but any recommendations about how to get the kid to sit still in a restaurant?

We thought we would have a brief dinner out yesterday. Daniel is sort of getting a "birthday month" this year. We spent the 10 days leading up to his birthday with my family in Wisconsin (thanks Grandma and Grandpa for the bike!). And the actual day fell hard on the heels of the 1,200 mile trek home. Knowing we were all kinda tired and messed up schedule-wise we thought of a dinner out as a celebration, with getting together with H's family for another time. Dinner, unfortunately, became a tag-team event in controlling the toddler with one of us getting up from the table and even taking him outside if things were getting too unbearable. Any toys I brought were a distraction for about .2 seconds. Drinks were only good if he got to drink one of ours ("sip! SIP!"), and he was not content to just take a drink through the straw ("HOLD!").

We probably need to start enforcing more dinnertime rules at home, but it's hard. H and I are on wildly different schedules during the (6-day) work week, which makes sitting down all together at the table for meals difficult. Can someone please tell me that this is a phase? And when does it end? I don't want to not take him out places, but sheesh! Yesterday had me contemplating food delivery rather than eating out for the next few years.

Eating Habits of the North American Toddler

I imagine that I gave my Mother similar palpitations as a child, but what do you feed kids? Previously good things like yogurt have dropped off Daniel's list as well as old favorites like grilled cheese that aren't being enjoyed so much. He does pretty well with fruits: bananas and apples and oranges he will eat pretty much nonstop. Nary a vegetable will get past his lips, however.

We rejoiced when he actually asked for a piece of broccoli from a dish that H had cooked up. He chewed and chewed and we suddenly realized about 20 minutes later that he really hadn't opened his mouth to respond to anything that we had said to him. Sure enough, green mush.

Just in case there is any doubt that this is my kid, he will eat pickles. "Pick-ow! Pick-ow!" He cried. "Har-har," thought I. "You sure aren't going to like this kid," and I cut him off a small piece. Little did I know... And these aren't just any pickles mind you. These are hearty garlic dill sandwich slices. He just puckers up his little mouth and waves his hands for more.

Sigh. Now that my own eating habits are somewhat back on track after the gallbladder incident I'd really like to know what to do with the kid. Any ideas?

Open Season

OK. You know the times they have changed, when the local farm stand not only has a website but emails me when they have started selling their corn. I love, love LOVE fresh corn on the cob. Growing up it used to crack me up to be in restaurants (or even eating over at someones house) and there was this demure little cob to accompany each dinner plate. My Mom, meanwhile was shopping and getting a dozen or fourteen for our family of four. There might be some other items to the meal, but the centerpiece was this huge platter of corn with each of us diving in for three or four apiece. And squabbling over any remainders...

There is a push in the media about getting everyone to return to the "family table." What sort of meals or food items are your favorite memories from childhood? Taco night? Make your own pizza? What mealtime traditions would you like to encourage in your family?

It was a treat because, well, we grew up in the Midwest... but my brother and I used to beg my parents for crab legs on trips to Florida. Something fun about having to work for your dinner. There were Fourth of July bonfires with toasted marshmallows and making s'mores. Or bananaboats - ever tried those? Peel off a strip of banana peel, and cut slightly into the banana. Fill the opening with mini marshmallows and chocolate chips. Wrap the whole thing in tinfoil and rest it in the bonfire coals. After a certain amount of time (usually however long you could wait) open and eat the whole mess with a spoon.

There was fondue too. Not the cheese or chocolate kind, but a vat of hot oil. We each got skewers and cubes of meat, onion, green pepper, etc. You popped them in and cooked to your desired doneness. And this time of year, don't forget the picnics. Hot dogs and hamburgers and if we were at the grandparents in Wisconsin there were beer brats on the grill along with every sort of side dish you can think of. And just to throw an outing into the mix, to this day we have to head for Schulz's in Sheboygan, WI when we visit Mom and Dad. Best steak sandwiches anywhere, with real butter on the hard rolls.

Must run now. I'm hungry... how about you?