2 posts tagged “kids”

I know most of you either don't have kids or yours are grown, but I have to try to stay on topic once in a while.  After all I am the babysitting lady!  Kids are my business.

If your kid just does not like any fruits or vegetables, I can't help you.  But, if it's just that they reach for chips or sweet snacks first, the following ideas might help.  I always tried to get my kids to eat more fruits and vegetables. I tried putting the fruit basket right on the table in front of them at breakfast and lunch time but that made little difference.  I'd ask both of the kids what vegetable they'd like for dinner. I'd end up cooking 4 different types only to have 3/4 of it thrown away. 

Then one day I figured it out.  My kids would always be asking when breakfast would be ready or lunch or dinner because they were "starving."  Who says the fruit or vegetable had to be eaten with a meal?!!!  So now, in the mornings I take a plate and put out at least 3 -6 types of fruit all washed, peeled (oranges), sliced, diced, and ready to eat on the table while I'm making breakfast.  Ta-da,.....  the fruit gets eaten, and if there is any left, I finish it off, why not - it's good for everyone.

Next, I tried to head off the dash for the cookie jar after school.  Just before they get off the bus, I put out some celery with peanut butter, celery sticks, carrots, and ranch dressing for dipping, or apple slices with yogurt for dipping.  Wa-la - they eat it! 

Dinner is more difficult, mostly because there are few vegetables that we all enjoy. We do all like salad, so a few nights a week we have salad.  Sometimes I will just put out raw carrot sticks and celery which everyone also enjoys.  Then, whenever I'm baking at night, I'll peel apples to really bake a pie or dutch apple cake or sometimes I just peel them because the kids love to eat the peels.  I don't imagine they taste different off the apples but I remember liking them also when I was a kid.  that's my two cents today!

I know, I know everyone is sick of hearing about my kids, but my children are my whole life and children in general is what I do.  So here goes.  My daughter's teacher had hamsters and didn't realize she had a male and a female.  First of all, I find this extremely hard to believe (has anyone out there ever had a male hamster before?!!!!! Yeah).  Anyway, you can all guess what happened.  So she tells her classes that she's giving away the babies.  I knew it was coming - "please mama, can we get a hamster?"

Now we've had hamsters before, and I have to admit that I love those little guys.  I think they are so cute.  I love animals as much as I love kids. But, both died within a year of blockages.  The second one, "Hunny," who I fondly nick named "Mr. Beans" just because I thought it was a really funny name, died in my hands one night.  I sat there sobbing like I had just lost my best friend.  I love animals so much but losing them is so painful that I just don't want to go through it.  Ahhhh here we go, it's not about me - I need to remember.

So when we get home, I'm cleaning up and I think Mandy is doing her homework because she has posterboard out with markers and she's printing stuff out on the computer and glueing, etc.  When I find out she's putting together a presentation to sell us on the idea of a hamster, I say, "Daddy's going to freak out when he sees that you used all that colored ink for hamster pictures and this isn't even for school!"  My husband no sooner gets in the door then Mandy asks him to sit down, hands him a dollar and tells him that's for the ink she wasted.  Then she begins the presentation. 

It was absolutely hysterical.  Very tough to keep from laughing.  She tried to explain how getting a hamster for her and her brother was going to save us so much money because they would buy the cages.  Also, it would mean less work for me because they would clean the cages.  In addition, the dog that they begged for that they barely play with at all now, is somehow going to be played with more often.  It was so ridiculous, that my husband said ok.  She even had a contract drawn up for her and her brother to sign.  One more reason why I love kids - the entertainment factor.