The Most Inspiring Thing

This video is humbling and inspirational. I wish every kid having a day full of "first world problems" could see it.

When Mom Gets Out of the Way, Great Things

I have always subscribed to the idea that children should sometimes be left to (safely) fend for themselves. But I don't know that I've been very good at following through with the ideal. And then sometimes life intervenes to prove that mom should just get out of the way.

Last night I had a somewhat fussy dinner planned. (By which I mean fussy to prep and cook--not fancy on the plate.) But my first grader had other plans. "Can we carve a pumpkin?" It's a fair question. We have 30 of them piled up from this summer's garden, including volunteers from the compost pile.

But I really couldn't say yes. "Not now. I have to dice. I have to sauté." 

"Can I do it?"

Pause. "You can start. But really--that doesn't mean I can jump in and fix it if you have trouble."

"Deal."

We have a $4 set of plasticky pumpkin carving tools that I never would have bought had I not tried them at someone else's house, so this was a safe enough endeavor. I put his pumpkin on the counter and drew a circle around the top. Then I went back to my unpeeled garlic, my broccoli, the filleting of a turkey breast, a hot pan...

Over in the corner he labored. I sort of registered that he'd got the top off successfully. He found the compost can and began scooping pumpkin guts into it. (Therefore seeding next year's crop in the compost pile.)

"I'm going to do one of these designs," he said, holding a pumpkin face stencil book. 

"Uh huh." Sure you are. With dinner late, I thought the likelier scenario would be frustration and a meltdown. But I was busy. I'd forgotten to boil the water. I hadn't measured out my orzo. He had produced some scotch tape and scissors. He was taping bits of paper to the pumpkin. Can't hurt himself that way, I thought. But it will never work.

There were milks to pour, a pan sauce to make, and a side dish to season. Finally, I yelled "dinner's ready." And I looked at his pumpkin.

He'd done it.

He had traced around the shapes he'd cut out of the book. I don't know how he got around the tape. I don't know how he fit them all into that little space. I don't know how he cut out those eyes without tearing through to the rim. But by the time dinner hit the table, he had the eyes and nose cut out already.

"I'll do the mouth after," he said. And he did.

Without any help at all, the little man made this Jack-o-lantern. And his feelings of victory--at doing even this modest project from start to finish--were evident. "Nobody helped me," he said. "Now can I light the candle?"

Yes, honey. Yes you can. I will try not to interfere.

Update: The Child Who Needed a Pet

Recently I wrote a post about how bad I felt that I could not give my children a dog. Or a cat. Or anything cuddly. We have found a solution! The child that left a note reading: "Dear Santa. Please leave behind a reindeer for me to take good care of" now has two-day-old Buff Orpington chickens. Doesn't he look pleased?

Food Allergies and Mother Fear

I adore Feeding Eden, the new memoir by Susan Weissman. While I do not have a child with food allergies, I find the topic endlessly fascinating. From the flap copy: "What do you make for dinner when your child has such severe allergies that even one bite of the wrong ingredient could be deadly?"

I have always understood that cheerful mothering is founded upon the ability to banish the suggestion of disaster. Those catalogs stuffed with childproofing gadgets promising: "Finally! A solution to dangerous hard bathtub walls," or touting that mesh thing through which babies are supposed to suck a strawberry without choking. They always made me want to scream. Parenting is tough enough without fate suggesting extra ways to suffer.

Author Susan Weissman was dealt a tricky hand when her infant son Eden became so sick at such a young age. Allergic to a long list of foods, it took years for their family to come to a place where every day didn't seem to promise disaster. In the youngest children, allergies are so very difficult to diagnose. And Eden was born before the latest slew of allergen labeling laws, which made Weissman's road that much tougher.

The allergy details are very interesting, but Weissman really shines when she's describing good old Mother Fear. After a particularly grim (and unexplained) allergic reaction, one emergency room doctor told her not to get crazy: 

"How wouldn't I know Crazy? Let me count the ways. Despite the doctor's counsel, Crazy and I became as intimate as lovers. Crazy became my stalker, my unwelcome houseguest, and even my muse. I see Crazy int he shadows of other parents, the parents with children like Eden. When I try to tout my sanity to teachers and friends--'Oh, I try not to get too crazy'--Crazy laughs its ass off in the corner."

As I write this, one of my kids is at hockey practice and the other one is climbing a tree. A hasty trip to the ER is potentially part of any parent's day. Only willful ignorance of that fact (and carefully fitted helmets and mouth guards) allow me to forget to be afraid. Weissman, forced to acknowledge daily risk so much more often than most, exercises for her reader the delicate balance between fearful and smart.

I predict this book will be around for a long time. It will become required reading for the parents of food allergic children. And for the rest of us, it's a thoughtful conversation with our very own brands of Crazy.

Is it Lunch, or Is It a Game?

I am made slightly uneasy by the trend toward cute food.

This is difficult to admit, because I don't want to squelch others' fun. But I'm uncomfortable with the message that sandwiches are tastier if they're cut into a heart shape, or that crackers need to be adorable.

Recently, Pepperidge Farm introduced fish-shaped bread, which sells at my local store for $4.65 per pound, as opposed to $2.66/lb for the same brand's sliced bread. The fish bread promises a "deliciously soft texture and fun, crust free shape!" The cynical girl in me hears: the inmates are running the asylum. 

But my kids are 6 and 8 already, and they're both tremendously flexible eaters. So when my kindergartener asked if he could make the "tic tac toe" sandwich he found in his "cookbook" I said yes. 

A couple of years ago I mentioned to another mother that a certain type of shaped cracker had a nice, clean ingredients list. But she said "I don't buy shaped food." It was the first time I ever heard another mom share my grinchy hesitation. And while I adore food blogs, the proliferation of top shelf food styling and photography can feed our insecurities. A midday gander at Pinterest suggests every cupcake should resemble the face of a perfectly cheerful monkey, and every bowl of oatmeal should sport a raisin and raspberry smile.

If there's a gene which makes people acknowledge the appeal of cute food, I may be missing it. But--hang on--I had it too as a child. I remember begging my mother to let me make "candle salad," wherein half a banana stood on its cut surface, projecting from a canned pineapple ring. There may have been a "flame" made from a maraschino cherry and cool whip. As gross as that sounds, I once felt about it the way I now feel about fresh guacamole. (Come to mama!)

My son enjoyed the work of cutting ham and cheese into thin strips with a real knife, and didn't make a stink when they kept breaking. The cheesy Xs had an advantage on the diagonal of this sandwich, but then they melted under the broiler. Even that didn't ruin his fun. 

And then? He ate the whole thing.

Another Thing My Children Had to Teach Me

"It's Only 5 Minutes!"We do Suzuki music here at chez Sarah. My 8yo is cruising through the Suzuki repertoire on the cello, and his 6yo brother plays the violin. 

One child, who shall remain nameless, was less willing to practice than the other. It wasn't really bad. Whenever I convinced him to practice, he enjoyed it. But the getting going was always a problem. "I'm busy right now" was the usual objection. 

This past fall, when we'd reached our one year anniversary as Suzuki-ites, I imposed a 100 Days of Practice on my children. "We're going to practice 100 days in a row," I told them. "But you only have to spend five minutes on it." I found some charts on the internet, with 100 blank squares. I bought 200 sparkley star stickers. 

After the first week, I was sure it was all a big mistake. The first moment which seemed workable for practice was always right while I was trying to make dinner. It's hard to listen to someone's D Arpeggio without burning the broccoli. The first few stars looked awfully lonely on their page.

But something happened after twenty days or so. Practice became (as I had hoped it would) a regular part of the day. It became like brushing teeth--inevitable, so why fight it?

The 100 days ended on December 10th, and by then both children had made major strides. My younger son learned music which I couldn't have imagined him playing last summer. And my older one played through most of book two within that time period. The biggest boon was the lack of discussion. I had trained all of us to accommodate practice as part of our day. And it worked.

Eureka!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I had another frustrating year trying to write fiction. I made good strides, actually, but not without the doubt and self-loathing that always accompanies work on a novel. I spent a lot of time thinking about writing, and not quite enough time writing. Then, in November, when my children were more than 1/2 way through their Suzuki blitz, I decided to do 30 days of fiction. Every day of November (except for Thanksgiving) I worked on my new book. 

Guess what? I saw results. Not only did I add more than 10,000 words during November, I felt better about the manuscript. The steady progress, slow as it was, was enough to swing my opinion about the work. Even on days when I didn't spend more than an hour on it, I still got a lift from having sat down to try.

Thanks, kids! I owe you one.

You'll Get Nothing And Like It

Last year I wrote this post for the wonderful Sorta Crunchy blog, about how our family bought no "stuff" during January. It was terrifically freeing, even if the lessons learned were not the ones I thought they'd be!

By Sarah Pinneo

“We’re not going to buy anything in January except food,” I announced at the dinner table, just before New Years.  I’d been feeling overrun with holiday excess.  January would be a perfect month to streamline—to acquire nothing, to refrain from indulgence, to fully appreciate just how fortunate we are.

This decision was met largely by yawns.

“What about ski lift tickets?” asked my seven-year-old. 

“Oh honey,” I reassured him.  “We’re still going to ski.” Or Daddy would rebel. “And buy food, and gas for the car.  Just no stuff.  We just got so many new things in this house, we’re going to take a break.”

“What is January?” my five year old asked.

“Thirty one days,” I told him. 

He waved his Mickey Mouse fork dismissively.  “That’s not so much days,” he said.

And he was right.  It was nothing at all.  My exercise in restraint was petty by any measurement.  Many of the world’s people don’t have enough money for basic necessities.  And even among those who do, there are far more dramatic experiments than mine.  There’s theAtlanta family who gave away half their net worth, and environmental activists who choose to give up even toilet paper.

Baby steps.  Baby steps.

I knew I was going for a smaller statement—I just didn’t realize how small.  Only one item even came up—my seven year old needed a black felt tip pen to complete an art project.  Though I was sure we owned four million art supplies already, no black felt tip or marker could be found anywhere on the premises.

Aha!  A teachable moment.  “I guess you’ll have to use a colored pencil.  Or buy it with your own money.”

No fool, my son.  He asked his grandparents to lend him a pen.  But that led me to explain my quirky experiment to my mother, who immediately assumed the worst.  “Honey, if you’re strapped for cash…” she began.

“No, no,” I assured her.  “It’s an experiment in delayed gratification and ingenuity.”

But it was in many ways a failed experiment.  My son’s ingenuity led him to pry art supplies from grandpa.  The rest of the family failed to notice at all—except for my frightened mother.

It wasn’t until the end of the month that I noticed all the benefits that had accrued to me.

I’d had no idea how much time my silly plan would save me.  The typical four weeks’ onslaught of catalogs went directly into the recycling bin.  “There will be more catalogs in February,” I reminded myself.  Even better—the email address that I use for commerce was opened only to stay on top of all the deleting.  Oh look—a coupon from Borders, 40% off?  Delete without opening.  Take 30% off sale prices at Lands End.  Delete.  J. Crew, Talbots?  Delete, delete.

I’m not much of a shopper.  I rarely buy much from these places.  But what I didn’t realize was how often I opened the messages anyway, and then needlessly lost a half hour of my precious time.  Eureka!  An entire month of deleting junky emails prevented me from dithering over L.L. Bean turtlenecks in size 6x-7, or trolling Replacements.com for teaspoons to replace the ones which mysteriously disappeared since our wedding 12 years ago.

It wasn’t money or closet space that I saved in January.  It was time.

And I put that time to good use.  I wrote two magazine articles, two new pitches, and 12,000 words of a novel.  I made pumpkin pie from scratch.  And not once was I lured by the promise of free shipping, or Exciting Spring Fashions.

When January ended, so did the moratorium.  But I continued to delete and recycle with glee.  At least I did until the moment my older son informed me that both his boots and his shoes were getting tight.  (This from a child who barely notices shoes, so it must be true.)

Then I wasted a perfectly good half hour on shoe sites, only to remember how hard it was to judge things from a pixilated photo.

The boy and I will just have to head to an honest-to-God store soon, when we’re both good and ready.

Children's Menu from Hell

I write about food, and children, and food for children all the time. Whenever I have a slack moment, perhaps questioning what more there might be to say on the topic, some horrible gem usually announces itself to remind me why there is still more to do.

My friend Jackie received this children's menu when she stopped mid car trip with her young toddler at a roadside Perkins Restaurant. This image has the same effect on me as one of those Highlights Magazine puzzles has on my children. Can you spot at least ten things wrong with this picture?

When Jackie posted it on her facebook page, someone immediately picked up on the menu's tagline: Breakfast is Just the Beginning... "of a lifetime fighting obesity & diabetes," a friend quipped. They're not even pretending (a la McDonalds oatmeal) to address the health needs of their most vulnerable guests.

File this under: laugh and cry.