Comments (8)

By Mom Unplugged, March 26, 2007 9:42 am

I never planned on having picky kids. Before my first child was born I decided I would introduce her to French cheeses, garlic, and strong spices right away. When I lived in France I watched little French toddlers devouring Camembert and Brie as if it was peanut butter, in fact they thought peanut butter was a disgusting concept! Therefore children learn to eat what they are given. Therefore, my child would eat EVERYTHING! Right? Wrong. I had not anticipated food allergies: milk allergy, egg allergy, nut allergy. I was forced to abandon my French cheese toddler diet and my children became PICKY.

However, today I am going to share a secret. This may not be a secret to some of you, and as usual, I may just be way behind the times. But…I have just figured out how to get my picky kids to try and to actually LIKE new foods! My secret? Let them cook it themselves.

It all started several months ago. I was making crepes for dinner one night and the children wanted to “help.” I grumbled to myself because, as all seasoned moms know, it is always easier and faster to do things yourself than to accept “help” from the kids. But, I was in the mood to try and be a Good Mom that night and I put them to work. Much to my surprise, we actually had fun!

Cooking for me has become such a necessary evil. I no longer take pleasure in cracking an egg or stirring batter. It is simply a daily task to be accomplished as quickly as possible so that I can move on to something more fun. It sounds awfully sappy to say this, but that evening I was able to rediscover the magic of cooking through their eyes. Children are so excited about every new experience, even those that are quite boring and mundane to us grown-ups. My kids loved every task, every smell, every texture of our crepe-making adventure!

Since then, we have been trying to do a “Kids Cook Night” as we call it, once a week. At first we just did crepes. But lately we tried a Rachel Ray recipe of pasta with ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, garlic, and broccoli. Saturday we made a creamy Tarragon Chicken recipe in the Crock Pot. The children announced that they wished we could eat Tarragon Chicken every night. That is when I had the epiphany: My kids would not have eaten the ricotta cheese pasta or the Tarragon Chicken if I had made it.
Of course I won’t tell them, but I think we shall gradually try more and more exotic dishes and see what happens. If I find a good recipe that I fear they will not eat, we will have it for the first time on a “Kids Cook Night!”

The “Kids Cook Night” is actually quite fun for all of us, plus I figure that if we do this once a week, by the time they are teens, they should be really good cooks. Maybe I could get them to cook ALL the meals! And clean the house…and do the laundry…

Thanks to morguefile.com and photographer Scott Liddell (www.scott.liddell.com) for this yummy photo!

Comments (2)

By Mom Unplugged, March 20, 2007 12:15 pm

I love gardening. At the first hint of warm weather I begin to have detailed, yet wildly unrealistic visions of the beautiful, picture-perfect garden that I will certainly create this year. This spring I will plant some roses, and I have been researching different types of roses for the past two years (literally). I am not an impulse shopper in any regard, and certainly not where something seemingly as permanent as a garden is concerned.Last year I gave the kids a little patch of dirt to plant. I thought colorful annuals would satisfy short attention spans better than seeds or perennials. We went to the nursery and they got to pick six plants each, any annual they wanted. My daughter picked dainty alyssum as well as a variety of other flowers in pretty pink and purple tones. She is like me, not an impulse shopper. Much to my annoyance it took her close to an hour to make up her mind, even while being hurried along by me. My son (a typical “buy-the-first-thing-you-see-then-leave-as-quickly-as-possible” male) headed straight for the brightest flowers he saw: marigolds in varying shades of bright yellow and orange and rust. He chose five marigolds and a mint plant, because he liked the smell.

The deal was that they had to plant them themselves, and then water them everyday on their own without reminding. I had my doubts about the odds of their survival and felt grateful that my role in this life was to be my son’s Mom and not one of his marigolds.

Much to my surprise, the gardening experiment was a resounding success. They watered faithfully and I even taught them how to weed and deadhead by helping me. They kept their garden looking tidier than mine.

Now, every time we drive by the nursery they want to go and look at flowers. I have to explain that it is too soon, but they still don’t fully understand time, even my 6 year-old.

Meanwhile, I peruse garden magazines featuring fabulous, yet entirely impractical gardens for my climate, ability, and available time. I read the David Austin rose catalogue regularly, because this year, I really will take the plunge and order the roses of my dreams. I desperately want a Madame Alfred Carriere.

My kids have already, on their own initiative, planted pots with ancient seeds they found in the garage, and my son just brought home a sprouting Daffodil bulb that they forced at school.

Yeah! Spring is on the way!

(For my tips for gardening with kids, please also see my post: The Children’s Garden .)

Thanks to morgefile.com and photographer julesinky.

Comments (1)

By Mom Unplugged, March 12, 2007 11:03 am

I have two ideas to present in today’s post:

1) DON’T FORGET FRIENDS

A TV-free Mom friend wants me to write a post about how friends can help the anti-TV effort.

This friend is working on a Master’s degree and had an important deadline to meet on Friday. Unfortunately Friday was a half day at school. I picked her daughter up, gave her lunch and then she and my kids played happily until her Mom was through with her assignment. My friend was grateful since her only other desperate option would probably have been to sit her daughter down in front of the TV with a series of videos.

This was a win-win for all! My friend completed her work on time, her daughter and my kids had a great afternoon, and I was able to do some things around the house because my kids were so busy playing with a buddy.

My friend would like to remind people to consider friends as a resource for turning off the TV. When you absolutely, positively need to get some alone-time for an important task (or even just to regain a little sanity), call a friend and everyone benefits!

2) CLUTTER BUSTER - ORGANIZE THE ART

Idea number two is an organizing tip that works well for us. What do you do with all the art work that your TV-free kids create? The refrigerator is the traditional display area, but we recently remodeled the kitchen and have a stainless steel fridge (non-magnetic).

I picked a bare wall in the playroom and hung two lengths of string by tying the ends around thumbtacks in the wall. For a more modern-look, you could also use wire. We hang the most recent masterpieces on the string using clothespins.

The kids enjoy hanging the pictures and seeing their efforts nicely displayed on the wall. It makes a cool focal point for the room and is easy to change when the mood strikes!

UPDATE: Here is another great art-organizing idea from a reader-comment:

“My favorite idea for getting rid of art or schoolwork clutter is mailing “care” packages to grandparents. (A favorite aunt & uncle would work too!) The grandparents love seeing what the grandkids are doing and the kids enjoy showing off their work with others and it eliminates the guilt and/or hurt feelings from throwing the item away.”

I like that idea because I hate throwing it away, but you just can’t keep it all (even a packrat like me). Thanks for the input!