How to Steal From, and Lie To, Your Child

If you do, for heaven's sake, don't blog about it.  THAT just exposes your unethical behavior to the world.  Really, you should KEEP QUIET.

But IF you, say, steal a piece of candy from that tempting Halloween bucket of crap, and then don't fess up when asked about it, you might want to read this post.

Let's imagaine the scenario, shall we?

Your child comes home from school and asks to have ONE -- JUST ONE! -- piece of candy.  "As soon as you finish your homework," you say.  You expect a riot, but are surprised when your child obediently does his work and then goes to rifle through the meager remains of his Halloween loot.  He looks up, a bit forlorn, at finding only Jolly Ranchers and stale lollipops left.  "Uh, Mom, did you happen to take that last piece of Hersey's Dark Chocolate?"

"Oh, no, honey, you must have eaten it."

"Oh."

You think you're in the clear.  You're going to get away with it, even though you know that you shouldn't. But rationalizations abound:  your kid doesn't like dark chocolate as much as you; you've saved him from more sugar consumption; dark chocolate is really for adults, not kids.

Then, for reasons unknown to you, your kid goes to use your bathroom.  He emerges with a puzzled look.

"Mom, I think you MUST have eaten the candy, because I found the wrapper in your bathroom trash."

DAMN!

Lesson learned:  if you are going to steal from your child AND lie to the poor dear, at least have the good sense to take the wrapper outside to the garbage can.  Better yet, go stick it in the neighbor's trash can.

Soccer Snacks

My youngest is now playing soccer, along with his older siblings.  It's adorable; the kids swarm around the field during their six five-minute three-on-three games like bumblebees.  They get very sweaty.  They have a lot of fun.  Some of them even seem to understand the basic rules.

But then comes the after-soccer "treat".  I'm used to this by now, since my oldest has been playing for nearly 10 years.  Most parents, even those who profess to be very concerned about health and particularly concerned that their kids stay fit, think that the after-soccer snack should be a "treat".

It's very ironic that such parents drag their kids from pill to post to make sure they get plenty of exercise and then hand them something like this:

Sorry the picture is small; that's a 10 oz. Nestle Juicy Juice Apple Juice and a Kraft Handisnacks Oreo Cookies 'n' Cream thing.

The juice has 140 calories and 33 grams of sugar.

The Kraft Handi-Snacks Cookies and Cream also has 140 calories and 13 grams of sugar (and 6 grams of fat).

According to this website, forty-six grams of sugar is equivalent to 3.8 tablespoons.  I measured that out; it looks something like this:

Anybody who reads this blog knows that I do not hold perfection up as the ultimate goal. But gosh darn it, we can do better than handing our kids 46 grams of sugar with next to NO nutritional value after a soccer game.

Irony?  I was debating folks yesterday at Consume This First about the benefits of bringing ice pops to soccer games.  (They were against; I was arguing they are hardly the worst choice.)  In fact, compared to what my kid got today, a popsicle looks positively healthy at 40 calories a pop and only 6.9 grams of sugar.  I agree that sliced oranges and water would be even better, but given the range of "bad" options, popsicles aren't so bad!

The Mom who is organizing the treats asked me if I wanted to participate.  She asked me this before I had even seen the treats for today.  Had I already known what was going to be offered, I might have phrased this differently, but I said:

"Sure!  I'd love to, but I have a bias in favor of healthy snacks and unprocessed food with no high fructose corn syrup."

She said, "Well...you can bring whatever you want to."

I said, "Well, I mean -- could we as parents kinda come to an agreement that we're ALL going to bring healthy snacks?  I mean, it's kind of ironic that we bring out kids out to play a sport and then sometimes feed them junk."

Her reply:  "If people already agree that they're going to put themselves out to bring a snack, we cannot tell them what then to bring."

There was a time in my life when I would have agreed with that. 

But now I no longer do.  Do you want your kid to be healthy?  Want to lower their risk of obesity and diabetes -- the former condition affecting up to 60% of US adults and the latter affecting up to 1 in 3 children born after 2000?  Step one might just be to stop feeding them so much sugar.

Whatever happened to after-dinner dessert being the only time during the day that people ate sugar?

Time to go back to the basics:  snacks are FOOD not processed junk.  And dessert is also FOOD and only once a day.

I'll be bringing the oranges and water.  We'll see what happens.

Cleaning

I'm pretty sure if I blogged about my days as often as other people do theirs, about 75% of my posts would be about cleaning.

B-O-R-I-N-G!

It's not so much that I'm some fanatical person who needs everything just so.  I'm not Martha Stewart. 

Not at all.  I can put up with piles of paper here and there and shoes left askew in the entry hall.  I can live with the blind that needs repaired for a SCARY long time before I actually take it down and find a company that fixes blinds.  I can live with a broken shower door.  And I can tolerate (albeit with a good sigh or two) the sign on my daughter's bedroom door that reads, "My room was clean yesterday.  Sorry you missed it."

What I cannot put up with is literal horrible DIRT. 

But I have three kids.  Doing sports.  (Read:  There is a HELL of a lot of laundry and a lot of sticky surfaces.)

And a cat with an irritable bowel.
I'll spare you those details.

Anywho....I clean and scrub and pick up and organize and cook and shop and fold and iron. 

A. LOT.

To help myself, I made the wonderful decision a few years ago to have somebody clean the house every other week.  (And the kids have chores, too and my husband *tries* though he is not, by nature, particularly aware of when things need to be cleaned.) 

Twice a month.  I can live with it, although I still twitch at the reality that I don't do *all* the housework the way, say, my mother did.

It feels fairly bourgeois and uncomfortable to admit.  But there it is.  I do have help.

Kind of. 

Said cleaning lady has now not shown up for FIVE scheduled cleanings (fortunately, not in a row). 

I've never fired somebody before.  But honestly, if you don't want the job or can no longer do it, is it too much to ask to just LET your employer know?

I waited around for her to show up.  She didn't.  I sent her a text.  She didn't reply.

She's gone.

So, I took off a whole day from my real work to clean today.

Benefit:  if you REALLY clean a house, top to bottom, there is *absolutely* no need to work out that day.  I was a sweaty mess when I was done (perhaps more so than usual because I also decided to clean out a cupboard or two AND I took apart the plumbing underneath my bathroom sink in order to take care of a clog myself). 

Today felt very productive.  The house looks pretty good.  The sink is draining beautifully.  Everybody has clean sheets on their beds and ALL the laundry is put away.

Unfortunately, something will need cleaned again tomorrow. :)

Miracles

Last night, I made a three bean salad (kind of a mix between the recipe my mother used to make and one from Freedman and Barnouin's Skinny Bitch in the Kitch).  With that, I served watermelon, pickles, tomato slices and "chik'n" gardenburgers on whole wheat buns.  And well, my husband did sneak in some non-vegan "Pirate Booty" as a side item.  (The boys were thrilled; I, of course, don't eat that.)

Miracle of miracles -- EVERYBODY was happy with the food.  If you've read very many of my family-oriented posts, you know getting four people (my daughter is away this weekend) to like the same food is indeed a miracle.  (To be fair, it's also a miracle when everybody is happy with a non-vegan meal, too.)

THEN, my 10-year-old announced he's vegetarian.  Now, this boy LOVES meat, so I'm not expecting that this vegetarian thing is going to be permanent (at least, I'm not expecting it to stick right away). 

Since I am very aware of the tendency for parental enthusiasm to backfire (that is, to cause the child to do a 180), I just kinda...shrugged.

"Oh!  Hm!  OK!  Uh...why?"

He was equally nonchalant.  (He's nothing if not perceptive...I'm sure he knew *exactly* why I was acting so uncharacteristically unimpressed by a declaration of vegetarianism.)  "Well," he said, taking his time to answer, "I just think I like the food."  He shrugged back at me and put yet more ketchup on his burger. 

Maybe Reagan was right that ketchup counts as a vegetable in the diets of children...they certainly eat far more that the recommended serving size.

My husband and I shared a conspiratorial wink across the table. 

I thought about all the things I could say -- animals that were (theoretically) alive because he wasn't eating meat, environments saved because he wasn't contributing to animal agriculture, improved health.

I kept quiet.  For now, it's enough if he decides he just....likes the food.

Cooking in An Almost Vegetarian Household with Three Kids

One of the challenges to becoming *totally* vegan, at least for me, boils down to one thing: cooking.

I've never been much of a cook. I *like* good food. I even *like* cooking, though I have absolutely no intuitive sense for it. I rely solely on recipes and pray like hell they've been written for non-cooks like me.

Cooking has never fit well with my life; left to my own devices, I'd probably eat a very monotonous diet and only cook twice a week. I love raw vegetables and fruit; I like bagels, brown rice and oatmeal just fine; I've been known to define microwaving a bocaburger as "cooking".

To cook really good meals takes time, and, especially in the evening, time is in short supply and kids' tempers are on a short fuse. (Admittedly, those tempers are generally dramatically improved by food.) I think the kids' diets (and mine) have suffered from my cooking (or lack thereof). This has been true for a long time, since before I went on this "vegan kick". I'm trying to correct that.

I have to remind myself, before I get going too far here, of what I have done right with the kids' diets: they have ALWAYS had fruit and vegetables every day. We've always limited sweets (though not as much as some parents). We don't drink soda except on special occasions. Juice is pretty much only served at breakfast. We've never encouraged milk drinking, figuring that they could do just fine with water and could just use milk on cereal. (That's still the case.)

I think I could have done a better job becoming vegan had I learned to cook BEFORE I had kids. Once I had kids, to be totally honest, cooking became what we did between 5 and 5:30 every evening in order to feed the kids SOMETHING that resembled dinner and in order to keep them on a kid-friendly schedule (i.e., in bed and bathed by 8 pm).

A typical meal here (then and now, since "almost veganism") is steamed brown rice and stir-fried vegetables (depending on who is eating it, with tofu or chicken or shrimp). Another typical dinner meal is tacos -- now we use fake ground beef, but the rest of the meal is what it always was (canned refries, chopped lettuce and tomatoes, hot sauce, avocado, hard shells, and for some, cheese). Neither meal takes more than 30 minutes to prepare.

I also admit that neither meal is very exciting and the kids are tired of both of those. So. Am. I.

Now that I work and two of my kids do sports, the evening meal is even more rushed and even more of a non-event. In theory, I think it's terribly important for a family to eat dinner together every night. But, for practical reasons, there are several nights a week where that does not happen. I also -- again, theoretically -- think that if you are driving your kid to soccer and getting McDonald's on the way home, that is, to quote Barbara Kingsolver, an "interesting" choice.

But I have to plead guilty to having done that every once in awhile (if you need statistics, I think once a month is honest). I've done this EVEN since becoming "almost vegan," even since having my consciousness raised as to the horrors of factory farming.

I have purchased "Happy Meals" for the kids on the busiest of our evenings, on days when the best laid plans have gone awry and I've already placated the kids with fruit and crackers and they are HUNGRY and it would be a form of cruelty to expect them to wait until 8 pm, when a homemade dinner would be available.

The irony of being almost vegan and doing this is not lost on me. But neither is the reality that fast food -- though overused by millions -- does exist for a reason. Alice doesn't live here. And neither does a homemaker. And, at least here, there is no vegan/vegetarian drive through that I know of (and the kids refuse to go for the salad options -- they're KIDS).

The slow food movement is an important one -- and one I like to think I'm now a part of -- but there are nights when I can't do slow food.

I regularly read several vegan blogs. Many of them emphasize how food, prepared with love and time, tastes better and is better for you. I don't doubt that. But it *seems* that many vegan writers are childless (or perhaps they never mention their children). It *seems* that they have lots of time to shop at a variety of farmers' markets and specialty grocery stores and that they have even more time to lovingly prepare their food.

I love days like that. I just don't have enough of them.

One of the vegan cookbooks I have even says that they (the writers) prefer "two hour recipes". (Admittedly, they do have many recipes marked with "45," indicating that, in theory, you should be able to prepare the whole thing in 45 minutes. The problem is that if you want to prepare two or three of these 45 minute recipes -- things that go together-- you're probably not going to get them all done in 45 minutes, and the next thing you know, you have been cooking for two hours and everybody is cranky as hell and SOMEBODY needs to be taken SOMEWHERE.)

I rarely have two hours to dedicate to dinner, at least not on school nights. I DEFINITELY don't have that time for breakfast or lunch.

Breakfast here is still frozen waffles and fruit, or boxed cereal and fruit, or oatmeal and fruit. Lunch here is still (for the kids) PB &J sandwiches or soup, and fruit or vegetables and crackers. An occasional yogurt finds its way into their lunches, too. (Sorry, vegan readers...)

We also eat a variety of frozen vegan things (various veggie burgers), and ramen noodles (are they vegan??). I worry, sometimes, that the vegan or vegetarian police will show up at my door and serve me some legal notice for giving my kids ramen, steamed broccoli, and cut up bananas and a fruit smoothie for dinner. Sure, the vegan lasagne with the homemade sauce, fake cheese and tofu ricotta would be better for them (if I could get them to eat it), but I only have time for that kind of recipe about twice a week.


I do think things are improving here. We all eat even more fruit and vegetables than we did before. Meat is served (to everyone else, not me) about three times a week (but only one meal a day). There's definitely less dairy consumption, though I suspect that won't disappear from this house entirely.

But slow cooking every day? I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Progress

It's been awhile since I've written on the supposed topic of this blog: transitioning from a conventional diet to a vegan one.

I'm pretty much "there," though I occasionally allow a little dairy if I'm in somebody's house and the only options are carnivore or vegetarian. It's rare in my house that I do this, but outside of the house, it's sometimes hard to eat or drink without allowing for dairy. At church, for instance, I go ahead and have coffee with milk if I have coffee at all. At events like birthdays or holiday gatherings, I'll go ahead and have a dessert that probably has eggs and butter in it. Obviously, if I host the event, the food is vegan. But it's a bit much for me to bring my own vegan dessert to somebody else's party (I'll do so if asked). For example, if the only options at a potluck for main dishes are eggplant parm and fried chicken, I go ahead and eat the eggplant, leaving most of the cheese to the side. I have privileged being a polite guest over strict dietary preferences.

I'm comfortable with these allowances, though I know the die-hard vegans would not be.

As for the rest of the family -- my husband happily eats whatever vegan dishes I make, though he has not transitioned and has no plans to do so. When he cooks, which he does often, he makes a vegan version for me and the "regular" version for himself and the kids. He shops for vegan things without my asking him to do so. He's been very supportive. I think at least 50% of his meals are vegan, another 25% vegetarian, and probably another 25% have some meat. Not bad. I can live with that.

The kids? They all still eat dairy, though I restrict quantity much more than I used to. They're now used to hearing, "You already had one yogurt, so, no, you can't have cheese." They still eat meat, though probably only twice a week (which, in all honesty, is about the rate we used to eat meat as a family). So...they have more vegan options, but I can't claim they always go for them. Many nights, my husband and I eat a vegan entree, while the kids reject it and end up eating a sandwich or a bowl of soup, both of which are usually vegetarian.

It's a real uphill battle to CHANGE the way a family eats. We were already eating very healthily, at least compared to most American families. Vegetables and fruits have always been plentiful here; low-fat milk and whole grain cereals and breads too. The myriad ways to interpret "poor diet" -- processed foods, high sugar content, low fruit and vegetable intake, low fiber -- have never been good descriptors of my kids' diets, although my middle child is a junk food junkie if left to his own devices.

The additional burden -- and that IS what it is -- to forgo meat AND dairy -- is a big one. So, for now, I'm at peace with being the family vegan, setting an example, calmly answering questions (if they're asked!), and hoping that the kids decide on their own to eat even better than they already are.

Out. Of. It.

I cannot find a babysitter. Every teen I know is doing something. Something terribly important. Sports. Dance. Play practice. Student government. Habitat for Humanity volunteer work. Facebook. Blogging. SAT study. None of them have free time. Even to earn money.

This kind of teenage reality is vastly different from the one I knew -- I babysat two to three times a week in high school (and did dance and music and student government and had a boyfriend). But if I wanted some money to spend with said boyfriend, I had to earn it. Hence, my interest in taking care of somebody else's unruly children for a few evenings a week. But I have found no teen like me in this neighborhood, and my personal life is suffering for it!

Surely, some of this difficulty in finding a sitter is due to the kind of neighborhood I now live in -- "well-to-do" my Mother would have called it -- the kind of place where parents scurry around, trying to find all the "right" things for junior to do, because, in theory, doing them (ALL) will improve his chances at getting into Harvard. Well, here, they hold the local University in equally high regard, and, it turns out, it's getting harder and harder to get kids in there, too. So it doesn't even matter that they are only thinking of the local U as their goal -- that's lofty enough, and junior "needs" to do everything if he's going to get in. I understand their angst on one level, but personally, I wish their kids had less to do and more need to earn some moolah. I'd be willing to give them some in exchange for a few hours of babysitting.

I feel out of it. I don't identify with this teenage life (or the child version of it, either). Turns out the child version is equally hectic, because the scurrying around starts really early. Is my four-year-old playing soccer yet? Well, no. Is he swimming independently yet? Uh, no. He has taken several sets of swim lessons, but he hates them and has yet to put his face in the water. So I let him quit. Has he taken an art class yet? Again, no. He plays up in the playroom and in our big backyard, making up his own games, playing with play-doh and Playmobil toys and little toy cars and plastic boats and pretending to be Batman and pretending to catch fish with his older brother's old golf club. That's OK with me, but some people around here think I'm terribly (dangerously) old-fashioned. I'm clearly not getting him PREPARED for the REST of his life.

I feel out of it on other things too. For instance, my 12-year-old is BEGGING for contacts. At 12? Really? That seems young to me. But then she told me that "everyone" has them. I demanded evidence. Christina. Hollie. Rose. Tara. Tessa. God, really? Apparently so. So, the parenting "clock" that I was working with (14 sounded like a young-enough age to permit contacts) is off by two years. Oops.

Then my 12-year-old injured her foot and, for now, wears an ankle brace. With the brace on, she can't put on her right shoe. I offered to let her wear a pair of my slip-ons, a pair that I thought looked kinda nice. Her response? "Ooooh NO! Those are MOM shoes!" Oh, God! Am I that out of it? Do I wear -- eerie music here -- "MOM shoes"? Apparently I do.

I'm going to scurry off now, to pick up my kid at football practice, as soon as the other kid finishes her guitar lesson. I'll be wearing my glasses and my Mom shoes, and I still don't have a sitter.