Artisanal Gluten-Free Cupcakes

I have mentioned several times that I am now making cupcakes out of a new book.  I am not altering the recipes and I will not be placing the recipes online. 

I love this book and highly recommend it for a gluten free household!  The recipes all utilize a gluten free flour combination of brown rice flour, sorghum flour, corn starch, potato starch, potato flour and xanthan gum.  I find that the cook times accurate (something that is hard to find in gluten free recipes).  The recipes are well organized, easy to follow, and relatively fast to make.

This weekend I made the vanilla with chocolate frosting cupcake. (Page 45).  My family loved the vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting.  It is one of the more standard cupcakes we have made.  By standard I mean no fillings, no candy ingredients, no fruit, no cookies or fancy frosting.  Of course, sometimes simplicity can be simply understated.  My family ate all 24-30 cupcakes over last night and this morning (I would know the exact number, except they kept disappearing as I made them).  Ramona wants her birthday cake made from this cake and frosting recipe.  My man actually asked me to make more (a high compliment from him).

On a Maffeoberry scale this book gets 5 out of 5 maffeoberries. 

Happy Saturday Morning!

Book and Co-sleeping

Thrilled to have my little man asleep in his crib.  Mommy gets one hour of time to write!

Getting the little man into his crib is easy in the morning.  He takes a great AM nap that I can use for writing (and is more often used for housework).  At night he still seems to prefer co-sleeping.  The choice to co-sleep in America is often looked down on.  This reminds me of a book I am currently reading... 

 

I am reading How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm:  And Other Adventures in Parenting (from Argentina to Tanzania and everywhere in between) by Mei-Ling Hopgood.  Hopgood moves to Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2004 and is shocked by the cultural differences in child rearing practices.  She is particularly fascinated by the difference in bedtimes.  In Argentina many children go to bed late and get up late.  "I'm constantly blow away when friends tell me that their toddlers usually snooze until nine or ten o'clock in the morning and complain when little ones wake up at an outrageous seven thirty.  Society doesn't get moving until around eight, long after many Americans would have already hit the gym, showered, and made their way to work. "  (Hopgood, p 19).  This is a habit that is formed, because the children are brought along to most social events.  "In Buenos Aires, the social lives of adults and children blend rather fluidly.  Despite the fact that most middle- to upper-class parents have the kind of access to babysitters that many Americans can only dream of (child care is much cheaper), they don't hesitate to ditch the nanny and bring the kids along, especially if it's a family event.  Most Argentines-even single and childless folks- don't seem to think of little ones a a drag in many group settings.  On the contrary, they believe children add a certain lightness, humor, and even hope."  (Hopgoods, p 10).   

 

The difference in her new homelands family practices inspire her to embark on a mission to research and share different cultural styles of parenting.  This book explores cross cultural differences in parental styles much like the ethnography style documentary Babies in 2010.  In the film four infants are followed in their first year of life.  The infants are from the rural societies Namibia and Mongolia, as well as, two infants from urban societies in Japan and the United States.  The differences and similarities in parental styles are fascinating to watch and read about.  In all circumstances children are raised from birth with the values of the society there are in thrust upon them.  As my midwife pointed out over the summer, the best part of the film Babies is the end, when all the babies reach the same developmental milestones regardless of parental practices.  The stories in the book, the research Hopgood undertakes, the infants first year in the movie babies... it leaves the questioning, "what is the right way to raise a child?"  Or, "Is there a right way to raise a child?"  What do different parental  practices say about a culture...

 

"The parental practices we follow in the West are merely cultural constructions that have little to with what is 'natural' for babies.  Our cultural rules are, in fact, designed to mold a certain kind of citizen.  A !Kung San woman of Botswana, for example, carries her baby at all times.  She lets the baby breast-fed... 'on demand.'  A San child would never be left to sleep alone.  In contrast, American babies, for example, are often set in plastic seats or in strollers for long periods of time; they feel on a prescribed schedule; and the accepted rule is for each baby to have a bed, if not a private room to itself.  In general, the two styles reflect the pale of person within society."  (Hopgood, p.4) 

 

The first chapter of Hopgood's book explores life in Buenos Aires and sleep habits.  She interviews Western doctors, professors and Argentine doctors and parents.  She includes fun stories about friends, as well as, her experiences with her own daughter.  I enjoyed her research into sleep patterns, what constitutes a healthy sleep pattern for children, as well as, keeping culturally relevant, by embracing what works best for different cultures and family arrangements.  Her support of co-sleeping as a healthy sleep habit that is quite broad in European and Eastern cultures, as well as, tribal and nomadic cultures. 

 

Co-sleeping is naturally interesting to me, because it is how I have been raising children.  Though I fell into co-sleeping out of need for functionality, I love the sense of community and security it has created for my children.  I would like if my little man spent at least the first part of every night in his own bed, giving me time to shower (ha!); however, I feel as if I am nurturing his mind and sense of security letting him sleep beside his father and I at night.

 

I look forward to quoting this book more on the blog... my one hour of writing is up!

 

Happy Tuesday

 

Cinderella After Midnight

Well, having a day to fully digest the book Cinderella Ate My Daughter - I still stand by the points I made - however, as the enthusiasm and feminist giddiness come to a rest, it is important to keep in mind rejecting femininity and boycotting all female marketed toys is not the way to go either.  And there is no way to keep children entirely from extensive marketing strategies. I want my daughters to be proud to be female, be able to own a Disney doll and watch a princess movie while at the same time feeling like a strong independent individual.  I want her to be capable of making her own decisions and conclusions.  Books are great, theories are great and practicality is imperative.

A friend of mine out here in windy South Dakota is reading a book on sibling rivalry called… wait for it… Siblings without Rivalry. I actually love this book.  I was so eager to know how to navigate the sibling competition for parental attention that I read the book while being pregnant with my second daughter.  I have not re-read it since and I desperately need to reacquaint myself with the principles of the book.

My friend was talking to me about her boys and expressing some disgruntlement with implementing the principles practically.  It reminds me of every parenting book I have ever read.  So many parenting books are enlightened, researched and full of advice... yet how can we, as parents, remember ALL of it. How can we implement ALL of it. I cannot. And I see no reason to try. 

I know I have not followed the principles/concepts of Cinderella Ate My Daughter perfectly, despite believing in the need to raise a strong sense of self and identity in my daughters.  Restricting my daughters from owning Disney dolls is impractical and I already failed a long time ago.  In fact even after the numerous vacations we have taken to Disneyland, princess movies we have watched and dolls/dresses we have owned – I think I can safely say my kids survived without sacrificing their independent thought processes.  There have been many times the Disney princess have given us teachable moments and both my girls have moved onto Legos (not the pink girlie Legos, but Star Wars themed, Harry Potter themed, and City Legos).  Both girls are as likely to play in the dirt, catch bugs as dress up.  As they get older I see less and less princess or doll play entirely.  The other day the girls talked about getting rid of their dolls, feeling they had grown out of them.

Though we were not great about Disney - we set other standards for our house - no cable TV, no movies that are not prewatched by mom and dad first, no wedding dresses for play, dolls have to have a certain length in skirts and dolls with too much make-up are not allowed.  It has led to some meltdowns, but we have always been consistent.

For me (I know every parent is different), when I read a parenting book my goal is to remember one key concept that I deem the most important and go with it.  Just as importantly I brush off the failures.  I do not regret the Disney dolls/dress up, but I do wish there had been less of it.  Parenting is failure and adaptation. From Siblings without Rivalry I took the lesson, don't label your children. Instead of saying “You are so smart” I try to remember to say, “That ‘action’ was so smart”.  The idea is to relieve the child of the pressure to be smart, athletic or artistic while still supporting their efforts and interests.  The same thought process could be applied to illness: Beezus has Celiacs Disease, she is not a Celiac.  The disease does not define her, it is only an aspect.  Now, ask me something else I learned from Siblings without Rivalry.... I draw a blank.  But the lesson I took and have used with my kids, not so bad.  I consider it a parenting score!

For me the strategy is to not try to take every concept from every book – only taking one keeps me sane.

AND, whenever I can, I bring up new concepts to my family, on their level, at dinner.  Orenstien’s book led to a great conversation at our dinner table the other night.  One point that is made by Orenstien is that each princess is marketed as a single princess entity, to the point that even when printed on the same item there is never any eye contact between princesses. Disney felt keeping the princesses separate held the integrity of the stories as separate. This has created, especially in young girls, a schema in which only one girl can feel special at a time.  The princesses also all lack girlfriends - instead they have animals to rely on.  As a result young girls believe that only a singular girl can play the “main” princess character in any individual imaginary game, leading to problems in pretend play, among other further reaching social problems.  Orenstien gives an example of her daughter having a fight with her best friend in preschool when neither girl could agree on who got to be the princess in their ‘game’.  A fight I have witnessed among young girls a lot, both in play dates and in school.  Beezus, specifically, has always, always played the princess and forced her sister to play a boy or a prince. 

At dinner I told the girls about the marketing strategy to keep the princess separate and how it can lead young girls to be less likely to rely on female friends or create solid equal relationships.  I made a pointed comment  (including a mommy look at Beezus)- Why can’t there be two princesses???  My girls eye brows raised and both girls starting talking and telling stories from their own experiences immediately (although Beezus definitely deflected the implications I was making). 

I never anticipated my point beyond a typical boring lecture.  I rarely see my daughters as animated in sharing. However, our conversation continued on to other points from the book.  Beezus shouting excitedly over us about her experiences and insights. Her sister quieter, listening and interjecting occasionally.  We talked about how girls can play with toys like Legos and Video Games without being tom-boys.  They can simply be girls that like Legos.  I tried to drive home how Legos are marketed toward boys, but are not inherently boy toys.

At the end of the dinner, as Beezus got up from the table she said, “wow, I that was actually a fun talk at dinner tonight!”  Her voice indicated that my conversations often falls short of her high discussion standards.  Ha!

In general, it felt great to bond with my daughters and give them both a platform to discuss the role of being a girl.  I am not sure how much of what I said sunk in – but hopefully it gives them food for thought.

About Books, Videos and Raising Girls

Peggy Orenstein's Cinderella Ate My Daughter is a book I found through a friend on goodreads.com. Cinderella Ate My Daughter as a title made me smirk and drew me in immediately. I devoured the book in about a day and felt it lent weight to a much needed voice.

I highly recommend this book to parents with daughters! I do not recommend, but insist that grandparents, aunts and uncles read it critically.

It is not a secret that society is riddled with sexism and is complex for women and girls alike. The pressure on our daughters at young ages is disgusting and immense, the double standards on our adolescent girls dizzying and the objectification of all females dangerous to their mental and physical health. Being a girl in our lovely American consumer based economy means not merely being a consumer, but being both the consumer and the commodity. We are now the objects we purchase. The implications of this level of objectification are as endless as they are harmful.

The first chapter is "Why I Hoped for a Boy". I felt confident in my purchase upon reading the initial byline. I remembered finding out the sex of my first daughter, I was ecstatic and completely in love. However, the joy of having a daughter changed with time.

I love my daughter, I am still ecstatic to have her, I would not trade her for a boy, but the complexity of raising her has proved to be exhausting and even depressing - seeing the world that is waiting for her.  I was shocked how quickly that world descended on us too. Within the first couple years I saw friends, relatives and strangers react to her as they might to a dog, not a tiny human. The comments/compliments were always targeted at her appearance. The gifts always targeted at dressing the female role or the toys reinforced the same limited concept of girl as princess. Though she displayed discomfort with being hugged and patted she was grabbed, hugged and even pet like a dog - much to my mortification.  As both my girls have gotten older I have held out hope things would get better, instead they are complimented even more on their looks, their clothes, and still not treated with the same boundaries and respect as boys their age. What has gone wrong in our society that I might as well have given birth to a cat/dog or bunny rabbit than a communicative, intelligent human being with talents beyond pretend play and hugging?

Often the fault lies in the concept that my daughters exists for the world and not for themselves. A concept so engrained in culture it is simply understood, that girls are meant to look at and made out to be objects for others pleasure. Girls are to oogle and fondle. Perhaps that seems crass. But as a mother, I get sick of the puppy dog crap.

I need my daughters to rely on their talents, intelligence, hard work, goals and teach them how to navigate a world that will want from them in the same way they want from products they purchase – like TVs and computers.  My girls need to understand to have strict boundaries, which start with a strict sense of self and confidence to stand up to a world that will aim to violate the boundaries, sense of self and confidence with its own demands.   They need to know that despite what society tells them they are not here to please others, but to find autonomy and please themselves.  

This book really hits the nail on the head addressing major issues that young girls face and the problems in society with how they are viewed. Orenstein's book covers topics of the history of how advertising/marketing have begun to define the boundaries of gender specific play, toys and even roles that define female identity, as well as, covering the various effects of Disney's princess power house and preteen pop star products and the preteens eventual melt downs.

Quoting Orenstien directly, "As I immersed myself in the research for this book, I began to trace a line from the innocence of Cinderella to the struggles Miley Cyrus has faced in trying to 'age up,' which in turn was connected to how regular girls present themselves on Facebook (where identity itself becomes a performance, crafted in response to your audience of 322 BFFs). It seemed that even as new educational and professional opportunities unfurled before my daughter and her peers, so did the path that encouraged them to equate identity with image, self-expression with appearance, femininity with performance, pleasure with pleasing, and sexuality with sexualization."

This book is not just a good read, but it is an important one. Many of these concepts are not necessarily new to me. Instead the book lends itself to a much needed voice. A cry that maybe we are failing our daughters, sisters, wives and mothers. Women are not objects and raising a daughter to see themselves as one is dangerous. "We need to pay more, rather than less, attention to what’s happening in their world. According to the American Psychological Association, the emphasis on beauty and play-sexiness at ever-younger ages is increasing girls’ vulnerability to the pitfalls that most concern parents: eating disorders, negative body image, depression, risky sexual behavior. Yet here we are with nearly half of six-year-old girls regularly using lipstick or lip gloss. The percentage of eight- to twelve-year-old girls wearing eyeliner or mascara has doubled in the last TWO years (I ask you: shouldn’t the percentage of eight-year-olds wearing eyeliner be zero?). " (Orenstein).

 LINKS:

A link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/Cinderella-Ate-Daughter-Dispatches-Girlie-Girl/dp/0061711535/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334000340&sr=8-1-spell#_

Below I have included a link to lecture by an ex-model which criticizes the advertising industry for the objectification of women and girls. Literally, girls that are as young, if not younger, than my daughters. The idea that society can continue to use women/girls to sell products under an assumption that it is "just business" and fulfilling a "demand" is archaic at best and extremely damaging. I encourage strongly for people to question how, when America is supposed to be more equal than ever, is it our equality is mirrored by dramatic increase in objectification of women at younger and younger ages?

Part I: http://youtu.be/1ujySz-_NFQySz-_NFQ
Part II: http://youtu.be/E4-1xCf3I7U

Food, Family, Books

Update on the waffles.
The Gluten Free Bisquick mix is amazing for waffles! I love Gluten Free Pamela's mix for muffins and pancakes; however, I always have to alter the recipes. I have not tried the Bisquick for pancakes or muffins yet. The mix did not need applesauce for waffles. I did use cinnamon for flavor – about a teaspoon. Sadly, my man is not the most adventurous foodie out there. After a bit of begging on his part I did not try the bacon... I will though. It sounds fascinating.

What I did do for fun was chop up strawberries and fry them in a 1/2 a teaspoon of butter and brown sugar. I topped the waffles with powered sugar, cooked strawberries and chocolate chips – very yummy. Next time I swear whip cream and bacon.

Family Up-date:
Beezus is feeling better-ish. After two weeks of illness this is a nice break. We have been looking into planning out our summer. Both these girls are very excited for school to end in mid-May. This morning it snowed, but by the afternoon it had mostly melted away again. Outside constant nightmares of tornadoes I am looking forward to a weather change.

The girls and I have started going to our local library after school and reading books together. I enjoyed watching Beezus tonight pretend present her library book to her imaginary students. What I love about watching Beezus pretend to be a teacher is how each year the body language, descriptive words, pretend instructions or terminology change to more properly mirror her current teacher. It is amazing to catch a glimpse of her classroom played out for everyone in the living room. Very live action role playing. Beezus very much looks up to her teachers each year.

I did quit facebook, again. I have made it at least three weeks? I am happier for it. Not too mention more productive. I miss seeing what everyone is doing, but I will continue to update the blog more often and try to even, gasp, use my phone. ;-)

Books:
I have recently read and recommend Hiroshima in the Morning by Rahna Reiko Rizzuto and Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

I found Hiroshima in the Morning on MSN. Hiroshima in the Morning is rather infamous as a memoir which recants the author’s personal journey in Japan researching the aftermath of Hiroshima decades later and how that journey led to her decision to divorce her husband and leave her two young sons. Rizzuto has been highly criticized by the parenting community as being selfish and a “bad” mother for claiming that having an identity as a mother should not be restricted to women that live with their families. She instead insists that she has been a better mother for her decision to live her life more fully and pursue her own passions. The memoir also looks closely at her time in Japan doing research for her book and conducting interviews with Hiroshima survivors.

I liked the book a lot. I find I am constantly questioning what exactly a mother’s role is and what determines/restricts this role. Finding where career, personal development and sacrifices need to made and how to make them and stay happy. Rizzuto has a unique and anthological sense of roles, identity and culture which she tells in an introspective narrative I find fascinating and thought provoking. I also found the interviewees stories memorizing making Hiroshima more vivid than even the photographs that I have seen.

Olive Kitteridge is one of the more deftly crafted character developments I have had the joy of reading. The main character Olive is produced through a series of short stories and through the eyes of various members of her community. This book also delves into the intricacies of marriages, affairs, romances and exploration of mother child relationships. The book follows Olive’s family primarily while still touching upon other tales that include the harsh realities of the adult world like substance abuse, eating disorders, suicides and other forms of dysfunction.

I like short stories, serious fiction and unique characters. Awesome, fast, fun, serious fiction read.