the way we eat, part 2

I'm honoured to be a featured guest on Little Homestead in the Desert's In Her Shoes series...please pop by KC's blog and leave a comment...even better, become a follower of her lovely blog!


At dinnertime, we go through phases where things are peaceful, we light candles, say grace, talk about the good things in our day, and everyone eats what's on their plates.


We're not in that phase right now. We're in the getting-out-of-your-seat-ten-times, arguing-over-who-sits-beside-mommy, spilling-at-least-one-drink, refusing-to-eat, treat-bribing phase.

It's stressful. And like every mother, in the midst of my exasperation I'm trying to be flexible, open-minded, and resourceful while also trying to make sure my children get the nutrition they need to grow.


Let's face it. Women are busy working outside the home, blogging, trying to keep up with decorating magazines and some weird concept they we about what our lives "should" be like. We nurture our hobbies, have interests and passions, and need more hours in the day.

So, why do we kill ourselves every day creating a meal that a lot of our kids refuse to eat? It creates a shift in the day's energy when daddy gets home and turns into a 1950s disciplinarian; we hear things coming out of our mouths that make us shake our heads (e.g. "You are not leaving this table till you eat what's on your plate"...can anyone say, "Future eating disorder"?) Someone always ends up crying, I get a knot in my stomach and wolf down my food just to get it over with. It's not fun or relaxing or enjoyable for anyone, to be honest.


There are many layers to my discomfort with this normal family ritual. My children have gradually gotten into the habit of expecting a treat after dinner. Christmas kind of oozes into the many celebrations of late Winter/Spring (Valentine's Day, Easter, and all five of our birthdays). It seems we're always celebrating something, and with celebrating comes treats. 

While promising a treat if your child eats their dinner up works in the short term, it intuitively feels wrong. But what mother hasn't fought her intuition in order to get her child to eat, sleep in her own bed, etc? Sometimes bribes and threats are all a girl has going for her.


I've decided I'm done with it. I'm going to experiment next week. Six small meals: 7 a.m., 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 4 p.m., and 7 p.m, with room for one more where needed. What's the difference? Do we hold on  to this notion of eating a big evening meal because our foremothers did it? 


This pattern of eating small meals throughout the day resonates with my own levels of hunger. It seems to me that by feeding my kids this way, I might help to regulate their blood sugar so that they will eventually stop craving the treats that have become a habit for them, and skip the daily "witching hour" which coincidentally corresponds with the time of day when I'm trying to make dinner. 

Because what is it that we really want? I know what I want: healthy children with healthy eating habits. By 4 o'clock, everyone is cranky and hungry and clamouring for a snack. I'm stressed and trying to get dinner ready at the worst time of day in terms of my children's moods, putting them off, promising that dinner will be ready "soon". I'm teaching them to ignore their hunger to eat at a prescribed (and admittedly arbitrary) time. 

Here are the ideas I've come up with for mini-meals:


*smoothies made with berries, bananas, nut butter, kefir or milk
*granola/cereal with milk
*mini-pitas with tuna salad
*ham slices rolled around pickles!
*scrambled or hard-boiled eggs
*hummus and veggies
*fruit and almonds
*crackers with cheese
*soup
*sushi
*chickpeas
*toast with nut butter
*cold chicken with steamed veggies
*yogurt
*dried fruit
*popcorn
*homemade muffins/energy balls/healthy cookies


With a bit of planning and preparation, it seems like it might actually be easier to have lots of little things on hand rather than feeling this pressure to cook a "meal".


How do you feel about this? This might be one of those unexpectedly inflammatory posts. A dear friend who is a mother of five does not feed her children snacks. They eat three meals a day, and because they don't have snacks, they eat what they're fed. I can see how that kind of system would be necessary when feeding seven people seven days a week. I know people who feel the ritual of sitting together as a family is vitally important (and I would agree). Please be assured that we will enjoy these mini-meals together, around the kitchen table as always. 


But can't we sit around a tapas plate taking the foods we prefer, listening to our own bodies when they tell us we've had enough, learning to not eat whatever is on our plate just because it's there? It seems to me that teaching our children to savour and enjoy their food will teach them much more about healthy eating than making them eat "one more bite" will. I trust my children's abilities to decide when they are satisfied; if they are offered only (or mostly) healthy fare, it seems that there would be nothing more to worry about.


Please share your thoughts, experiences, eating habits, and ideas for mini-meals. It can't hurt to try it out, can it? I'll keep you posted.

School Angst

I just wrote, then deleted a whole post about my happy weekend.

Why?

Because I wasn't writing about what I need to write about, but am avoiding.

Jude starts school next week. Grade One. Full time.

I'm having a hard time with this. Don't get me wrong. The school is small, safe, supportive. His teacher is young, enthusiastic, and sweet. He knows the children in his class. I'll be there on alternate days.

I trust his ability to cope and thrive with this change in his life.

But that didn't stop me from waking up at four in the morning, unable to fall back to sleep.

It's kind of putting me into a panic, actually. Thinking about him sitting inside through the beautiful fall weather. Thinking about the past six years with him, the closure of the chapter of his life where HOME was where he was most of all.

It all just feels...wrong. Call it my intuition. A child's place is at home, with his or her mother. I know this.

I also know that children all across the world go to school. Parents all around the world deal with it. It becomes part of the routine, for children to be awakened early, rushed through breakfast, dropped off, picked up...then starting it all over again the next morning.

I need to have a big cry. Because this feels like grief. It feels like a forcible ending to his childhood. While I look forward to my days at home with just the girls, I know I'll keenly feel his absence every day: his drawings, his funny stories, his requests for his favourite songs. And I know that gradually, he'll forget what it was like to be here "most of the time".

I'm not in the habit of ignoring my gut. Robin and I have agreed that if he does not seem to be thriving, we'll make arrangements any way we can to home school him. I'm trying to reassure myself that he will be fine, that he'll love school and look forward to seeing his friends each day. I'm trying to be positive (and am putting on a brave face to reassure Jude that it's going to be great). But I kind of feel like my heart is breaking a bit.

Any words of comfort or advice out there?

So Long, Farewell...

"I don't have time to (enter activity of choice)".

Exercise. Cook healthy meals. Play with my kids. Paint my bedroom. Put in a garden.

What? When did this happen? I LOVE these activities. Or at least, I used to, before blogging and commenting on the blogs of others gobbled up some of the most precious commodity in every mother's life: my time.

I need to centre in on my real life for awhile. I came to this conclusion last August when I wrote this post. I was inspired by the brave decision of my friends at Twig and Toadstool to step away from a space they'd nurtured and loved when it became clear that their real lives were suffering. Remember "Childhood Magic" and how shocked we all were when she closed her wonderful blog? I wonder how she's enjoying her life and time these days...I imagine she LOVES it. Nicole at Frontier Dreams wrote about this very busy-ness today. I have also been deeply touched by this heartbreakingly honest post over at Apples With Honey.

I feel myself floating away from the mother I want to be. I want to be engaged. I want to be in the moment. I want to breathe through those moments (and there are many) of impatience and anger. I want to sit and have a tea party with my daughters for hours if they so wish it, without glancing away in distraction. I want to build Lego robots with my son.

I love that feeling of flipping the page of a calendar and seeing that the coming month is mostly blank. You can choose to fill up every square, or make a solemn promise to carefully consider your yeses for the month.

After a month of birthday craziness, I flipped the calendar to June.

Case conference. Stag and Doe. Stag party. Shopping for weddings. Wedding rehearsals. Friend's wedding. Brother's wedding. Birthdays. Class trip. Kindergarten graduation. Grade 8 Graduation. Report cards due. School Fun Night. Assemblies. Gigs. Doctor appointment. Anniversaries. Data due.

Oh. My. Goodness.

How can we possibly have writing on 26 of the 30 days in what is already a busy month in the home of two educators?

So. I'm taking the phone of the hook, so to speak.
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July is looking good. Two music gigs. One bellydancing gig. Kittens due. A birthday and an anniversary.

Bring on July.

(*haha...I had to take a deep breath before I hit "publish post"...but as with any great leap, I know the fear will soon be replaced with relief that I just did it...there). Phew.

The Best Laid Plans of a Working Mother

If you read this post you'll recall the efforts I go to to ensure that we all get out the door in one piece on Monday mornings. Last night when we went to bed, lunches were made, clothes were laid out, and three pairs of rubber boots were lined up and ready for the little feet that would fill them in the morning.

Winter decided to have a last hurrah and the snow blowing outside this morning encouraged me to put my kids in their snowboots instead. We got out the laneway 45 minutes later than usual, after a harrowing search for Violet's snowboots. After a thirty minute drive, I pulled into town with ten minutes to spare. Margot complained that her tummy hurt. I said in a singsong voice, "We'll be there soon!"

Not soon enough, apparently. As I turned into the parking lot, Margot barfed. And then again. Jude stretched out of his seat to see (because what's more exciting than looking at barf, really?), I roared at him to sit down, and then my mind did that mother thing, where it fast-forwards through the issue at hand to all the reverberations, and simultaneously finds solutions with lightning speed and clarity.

I dropped Violet off, raced to school, got Jude into the classroom, made notes for the supply teacher, then realised that Robin wouldn't have space to bring both Jude and Violet home (as he drives three neighbour children to school every day). I picked up Violet, then arranged for a friend to pick Jude up after school. I've washed the barfy clothes, coat, and blankie, and fed them lunch.

Now Violet is complaining of a sore tummy.

Bowl at the ready, movie on, child wrapped in cosiest afghan on the couch, I am ready for Round 2.

Bring it on.