Good Food...Healthy Kids

I'm very mindful of what our family eats these days...who isn't, right?
And while I know a lot about what is good, what is right, what is healthy...
I'm not so good at putting it into practice.
I always was better at theory than practical :(
I have two kids.
My eight year old boy won't eat meat, apart from bacon and sausages.
Fortunately he will eat a wider variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs, cheeses and milk.
He's one of those kids who will not try new things. Nothing on his plate can touch anything else.
He is extremely fussy (understatement of the year!).
My five year old girl loves meat! Lamb chops are her favourite.
She will try almost anything and loves to eat.
But she does not like vegetables...not even mashed potato...neither does my boy.
I don't get that. I loved mashed potato as a kid!

The problem is I'm not very adventurous in the kitchen.

I don't like to cook or bake.

I know, I'm a bad mum.

I have Jessica Seinfeld's Book and a lot of it sounds and looks fabulous,

and also too much bother.

So what I'm really asking for here are some really easy...I'm talking basic...recipes.

Do you have any tried and tested, fail safe ideas or recipes that your kids love?

If you do would you please link them up below or leave a link in the comments?

Pretty please......

I'll be eternally grateful.

Presenting...

May I present...

The Fairy of All
(as she dubbed herself)

You should refer to her as Your Majesty.

But of course, Your Majesty.

And she can *magic* anything.

Your Majesty, could you *magic* me a mansion with one hundred rooms and ten working toilets?
No?
What about just one working toilet?
(Oh yes, our one and only toilet was recently out of action...again!)
No?

It seems The Fairy of All who can *magic* anything is only good for one thing...



Looking too damn cute!

Could This Be A Winner?

Hold the phone people, I think I'm onto something!

I've battled, I've struggled, I've pretty much given up on getting my 6 year old boy to try new food.
He pretty much eats the same thing every day...for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
And I'm pretty much sick.of.it!

But, what can you do?
I've read loads of books, blogs, and advice on getting children to eat healthily.
I have Jessica Seinfeld's book for Christ's sake!
I don't use it, but I have it.

Anyhow, any of you who know anything about my boy will know he gets hooked on things.
Last year it was the solar system, the year before that it was numbers, before that it was Cars...you get the idea.

His thing-of-the-moment is the world.
The globe, world maps, countries, population, languages, and any facts and figures that pertain.

So, here's the brain wave.
I happened to pick up a packet of Asian rice snacks in the supermarket.
You know...like these...

...but there was no way he was going to try them...

until

I told him they were Japanese.
You should have seen his eyes light up.
He tried them.
He liked them!
And now he thinks he might even give sushi a go...
because of course I told him that is Japanese, too.

This is a major breakthrough, people!

I'm excited.

Now I'm looking up food from around the world like it's an assignment worth 100%!

Wish me luck and suggestions are most welcome.

Tidy

Is being tidy one of those things you either are or you are not?
I'm thinking it might be.
I like things to be tidy.
I'm not judging others here.
I'm just saying I like my spaces to be tidy.
My house, my room, my kids' rooms, my classroom (when I had one), my work spaces.
That's not to say they always are.
But if they're not, I'm cranky.
Mess makes me cranky.

But can you teach tidy?

My mum is incredibly tidy. There is never a thing out of place in her home. It's usually clean too, something mine is not.
That's another one, you're either a clean freak, or you're not. I'm not.
But despite my mother's great effort to teach us all to be neat, tidy and clean...we didn't all turn out that way.
So now I'm questioning whether teaching your children to be tidy is a pointless activity?
They'll know for sure that I value tidiness because I bang on about mess all.the.time.
But what if I spend years nagging them to be tidy, then they move out and happily make mess in their own space?
I don't want to be tidying up after them for years, but I also do not want to nag unnecessarily.

What do you do?

Do you make your kids keep their rooms tidy, or do you do it for them?
Mine are 6 and 3 and I still do it for them mostly.
I do get them to help, or give them a number of things to put away.
My 3 year old is an excellent little helper.
My 6 year old, not so much.
We're getting there, but it is painful.
I guess it's painful for everyone though, right?

Got any tips or tricks for me?
I'll be forever grateful.

Why?

If there is one word that I would like abolished from the English language right now, it would be...

Why?

Don't get me wrong.
I love answering my kids' questions.
I love answering any kids' questions.
I was a teacher for 14 years, I have answered a lot of questions.

But when the conversation goes a little like this, as it did this morning at school whilst walking past the building site (that every school has right now, right?), I think I'd rather beat my head against a brick wall...

Me: Oh look, the little cherry picker is bogged in the mud and the big digger is pulling it out with a chain!
Miss 3: Why?
Me: Well it rained last night and the dirt turned into mud and it's wheels got stuck.
Miss 3: Why?
Me: Because it is heavy and the wheels can't get through the mud.
Miss 3: Why?
Me: Because mud is sticky.
Miss3: Why?
Me: BECAUSE IT IS!

(On the way back from the classroom about 5 minutes later)

Miss3: Why did the wheels get stuck?
Me: *groan*

(Back at our house about 10 minutes later)

Miss3: Why are the wheels stuck in the mud?
Me: *facepalm*

It wouldn't be so bad, if only most of our conversations didn't go this way.
*sigh*

Yes, I am a Short Order Cook!

I'm jealous of mums who have kids who will eat anything, or most things, or even some sort of variety of things.

Comments like...

I don't cook different dinners for my kids, I'm not a short order cook...

If you introduce new foods early, they'll eat anything...

I don't let my kids leave the table until they've eaten everything on their plate...

My kids eat what I tell them or they get nothing...

just make me feel like a bad mum.

And having my mother-in-law say to me, "What does he eat? You must tear your hair out," doesn't help either.

No, I don't tear my hair out.
No, I don't turn dinner time into a battle.
No, I don't make eating a major issue.

But I do see other mum's blogs with lovely dinner ideas and wish....if only my kids would eat that.
I do get sick of cooking the same thing for the kids...every.night.of.the.week.

I have one child that will attempt new foods, and is a pretty 'good' eater.
And I have one who won't. 
You can give me any advice or ideas under the sun, it's not going to change the fact that you cannot force a child to eat what they do not want to eat.

I've read a lot of books on this topic.
I've spoken to a lot of other mums.
I'm not a good cook, I'm not a foodie, so I'm not coming up with new ideas every day.
To be honest, I don't think it matters as much as some people do.

I don't fill our house with junk food.
We very, very rarely eat take-away.
My children are both in the healthy weight range for their ages.

It would be really nice if they did eat anything.
But it would be nicer if other people didn't put so much pressure on the whole eating issue.
They eat if they're hungry.
They eat healthily enough.
That's good enough for me.
I can live with the boredom of cooking the same thing for them every night, and something else for us,
because the one thing this parenting gig has taught me is that...

'this too will pass.'

Beautiful Mother's Day

We had a gorgeous day.

Check it out over at another one of my blogs, Life & Times

Hope you had a lovely Mother's Day!

Sleeping Angel

I bought my two year old little girl some new Winter pyjamas this morning.  She wanted to try them on then she wouldn't take them off because she loves ducks, so she's been wearing them all day.

She was just playing quietly in her room and asked for a bottle (that usually means she's tired).  I told her to lie on her bed for a sleep and she said, "No." She was so busy.

Then all was quiet.

I went to investigate and saw this. 

My sleeping angel.

A Blog Post By My 5 Year Old

Hello everyone, I'm Isaac, and I'm 5 and a half.

Mum was tagged by a nice lady called Lucy and so now I get to write a whole post on my mum's blog.

Last night I just couldn't get to sleep.  I tried and tried but I kept thinking of things I needed to tell Mum & Dad.  So Mum came and sat on my bed and told me about this special place I can go to in my imagination.  She said it has all the things that I love in it and it's just for me.  At first I didn't really know what she was talking about so I asked her what I might see there.  When she said I could maybe drive in cars like in my xbox360 games I started to get some really good ideas...

Here's some questions she asked me about it and my answers:

Mum - What is your special place called?
Me - The World of Power

Mum - What can you see there?
Me - My favourite games, xbox, rivers, birds, heaps of things. There are big rainbows that stay there forever. The whole sky is a rainbow.

Mum - What can you hear?
Me - Birds tweeting, the rivers, fish talking, and the birds talking to each other.  All of the animals talk to each other.

Mum - What can you smell?
Me - Flowers.

Mum - What can you do?
Me - Play xbox and Playstation games. I can drive in my own real car with a key down streets.  And it can drive for 1000 hours. My car is a really fast car, it goes 500 km/h. 

Mum - What colours are in your special place?
Me - The rainbow, the river water is all rainbow and all the birds are rainbows. And the rocks are rainbows and the grass.  Everything is rainbow (I'm giggling really hard as I tell Mum this 'cause it's funny!).

Mum - Do you like going to your special place?
Me - Yes! 2 billion percent.

Mum - When do you think you might go there in your imagination?
Me - Every night.

Mum - Does it help you get to sleep?
Me - Yes, a thousand percent.

Mum - Is there anything else you want to say about your special place?
Me - All the people there are my friends.  That's all.


Thank you for reading.  I hope this makes Mum's hits go up because I love looking at the graphs!

Now Mum says I have to pick five other mums to tag so they can interview their kids...any age, any topic. Mum is showing me everyone's pictures and I have to pick...

I picked...

Michelle @ Michelle Dennis Evans (because she's my aunty)
Kath @ Squiggle Mum
Lori @ Random Ramblings of a Stay at Home Mum
Taryn @ This is Taryn
Jodie @ Mummy Mayhem

The 'Special Place'

We have weeks at a time where the kids will go to sleep at bedtime, no problem at all.
Followed by weeks where they come out of their rooms at least five times each and just can't get to sleep.
We're in one of 'those' phases right now.

So last night when my 5 year old boy came out for the 6th time and said he really, really couldn't get to sleep, I took him back to his room, sat with him for a little while, and suddenly remembered something I used to do with my classes when I was teaching lower primary.

It was a form of guided meditation for relaxation where I would take them on a journey to their 'special place'.  I did this to calm them down if they were hyped up, and to help them learn self control and inner awareness.

It went something like this...

I would get the class to lie on their backs on the floor with their eyes closed and listen as I said:

Imagine you are lying on a soft, fluffy cloud.
The cloud is all around you, it is comfy, cosy and warm.
As you breathe in, the cloud lifts a little off the floor.
Every time you breathe in it goes a little higher.
Breathe in...your cloud goes higher...breathe in....higher....until you're high above the Earth, safe and protected by your soft, fluffy cloud.
Your cloud is taking you on a journey.
It moves slowly at first, then gets a little faster, and a little faster, until it's zooming through space and time.
It has brought you to your special place.
A place just for you.
It has all the things you love.
The things you love to see.
The things you love to smell.
The things you love to hear.
The things you love to do.
The people you love.
The toys you love.
The games you love.
Your favourite colours are everywhere.
Without moving, just in your imagination, hop out of your cloud and have a look around your special place.  See how many things you can find.  This place makes you feel happy and safe and peaceful.  Spend some time in your special place.


And I would wait a few minutes and let them imagine.
After we visited a few times, I suggested they give their special place a name if they wanted, or they could just call it their special place.
And later I introduced them to the worry tree that turned up in the middle of their special place.
The worry tree was a very big, beautiful old tree that had a hole in the trunk.
They could walk up to it and whisper to the tree anything they were worried about.
The tree would take their worries away and then give them a big cuddle with it's branches.
Later still (because I worked in Catholic schools) I would introduce God and Jesus into their special places.
I told them God or Jesus had something very special to tell them, they had to listen very carefully to see what they said.
When they came out of their special places they could write or tell someone what God or Jesus told them, if they wanted to.
Some of the things they said were the most beautiful experiences of my teaching days.

So, anyway, where was I?
Oh yes, my boy couldn't sleep last night and I suddenly remembered the special place.
So I explained it to him without the guided meditation (one day I'll do that bit, when I'm not so tired)  and I was quite amazed with how his special place turned out. It was a very cool place!  So completely different from mine.
Yes, I do have a special place, too!
As I guided the kids through it I couldn't help but imagine my own.
It's a very pretty, very girlie place.  And surprisingly it's outdoors.  I am such an indoor girl but my special place is an endless series of gardens, with soft light and dappled shade.  There is water everywhere, waterfalls, glassy lakes, trickling streams, babbling brooks, sandy beaches, but I never swim.  There are sweetly scented flowers everywhere, mostly in shades of pink, purple and blue.  And there are swings, chair swings, tyre swings, swings from trees.  There are cushions, picnics blankets and day beds so I can read or just lie there.  And there are sparkly crystals everywhere, in the pebble paths, in the flowers, everything glistens and sparkles (told you it was girlie!) There's more...but you get the idea.

I didn't tell my boy anything about mine until after he'd imagined his special place because I didn't want my ideas restricting his.
At first he asked me what he would like to see because he couldn't think of something so I suggested cars or computer games and what he came up with was...

I'm going to tell you all about it in my next post!