The War on Food

Okay, this image just cracks me up! At least they were saying “Plant more beans” instead of “Kill more cows!”

Like pretty much EVERYONE, I love food. Sometimes I feel like in the quest to make healthy choices, I’m fighting an uphill battle. I’ve been a vegetarian for a very long time. I’ve heard all the jokes (same ones over and over from my brother especially). I’m in my 30s, so I’ve had time to watch the world evolve from thinking vegetarians are total freak shows to seeing that there might be some wisdom to the choice.

I’ve never been in the vegan club or the raw club or even the vegetarian club. I cheat occasionally (although I’d call that rarely now) and I haven’t felt the pangs of self-righteousness over my dietary choices since I was in my late teens or early twenties. I knew even before I had kids what many of my ideals were with children and their relationship with food.

Here are the principals I try to follow with the kids:

1. Inspire healthy choices. In other words, live it. Make it yummy. Don’t nag, berate, belittle or guilt. (Challenging!)

2. Don’t use food as a bribe or withhold food as a punishment. (This should be a no-brainer, but I see people doing this every single day).

3. Never force a child to eat a particular food or to finish their plate (but do keep presenting foods over and over again).

4. Give children total food freedom, when they’re ready.

AH….That was the sticky part…”when they’re ready.” When would that be? I figured it would be at about 7. Instead, with my eldest, it was about 4. I relaxed the reins. She, being 4 and mostly exposed to what I had exposed her to, mostly chose foods that made me beam with pride. I had done SUCH A GREAT JOB!!!

Then came 5 and 6 and 7 and the outside world. (uh oh)

Truthfully, my daughter still makes great choices and I still beam with pride…even when she’s stuffing a piece of cow cheese pizza in her face while saying, “No thanks. I don’t eat pepperoni. I’m vegan.” (How funny is that?!) But I’ll be honest, it isn’t like it was before when she only had what I chose for her to have.

More complications arose when my younger children, who I hadn’t deemed able to choose, wanted what their sister had, even though they weren't at my predetermined age of consciousness. What now?

Basically, I’m learning to relax. The most difficult part of it for me is SHUTTING THE HELL UP. I have to fight the urge at a party not to say things like, “Honey, that probably has partially hydrogenated oils in it” or "Ewww, gellllll-a-tinnnnn." Who wants to hear that? How lame!

Nagging is so passé.

It still slips out. I’m getting much better at it. I love what the Disease Proof blog says about feeding kids without nagging (recommended!). It's pretty unschooly, too, and so that resonates with me quite a bit.

In a nutshell, I’m trying to provide tons of yummy stuff, keep piles of healthy snacks on me wherever we go and shut up about the rest.

Toodles!

Hopeless Signer-Upper

Everyone calls me a signer-upper. I’ve always been one. I was the kid who’d read through the community center and church bulletins to look for all the classes offered for children each session. It’s even how I learned to break-dance (totally true).

That probably makes me a “good” homeschooler, since I’m pretty adept at scouring every possible publication for every possible kid-friendly activity and class in town. I present these to the kids as options and we end up horribly overscheduled most of the time.

That is just part of my personality, I suppose. The brain surgeon suffers from the same malady.

I’m sort of a vicarious signer-upper at the moment, because as most mothers will tell you, there is little time for pursuing one’s non-familial interests when the kiddies are under 5. So I’ve just became a signer-upper in another way.

Oh, Master Cleanse.

I really haven’t even figured out why I’ve decided to do this. One of my best friends mentioned she was doing it. I said, “have fun” and tried to forget about it. Of course, the “me too!” in me just couldn’t resist thinking about it. I don’t even really “believe” in the Master Cleanse. I do think fasting is great, though I’ve never done it for more than a day. I have been meaning to read Joel Fuhrman’s book on it (Fuhrman is not a fan of the Master Cleanse, by the way).

Anyway, to do this, you mix 14 tablespoons of fresh squeezed lemon juice (I squeeze it every morning), 14 tablespoons of maple syrup and ¼ teaspoon of cayenne pepper into 2 liters of water and drink that all day.

Some people also drink a cup of Senna tea in the morning and at night or drink (chug, gag down, whatever) a saltwater solution (2 teaspoons of saltwater in 32 ounces of warm water) in place of one cup of the tea.

Sounds a little bulimic to me.

DAY ZERO: I didn’t do the ease in thing, since I eat a mostly vegan diet, but I did the saltwater thing the night before I started the drink thing. The brain surgeon – with all of his surgical concerns about sodium balance – probably would have freaked out on me if he knew I ingested a bunch of salt for no real reason. Plus, I usually try to eat a low sodium diet (we don’t cook with it and we buy low sodium tomato sauce, etc.), so it’s really out of character. And salty!

I’ll skip the details (I’m not a girl who discusses such things), but you can check out what it says about the saltwater thing here. Trust me, it works. I’m not doing that again.

DAY ONE: I made the maple syrup concoction, which I found surprisingly tasty. It was true that I was never hungry throughout the day, but WHOA, I have NEVER EVER thought about food so much. I would have eaten the elevator I rode in if someone put chocolate sauce on it. Seriously. It seemed like everyone talked about nothing but food, everything smelled of food and food was just created to torture me.

At night, I had to do the grocery shopping for the family and that was even more difficult. Trader Joe’s is always cooking sample things. Sometimes they are meaty smelling and don’t appeal to me, but last night it was Eggplant Parmesan. Oh, the temptation. I’m usually good at avoiding cheese, but woman, did that smell good.

Then I went to Whole Foods to get the Senna Tea, since I found out one brand, aptly named Smooth Move, came in chocolate and decided it was important after all.

When I got home, the kids were still up (the brain surgeon rarely has success with bedtime, though you’ll never hear him admit it), so in the process of putting them to bed, I crashed and slept quite well.

DAY TWO: Today was much easier. I had my Senna tea this morning while driving my children to the soccer field for the first day of my eldest daughter’s soccer camp. She had her new pink and black cleats with her shin guards and her David Beckham (um, is that a shoe in there?)soccer uniform from the L.A. Galaxy charity game we went to a while back and I have to say…she was definitely the cutest kid on the field.

On the way to the next activity, it hit me: I’m breastfeeding. Should I be drinking the tea? (I had already checked on the cleanse itself, which is fine, especially since my daughter is 20 months old). An online search of several sites tonight confirmed my greatest fears…If I keep drinking the tea, my daughter might just be on the fast track to diarrhea-ville. No more chocolate tea for me.

It wasn’t really that satisfying anyway.

Plus, I’m not really obsessing about food anymore. It's weird.

More about day three (and what IS satisfying) tomorrow.

Toodles!

To Wii or Not to Wii

This post will prove that homeschoolers are a bad influence, especially if the all-electronic-media-is-BAD information out there has influenced you.

But before I get into that: Happy 4th of July! A day or so later. Now you're onto me. I'm behind on my blog.

We went to a BBQ that we go to every year. A very nice couple and their two little girls (6 and 9) host it. They are both Ph.D. researchers in the brain lab, where the brain surgeon does a fair share of his research. Some of the other brain surgeons occasionally attend and the sister-in-law of the wife-half is married to a neurologist as well. So it’s a brainy good time.

We always start with the whole party at the Pacific Palisades parade put on by the Palisades Americanism Parade Association (um, mouthful), which is usually a mix of so-so bands, drill teams and a few odd groups (usually some religious groups and a few community groups). My favorites are these elderly guys (I think they are called the Oompahs or something similar) who come out in short-sleeved white button downs, white boxers and black socks with what I now affectionately call “sock-spenders,” which are like little elastics on the tops of the socks that hold them up, except that they don’t always hold them up. This time they did a little drill-team-type routine. It rocked!!!

I was thinking that maybe Holly Madison on the Girls Next Door could incorporate this particular fashion option on the show along with her tube socks. Wouldn’t that be so HOT? Sex-kitten sock-spenders!!!

Just the other day, I wrote about buying real suspenders. Is this a sign from God herself? Am I supposed to buy things that suspend? Should I go into the suspending business? What does it all mean?

Oops. I digressed.

Anyhoo, after the parade, we headed to the house. We all played and ate (veggie BBQ options) endlessly until it got dark and then we watched the fireworks. They have quite a spectacular view of the fireworks from their backyard.

This time, they had a new karaoke machine and my two oldest (3 and 5) impressed everyone with their fabulous singing and the fact that they knew most of the High School Musical soundtrack, which they had memorized from listening to it in the car.

Yes, I know the truth is they might have annoyed everyone, but that’s what they get for pretending to be impressed and egging the little darlings on.

How the foray into High School Musical happened might be fodder for another post, but there it is.

Anyway, wow, I’ve REALLY digressed. I’m writing about Wii.

So, we’re going to the California Homeschool Network homeschool conference next month and random people keep mentioning this Guitar Hero competition that will happen there. I’ve been sort of ignoring this on the updates, but then they sent out a list of rehearsal songs and said they were opening a category for 5 to 7 year olds and I thought my daughter might like to do that.

So I Googled Guitar Hero and became instantly overwhelmed.

I’m apparently the last person in the entire universe to know this, but you can’t just buy Guitar Hero. You have to buy a system to play it on.

Okay, so I’ll just buy the system, I thought. But, no. It cannot be that simple. Of course, you can play it on more than one system.

So, I’m a research freak and the research began. I searched online. I asked people I know. Most of them are in the same (should I just say it?) parenting elitist intellectual Southern California crowd that I’m apparently in and had the “Oh, no, we don’t do much media. We really would rather go out and really live life,” attitude. Yes, someone actually said those exact words.

But, I’m also very influenced by the radical unschooler crowd (though I’ve said before and I’ll say again: They can be quite rude and superior themselves), which is more in the “Everything Bad is Good For You” camp. As a result, I’ve been opening my mind a bit more about media types, media limits and how so many studies apply to kids in the traditional public school or private school settings rather than my kids.

We did unschool the television, for example. We just started letting them watch as much as they wanted instead of having some predetermined amount of TV time set. I had been anal about a one-hour-a-day limit. Well, guess what. They almost never watched a full hour of television before we took the limit off and they still don’t. So limiting versus not limiting didn’t seem to make a difference and not limiting sure seems easier.

Okay, back to gaming. Our experience thus far is this. First, my daughter received a Leapster L-Max gaming system handheld thing as a gift about a year ago and didn’t really get into it. I planned to limit it, but never had to. Next, my children received a V.Smile system for Christmas this year. Again, I thought I’d have to limit it, but didn’t have to.

What do I mean by that? Well, my daughter never played on the Leapster for more than about an hour or two per week. My daughter and son play the V.Smile together occasionally, maybe once a week for about one half-hour.

Really. That’s it. I think they have so many things to do, that these things are just options to them, like any other option, just like the radical unschoolers (not all unschoolers) say. I find that fascinating. I’m not sure that this would be the case if we purchased the Wii, because it looks about a thousand times more entertaining than the Leapster or V.Smile, but we’ll see.

Anyway, I very quickly decided that the Wii was the system I’d prefer, due to all of its AI and virtual reality features. You can play as a family and there are so many get-off-your-butt games. Plus, and I personally want Wii Fit, too. That looks super cool and I so need the exercise!

The brain surgeon admitted that all he knew of the current gaming world was Halo and that he would like to have it (yes, dear, even though it is a bloody shoot-em-up game), but Halo doesn’t come on Wii.

I’m trying to be open, supportive and not controlling. I’m all about natural limits. That’s a natural limit, right?

Okay, but really, that Wii thing has so many fun things to do. I realized that I want more than just Guitar Hero and Wii Fit. I also want Rock Band and Dance Revolution, which, if anything like the arcade version, is a workout like no other: Check out this kid!



I'd also want Endless Ocean, Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree (will it make us smarter?), and my children would likely love the High School Musical one with the microphone. My daughter would also likely enjoy the Hannah Montana game, even though she doesn’t really know who that is yet. She loves to sing and dance. Oh and my mom would love a car racing one. There’s well over a hundred games. I’m so tempted.

Of course, this all comes with a hefty price tag and sort of goes against my current drive to be frugal based on the fact that as a freelancer, I choose projects based on how many hours I need to work and more spending = more projects = less time devoted to my quickly-growing children.
Plus, when would I have time to play these games? It’s a tough call.

So for now, I’ll keep asking around and doing the research. I’ll consult my family and friends. I don’t think I’ll run out and buy a Wii or Guitar Hero or any of it for now, but if we receive one as a gift (and now that I’ve mentioned it to my mother, we probably will), you probably won’t see me in the return line, either.

Toodles!

Homeschool Playgroup Day

So, I’m over my psychotic food police moment. I’m crazy. I know it. The brain surgeon knows it, but loves me anyway. Can we just move on now?

Good.

Now yesterday, my friend, D, who has been in home-buying hell, came to spend the night with her two little ones. They recently moved about two hours away and have been homeless, basically, while the banks and realtors made one idiotic mistake after another. I keep saying buy Tupperware from D, and I mean it: colbyandbingo@yahoo.com. You know you need something.

D’s eldest and Miss M are absolutely positively best friends. Miss M, one night when their impending move was upon us, cried her eyes out and said, “I love her so much, I just can’t let go.” No idea where she got the scorned lover speech, so I just held her, brokenhearted for my baby and stifling a giggle at the same time.

Parenthood is like that.

Anyway, today is one of the four days I try REALLY hard not to have scheduled work during the day. Of course, a new client scheduled a call for today at 1:00 pm. This is that new client with the less-toxic cleaners that I’m quite excited about. So for this one hour, I needed to figure out what to do with my three little ones. Four options:

1. Hire Carmen

2. Drop them with the brain surgeon and have said conference call in car

3. Go to homeschool park day with D and have her watch them while I have said conference call in car

4. Put movie on in car, hope and pray BooBoo sleeps rather than screams (still facing backwards; can’t see movie), and ruin environment by running car/air conditioner for duration of call

#1 wasn’t a great option. She has a 6-hour minimum and then I’d feel guilty hiring her and not getting more work done. #2 and #3 were both okay options, but I went with #3 because D was here and we all miss each other.

#4 was one of those conference-calling-while-hiding-in-the-bathroom options. Desperate measures like these are only okay in the absence of all other options.

Plus, D has been bugging me to try this group. Neither of us clicked with the other two groups we’ve been to (too far, no real bonding, etc.), but D swore I’d like this one. I’ve been hesitant, though, because there have been a few stories she’s told me that set off my “judgmental mom” alarm.

I go crazy when I hear mothers being hard on other mothers about whatever, though I’m quite judgmental myself.

(I should just call this the hypocrite blog, because it is what I am. I do try to be consistent, but life is confusing!)

Anyway, so I went. After a hectic morning getting there and a successful conference call that I literally choked my way through.

Do you ever just randomly choke on your own spit? I occasionally do. No idea why. It’s inconvenient when you’re sharing PR capabilities with an ad agency that you’re working with on a new cleaning product.

But I digress. (Oh, and I like digressing, so you’ll see a lot of that).

Shortly before leaving, D introduces me to another mom, Tricia, who is also a writer and who is also a mother of three kids (mine are 1, 3 and 5; hers are 3, 5 and 7; I have one boy; she has three).

We chat about writing and blogging. I tell her I’m just coming out of the closet with my blog (you’ll see the irony of this later). We exchange LinkedIn, MySpace, iFreelance and blog info.

I liked Tricia immediately. She’s now the third person I’ve told the actual name of my blog to and the first stranger. She mentioned briefly that she’s had some rough experiences online and that she’s “complex.” She said she pulled down blogs that resulted in a lot of crying.

Before I started writing this, I checked my email and noticed an invite to connect with her on LinkedIn. I accepted and sent her a MySpace invitation in return. Then I browsed through her stuff.

I have to say, she could be the most “complex” person I’ve ever met.

She’s a lesbian, she says. Maybe she's a nonpracticing lesbian. She’s happily married to the father of her children. She writes very dry technical stuff for organizations like NASA. I relate to that. Best part, she’s a comic, like the guy in my mean girls clique.

What are the chances of meeting two comics in one month?

She’s been lamented online for being homophobic (more irony!), anti-fertility treatment (we might agree there) and anti-adoption (and I'm learning about why).

She’s clearly controversial. I like that. Clearly she’s judgmental, which I can’t stand, but again, I’m that, too, and a hypocrite, so who am I to judge?

Damn I’m witty.

I haven’t read much about her views and her personal controversy yet, but I’ve read enough to tell so far is that she’s brilliant, regardless of viewpoints, and very, very brave. That makes her interesting.

Plus, she was just plain nice.

Toodles.

Dear Diary

Well, I think I’ve finally found my direction for this, my umpteenth attempt at blogging for me. I think I’ll just make it a journal of my day and forget it.

So, today here is what happened:

I woke up this morning with two out of three kids in bed with me. The brain surgeon was headed to the lab to research brain tumors. It was somewhere around 6 a.m.

I’m a night owl, so I hate 6 a.m.

Since I have a crazy toddler, I had to get up. There was no choice.

I dragged myself out of bed. I just couldn’t be peppy yet, so I did what any self-respecting-wannabe-anti-TV-but-not-really mom would do…I turned on Noggin.

Oh wait, no I didn’t. Because it was already on.

I forgot that my mother-in-law was (is!) here. She came in last night unannounced, as usual, from Kuna, ID (where?). Not that I mind. I don’t. It’s just that I’d like a little warning. A little mental preparation.

And the brain surgeon is VERY patient about my mother, too.

It's how I met her, too. The brain surgeon and I had begun cohabiting (yes, in sin), only then he was a a mere medical student. It was my first time cohabiting and he hadn’t told his parents much about me yet, including that we lived together. I’m on my way home from the hospital en route to the gym when he announces, “By the way, I’m picking my mother up from the airport on the way home, so you get to meet her.” WHAT?

She used to be a flight attendant for United, so the woman just hops on a plane whenever the hell she feels like it. SURPRISE!

The night she met me, I was stinky and sweaty and I promptly hopped in her son’s shower.

I’m not the ho, you da ho, Idaho.

Anyway, so the truth is I left the TV on this morning. I admit it. I watched whatever was on – Jack’s Big Music Show or some kid video segment. It was so unschool cool of me, except all I know was they were bouncing around singing something about having a party for no reason and I wanted to throw the remote at the screen.

But instead, I dragged my lazy ass to the kitchen and started assembling breakfast. Fruit, cereal. Too tired to make their usual green smoothie. Yes, my little children love green smoothies.

Then, I had to get everything ready for Carmen to arrive, because well I just had to. (My friend, a former high-end nanny, says I should fire Carmen over the fact that I have to prep things for her, but whatever).

In case you’re wondering, Carmen is legal, but she didn’t used to be. Everyone in L.A. asks that question. Is she legal? Would they ask that if she was from Canada? nnnnoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Oh, also for the record, she has helped our family for almost three years and works about 20 hours a week.

Carmen arrived at 8. I spent the next hour trying to dress my eldest, Miss M., and myself, while my two younger children clung mercilessly to my legs. I know what you're thinking: "Where was Carmen?" It's complex.

Anyway, I load my crap (computer bag for me, computer bag for Miss M, lunch for us both, big bag of recycling) and drag my daughter to my office to work (I go in about two or three times a week for half a day and I bring Miss M with me). I arrived at 10 a.m. Only four hours after getting out of bed to get to my office less than six blocks away. Not bad!!!

Geeze.

Today was busy. I squeezed in two new client calls (one marketing gig for a low-toxicity cleaner and one book ghostwriting gig) between finishing two news stories (one on antioxidants and one on physician advice about smoking) and reviewing my edits on four more news stories that other people wrote (good writers, so not too tough). Plus, I reformatted a peer-reviewed journal article.

My daughter did her Time4Learning home school curriculum and made presents for me including pictures of princesses and one of me from a recent new business presentation pasted on Snow White. Oooooh, the symbolism.

She also does Kumon, as does L-man, but it's like pulling teeth to get them to do it, so we are transitioning away from it.

Then, the brain surgeon left the lab to bring his mother back from her cataract surgery (also news to me!) and picked up Miss M at my office for lunch. Then they went home and picked up BooBoo and the L-Man and took them all to story time at the Beverly Hills Public Library (which is a pain to sign up for, but really nice). Carmen left at 1. Go Hubby! I love that you’re on research.

So, in a nutshell, I worked uninterrupted for several hours today. I felt productive. Usually I don't feel productive at all. And I didn't even have to feel guilty most of the day, because the children were with their father (who happens to be the best young father on the planet. He's handy with brains, too!). Oh holy sanity!

Then, at 5, the brain surgeon called to tell me the baby was feverish and barfing, so I raced home, gave her a bath, nursed her, got barfed upon, took a bath with her, nursed her some more, got barfed upon some more (repeat cycle over and over), shoveled down vegan Pad Thai while nursing some more, and finally got my sick BooBoo to sleep in my bed.

Then the brain surgeon came in to lay with sick baby while I handled the BBR (before-bed routine) with Miss M and L-Man and put them to bed.

I was then really excited (um) to get this peer-reviewed article back to my client, but realized that the movement of some paragraphs means I’ve got to reorder the references. Sigh. I couldn't face it and thus I blog.

Bliggy blog blog.

Anyway, this is fun. The diary I haven’t had time to do. We’ll see how it goes.

It’s 5 minutes shy of 1 a.m. Time to attempt to shut the brain down (totally not what happens, but you know that) and get my 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 hours of sleep. 1, 2, 3, 4, Hi-5!

Toodles!

Adventures in Homeschooling

We are really starting our adventures in homeschooling. I’ve read voraciously about everything from radical unschooling to more traditional (and definitely more rigid) routes. I’m unquestionably an eclectic homeschooler, but I suppose our children will help define how it all turns out. Plus, my eldest is only 5, so I’m still enjoying my time exploring the options.

I don’t know why I sometimes act like I’m still on the fence. Really, I’m now fully convinced that homeschooling is the best option for us. Besides, we never really get the strange looks I hear others suffer from when we say we are homeschooling.

Since my dear husband is a brain surgeon and I’ve got a decent education, people don’t worry about if we’re “smart enough.” Plus, he taught Kindergarten before med school and I’ve done some teaching myself, so we can pull out those cards.

I do think the idea that you have to have an education to facilitate your child’s learning is a farce, though. My sister quit school very young. The fact is, she’s friggen brilliant and school bored her. She learned everything she needed to know without the drudgery and she’s a successful (and not just moderately) business co-owner with her husband today.

Many have documented successful homeschooling students regardless of the education levels attained by the homeschooling parents.

However, now that homeschooling is potentially in jeopardy in California, I realize it is time for me to take an official position on homeschooling. No more “we’re probably going to homeschool for a while” comments for me. Now that a judge in the 2nd Appellate Court in Los Angeles decided that public school is a good solution for the problem of child abuse (huh?), all of our rights are in jeopardy (see court docs here).

Most homeschooling organizations (e.g. CHN and HSLDA) are saying not to panic, but I do find myself watching the news about homeschooling with fervor I haven’t had since I first started entertaining the idea.

On the other hand, I think the worry is a bit silly and the logic flawed. If we expect those who teach children in California to have a teaching credential, for example, that would practically shut down most of the private schools – and even many of the expensive, chi-chi schools in L.A. have non-credentialed teachers.

Like having a credential guarantees you can teach kids? Then why are so many kids in public schools failing?

And honestly, from watching my children thus far, I’m not sure anyone needs to teach them anything, although out of paranoia or instinct or habit or all three.

I do think there is a place for public school. I’m just not sure what it is. Some kids do need an escape from the home, I suppose, but then shouldn’t we just call a spade a spade in that circumstance?

Some parents don’t have the patience, resources or desire to homeschool. Institutionalized education is certainly an alternative for those families. Alas, some parents don’t want to be around their children all day. Let’s be honest: Many folks can barely contain themselves until kindergarten – and thus free daycare until adulthood – kicks in.

Scoff if you will, but I hear parents say it all the time. “Once they’re in school, I’ll….” It’s sad, really, but it is so universal in our culture that it sounds almost normal to say that we are essentially so sick of children that we can’t wait until all we have to handle is before school, bedtime and weekend duty.

There are agendas, there, as well. What are some possible motives to pull all children away from their families at young ages? Per the precedent court case, is the teaching of “patriotism” to nation and state (that line is just too reminiscent of little children saying “Heil Hitler”) to mass quantities of little Americans necessary to assure enough volunteers for the military (who would have signed up for the Iraq war without a little brainwashing!). What about the economy? Kids in school means more mothers in the workforce. The bureaucracy behind public schools and the public schools themselves, create jobs.

So obvious. More later.


Toodles.