Encouraging Healthy Eating Habits

I got this idea directly from my second graders class. 

The elementary school my daughters attend have state testing this week.  The school is encouraging healthy eating, good sleep habits and outdoor time to keep the kid's energy levels and the testing scores up.  Beezus came home excited about earning points for the healthy foods in her lunch.  Each kiddo got one point for fruits, vegetables and protein in their lunches.  These points were added up in the individual classrooms.  The total point goal was fifty points per class.  Beezus came home everyday to inform me how many points she earned and how close her class was getting to the goal points.

This is one of the first times that being a "cold lunch" family has proved fun.  I loved seeing Beezus excited about the contents of her lunch each day and noticed she had an increased likelihood to eat the healthier components.  Yeah!  The system is so simple and the encouragement not materialistically based.  Just earning the points was enough to make the second graders excited.

I decided to apply the same technique at home.  Sort of.  I do offer a reward after a certain of relatively obtainable points are achieved; however, I do not offer toys.  My children can now earn points towards a treat at the end of the week if they eat what is in their lunches.  They get one point for each item they eat and two for fruit and vegetables.  I have a daughter that devours fruit and veggies without much prodding and one that takes a little more persuading.

Ramon could not wait to get home and write down what she ate in her lunch.  We wrote it out as an addition problem and ta-da! math and encouraging healthy eating.  Beezus has taken an extra day to share in the routine... but I have high hopes.

If nothing else they are more likely to bring their backpacks in from the car and take out their own old lunches!  I get tired of hauling everything in.  :-)

I am a pregnant rock star

Today was not great.  For the last week I have been propped in various angles on my bed with five or more pillows due to morning sickness and occasionally icky braxton hicks.  I get it, I'm pregnant - this what pregnancy is.  To complain would be... ungrateful.

I have been a bit ungrateful. I broke down to my man, "frack this positive thinking BS - I feel like hell - this sucks." Then I felt immensely guilty for the moment of weakness.  Sure I feel sick most the time, I dry heave, my back hurts, my side hurts, my boobs are large enough to feed an army of starving babies and I no longer feel like I need a bra, but maybe an air balloon to hold them up, and sleep is practically nonexistent without my nausea meds.  However, that was all in the making a baby bible (i.e. What To Expect When You Are Expecting).  I was warned!  And what is worse - I have been here before - twice!  Someone smack me, because I have failed to take the magic of pregnancy and carry it gracefully. 

So, I start over - I take courage from friends and realize that I am carrying a wonderful baby boy and he kicks and rolls AND he is totally worth all of this. I can already tell he will be as awesome as his sisters and with a great deal of maffeoberries personality.  Thus, I carry on with my day...

The second I got home with my children I told my lovelies that they must play together quietly without fighting (which does not happen often - because we are not a perfect family). I gave them some overly sugary yogurts and cheese for a snack.  Then I went over the rules - do not open the front door, do not open the back door, do not go into the yard without telling me.  Do not, do not, do not get anything from the kitchen without telling me.  (This might seem weird, except that I have introduced my kids to cooking and I do not put it past them to turn on a stove or get out a sharp knife while balancing on a kitchen chair to test their independence).  Then I rested.

For an hour and half it was nice, with minimal fighting, no jumping out bedroom windows or playing with fire in the kitchen.  In fact, the only fight that broke out made me proud.  Ramona was insisting that there could be two girls in their pretend game, instead of one.  Go Ramona!  All to often she plays whatever part her big sister hands her. I even heard Beezus agree.  Way to go Beezus!  Compromising is not always easy!

We picked my man up, who - though not pregnant happens to be great at sympathy pains - was very tired.  My man and I apathetically, in a drone like states, made dinner together.  Turned out great.  Yeah for leftovers!

Then everyone, except me, passed out.  Ha!  I watched the recent episode to Glee and found out baby boy likes disco.  I worried a bit about his musical taste.

I took a shower and as I was walking by my bedroom mirror (my five dollar, full length mirror from target which conveniently bends) I noticed how my legs have suffered in the last six months - embarrassingly so.  I felt the old perfectionist rising up, but I quickly thwarted her... I just leaned that mirror at a much sharper angle agaist the wall.  Presto!

Damn, look at that woman, she is a pregnant rock start!

Proving yet again, it is all about perspective.

Tomorrow I will go back to work  and try my damnedest to be positive and productive.

Happy Wednesday!

Every week day after school I bring my kids home.  We have a snack, we practice reading, we talk about their days.  I always leave my questions open ended, "how was your day at school?  Anything good happen?  Anything bad happen?"  And I try to keep my responses neutral, while at the same time finding discussions opportunities to help them foster better social interactions and insights.  I try to lead them to their own conclusions, but often find myself messing up and lecturing (I take after my own mom that way).  I mention this purely because it is reiterated in all my parental readings:  Always ask open ended questions, don't interrupt, keep judgment to yourself.  This fosters a greater sense of security for the child.  I actually take that advice very seriously, as far as creating open lines of communication with my girls. 

However, that is not what I am posting about today. 

Tonight, Saturday evening, the entire Midwest is under siege by various storms!  We run the gamut of tornadoes, tornado warnings, thunder/lightening, sudden and heavy rain, as well as, hail - except for us South Dakotans we have only thunder thus far.  Meaning dinner/supper time became a talk about lightening and, inevitably, led my man to a lecture on atoms.  Shortly after I felt my children were sufficiently lulled into a comatose like state by atom/electrons/magnets and lightening I declared, as I do every night, "Time to get your teeth brushed and PJs on!  It is bedtime!"  My dog overheard me and went straight to bed.  This dog made me laugh.  And this is why.... 

During the week we have an hour and a half to get through our routine (feed, read, talked to), before we are climbing back into the car to drive to my mans work to pick him up.  Life with one car means a lot of picking up and dropping off, plus a ton of forced family time in the car!  This can be exhausting for Ramona and myself... usually Beezus is better able to keep up the pace.

I say to my kiddos ten minutes before we need to be out the door, "Ok, time to get your shoes on!  We have pick your Dad up!"  Usually this is met by child chaos - meltdowns, demands, riots!  Damn the man, hell no we won't go!  Two crafty, independent, future occupiers.  But lately, among the madness, my dog gets up from where ever she is laying down or sniffing for crumbs (she is a lab and loves crumbs - which seem ample in the kitchen) and shoots to her crate.  She does this, because the alternative is to go outside. (A side note: what dog prefers their crate to going into the backyard for 30 minutes?!  It makes no sense - but that is my dog).

What strikes me is my dog has learned the phrase "time to get..."  and learned it means either crate-time or bedtime depending on the time of day.  She knows the routine, the phrase and does what she is told BEFORE she is told. My children on the other hand still need to be reminded, negotiated with, begged, threatened, bribed and sometimes dragged to their various scheduled ends.

I mentioned this to my man, Beezus happened to be in the room, my man just smiled and nodded, Beezus on the other hand thought it was hilarious.  She then proceed to explain to me that is because "people have more thoughts going on - Athena just knows to listen 'cause she will get punished otherwise". 

As per usually, Beezus knows everything.  Ha!

Tonight I am grateful for my children's independent thought processes and my dog who just knows when to listen!

Happy Saturday Everyone!

Random Day At Home

Nothing new to report on - no books, recipes or large family updates. 

Today I had another midwife appointment and can proudly proclaim my blood pressure is right in my normal range!  I am thrilled.  In my first pregnancy my blood pressure was already too high, I was swollen and sick a lot.  Thankfully, despite a relatively rough first trimester (plus one month) I am only suffering from the typical aches and pains.  I get pretty crummy back pain and ligament pain.  And in the next three weeks I start the last leg of pregnancy - the third trimester!  We have planned a nice "babymoon" vacation before then - which the whole family is very excited about! 

The little one, who I will call Rocky, is healthy and moving.  He moves, and he moves, and he moves, and he moves.  I swore I would enjoy every last kick he had to offer; however, in previous pregnancies the kicks were softer and just plain less, significantly less.  I did mention to my midwife that he moves a lot at night - making sleeping difficult.  She suggest a bath right before hand to calm the various aches and the baby.  I felt rude, but I momentarily snickered.  The bath just gets Rocky going.   I assume it is hearing the water, perhaps it is temper change.

I have noticed that everything I do or do not do gets him moving.  He likes to move when I sit in a chair, when I stand up in the kitchen, when I listen to the radio in the car (thus far our musical taste has differed), when I take a bath, read a book, when I lie on my right side, when I lie on my left side, when I give up on sides and switch to laying down on my back and he really moves when his Dad starts talking.  I suppose the deeper voice is fascinating to him.  The only time he seems to stop moving is when his sisters are screaming and running around the house.  I figure he is trying to decipher what exactly that noise means.  Since their noise is often in unison, often high pitched and ends in fighting he must think he has a two headed sibling that fights with itself.  He will move for Ramona, but only when it is just her reading to me.  He especially likes it when we sound out words.

A pregnancy note - prenatal vitamins are awesome.  I noticed my finger nails seem really healthy and fast growing AND my hair looks really great too!  I was not a vitamin taker before pregnancy, but I will try to remain one after.

Hope everyone is having a great Wendesday!

One family update - we got a new dryer!  Yeah!  We needed one pretty badly - the old one has officially eaten all my hoodies and some of the kids hoodies as well.  Time to buy more hoodies.

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

Tip from parenting group: Interruption

Pregnancy has me falling behind.  Here is a quick parenting tip I was given recently at my moms group.  I really like it a lot and would love to share it.

For interrupting:
My oldest daughter has little "interruption sense".  She tends to just start talking out of turn or, for that matter, not stop talking.  This has more than flustered my youngest daughter and has created a situation where I do not always hear all of what my oldest has to say.  I try to catch enough to seem involved.  Dinner time can be dominated by her chatter too.  I feel really blessed to have a child with so much to tell me.  Other moms complain that their children tell them nothing of the day at school.  Often I wonder if I can tease out the important information in the long drawn out details of the rest the day.

The Strategy:  When talking with another adult if interruption clueless child wants to communicate with you:
1.  Have the child place their hand silently on your arm and wait patiently.  (Try not to giggle - I believe our children can do this!)
2.  After a second place your hand on their hand.  This shows that you recognizes them and tells them that you will get to them as soon as there is a break in conversation with the other adult.  (I love this, because the child will feel ignored and unimportant without the recognition.  The concept that a simple comforting touch reminds them that they are important and loved and that you want to hear them is beautiful in its simplicity).
3.  Then when you can, without making them wait to long (since, otherwise they will melt down and ruin the strategy) turn to your child and ask them politely what is up.

Gosh this sounds so simple!  And silly even to write.  Yet, when you have my children who believe that every thought they have is vital and time sensitive this is a great respectful way for the kids to start learning not to interrupt.

I want to implement this at our dinner table too, but instead of touching my arm, perhaps raising hands.  A little academic, yes, but I hope to get all my children to learn the importance of turn taking.  I will try to find other strategies for dinner time turn taking.