Anyway, while I aspire to feed my kids whole foods, unfortunately my kids don’t always agree.  Tonight for dinner I convinced Brett to not only eat but also cook vegetarian chili (!) while Alex and I made beer bread from a Trader Joe’s mix.  We all sat down at the table , we gave the kids the main dish, the bread, and water with splash of juice to drink.  AAAANNNNDD….not one bite of chili made it into either kidlet.  We try to give the kids a plate with a variety of things and they have to at least try everything on the plate.  If they don’t, there is nothing else to eat but fruit – an apple or banana, sometimes grapes if we have them although usually the fruit is incorporated on the plate in the first place.

Emily Kate usually does pretty well, tonight being the exception for her.   Alex though…well, he probably goes to bed without eating a single thing since his afternoon snack three times a week.  There were even sweet potatoes in the chili and at one point in both their lives, sweet potatoes were the one food they would never turn down.

I’m so sick of all the articles in parenting magazines giving me tips that don’t work to get my kids to eat what’s on their plates, but the one thing that makes me feel better about all the failed advice is that I can’t be the only one with this problem or there wouldn’t be so many worthless magazine articles on it.  So far the only thing that’s worked for me is hiding veggies in smoothies or spaghetti sauce.  (Yes, I own and like Deceptively Delicious.)

So I need parents out there to tell me what you do.  Am I an ogre of a parent because my kids go to bed without eating dinner?  How can I become the food martyr I aspire to if my kids won’t eat thier stupid vegetables?  Not to mention wasting organic food hurts much more than wasting junk food.

I grew up with an adopted brother.  The “adopted” part is important, because my parents didn’t know the child they were getting was born to an alcoholic mother, who abused her body and his the entire time she was pregnant.  He came to our family when he was 6 months old, sickly and weak, and nearly died before his first birthday.  A few years later, he was diagnosed as hyperactive with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome along with a laundry list of other things, including violent behavior and aggression. 

One of the suggestions our pediatrician gave my mom was the Feingold Diet and we followed it to the letter.  No artificial colors, flavors, mint, or chocolate.  As a kid, I hated never having Kool-Aid in our fridge, and used to love going to visit friends who ate mac n’ cheese from a blue box.  But as much as I resented having to follow the diet, to say the difference in my brother’s behavior was noticeable would be an understatement.  When he ate anything artificial, he went absolutely crazy with rage – kicking people and walls, screaming, and looking like he couldn’t contain the anger that shook his body.  To even write about this is difficult, because most people who know me in my adult life don’t even know he exists.  It’s always been easier to be an only child when people ask, rather than explain the complicated relationship that I still haven’t fully accepted.

Several months ago, I noticed Alex having the same out of control reactions to little things.  My mom was the one who first pointed out that his worst behavior came right after a treat of some sort: a lollipop or a candy apple. It made me physically sick to think that my child had the same behavioral reaction to artificial colors.  How was this possible?  I exercised and ate organic, healthy food while I was pregnant, and now I was going to have to go through the same drill that my mom used to, explaining politely that , “No, he doesn’t want/can’t eat those yellow crackers/birthday cake/bright red popsicle” to the other moms.   Even more disturbing to me though, was the thought of Emily Kate growing up witnessing the cycle of violent behavior, frustration, and rage that I grew up with, so to reject something that I knew worked seemed stupid, despite hating the idea of it.

I started reading.  I read a book on the Feingold Diet, and I read The Unhealthy Truth.  I convinced my husband that the majority of our grocery shopping had to be at Trader Joe’s.  (TJ’s products don’t have any artificial colors or flavors.)  Then I started noticing articles popping up everywhere – on growth horomones and high-fructose corn syrup, on pesticides and antibiotics.  All of a sudden it seems like our society is starting to realize that how unhealthy we are is directly proportionate to how much we’ve messed up our food.  A simplistic summary is to say that everything from allergies to obesity to behavior has a root cause in what we eat because our bodies don’t know how to process all the crap that we put in our food.

Yesterday one of my friends on facebook posted a link to this article on MSNBC.  This is a decent introduction to what I’m talking about, but it focuses more on why we’re fat, rather than why we’re unhealthy.  At least it’s a start.  The bottom line is we all need to wake up and stop trusting that just because a corporation or the government says that something is healthy and safe doesn’t mean it is.  When animals get high doses of antibiotics, we do too when we eat them.  Genetically modified corn hasn’t been modified to be healthier, it has been modified to be resistant to pests – which means it has pesticides in it’s genes.  We have no idea what artificial horomones in milk and meat are doing to our endocrine systems.  Stop feeding your kids colored goldfish crackers.  Don’t cook with Splenda or mix it into smoothies like the commercial tells you to – why does your smoothie need sugar anyway?

This post isn’t preaching about being all organic or vegetarian, but an encouragement to be more aware and make simple changes where you can and where you see the need.  There is so much we don’t know about “food technology” but the evidence is growing that it isn’t the best thing for us.  So why not become educated?

(Note that this is the same argument that I used to allow myself ice cream EVERY DAY when I was pregnant, substituting “dairy” for “fruit”.)

(Also note that I am not pregnant now, yet still using the same arguments to eat whatever I want.)

The drawback is that these lovely, chilly vats of delicious fruity-ness are PRICEY. And if you make them yourself you can leave out the bad things like sugar.

If you love smoothies like I do, but your blender sucks and doesn’t completely eviscerate the ice, and is so noisy your kids burst into tears; and you wind up drinking an unsatisfyingly chunky juice drink until a rogue piece of ice clogs up straw and you give up, do I have a present for you. 

(All right, a present IDEA because I am not a cool enough blogger to give away free crap.  How do I get companies to give me free crap that I can keep give away?)

Here is is…You need a Magic Bullet. I didn’t believe it either because how often do infomercial products do what they claim? How could it be better than a $125 blender?

One of my friends asked me what I got for my birthday and I told her. She got very quiet, then asked, “Is that a vibrator?”

It’s not, but it is portable, completely chops the ice, and you can make the drink right in the cup! (Because my other blender complaint was taking apart the huge pitcher and having to wash all the pieces every time I used it.)

Portable proved important over Thanksgiving, when I tossed it in at the last minute and then turned fruit smoothies into something much more valuable during the holidays – a daquiri.

When I don’t know what to feed Alex for dinner, I bullet up some fruit and milk and he keeps busy painting the walls until I can microwave a toasted cheese. And then I don’t feel so bad because hey! At least he had some fruit!

It has re-inspired me to make my own baby food for Emily Kate.  I did this for Alex, until I discovered just how EASY it was to buy it and that was the end of the homemade baby mush.

And, when we don’t have any ice cream, I have been known to dump whole milk and Nestle Quik into the bullet and froth it up until it resembles a milk shake.

So see why the Magic Bullet deserves a special place in your bedside drawer on your kitchen shelf? It’s life-changing! It’s healthy! It’s homemade goodness without a stove!  It’s what you want for Christmas!

Alex eat more (variety).  Me eat less (of everything).

I cannot remember the last time Alex ate dinner.  Night after night, in a vain attempt to get him to eat something besides chicken nuggets or spaghetti, we put a happy, chopped up dish of whatever we’re eating (and this includes the night we got Thai takeout) in front of him and watch as he whines, then cries, then tries to push it off the table in a fury that stem from dinner not being in nugget form.  Quicker than outfielders we’ve become at catching the bowl just before it drops onto the floor.

At this point one of us barks, “This is what’s for dinner!  You eat it or sit quietly.”

And he does.  Sit quietly that is, with occasional swats at the bowl.

This is usually the point where I would start freaking out…my child is going to bed without taking even a BITE of dinner!  But…eh.  And then I snack on what he didn’t eat.

One of the benefits of NOT being the one to feed him every meal is that I can ASSUME that he gobbled up every last crumb of everything while at daycare, and that everything equals healthy vegetables and leafy greens and lean sources of protein.  (Snort.) 

Here’s where worlds collide - I come from generations of “pickers” who would eat anything rather than throw it away.  It’s taken a while to get past the guilt of throwing away food, but with a toddler you throw away a LOT of food.  The guilt was suffocating, but I knew I’d had a breakthrough at lunch today when I threw away the rest of the sour cream from my taco, instead of putting it back in the fridge to take home and save for another day.  And there was a LOT left, easily enough for another taco…and…see where that gets you?

Last night I really needed a glass of wine.  But I really wanted some ice cream.  I wavered…ice cream and wine really don’t go well together but…

Oh yes I did.  I sat on the floor in the kitchen with the laptop and ice cream on one side and wine (in a juice glass, because wine glasses can’t go in the dishwasher, duh) on the other. 

Why the floor?  I have no idea. 

How did they taste together?  Awful. 

And what did I do?  I drank wine and ate ice cream and looked at baby pictures and in the end I stayed up way too late and ugh. 

I also noticed that whenever a baby is crying and I can’t fix it I stand in the pantry and stuff potato chips in my face, like a big fat ostrich sticking it’s head in the sand except my sand is the sound of crunching.

There’s a whole lot of crazy in this post that I could ask for advice on, but what I really want to know is…

WHAT KIND OF WINE GOES WITH ICE CREAM????????????????

I hate to bake, I don’t know the difference between saute and fry, in short…any type of culinary creativeness just makes me feel tired.

Not only that, I am BAD at it.  I get distracted and burn stuff.  One by one I trashed an entire set of pots.  I ruin things that practically make themselves.  I set off the smoke alarm on average once a week.  I melt plastic bags to the top of the toaster oven.  I once forgot the eggs when making muffins…from a mix where all I had to add was water and eggs.

And man was I burned (bad pun get it?) when I had to waste money on a new oven.  That I’ve now had for 3 months and have used approximately 4 times.  Twice for frozen pizza.  Once by my mother-in-law who was so appalled by the poor showing we made last time they visited that this time they trucked an entire roast and all the ingredients for dinner from Pennsylvania.  Once to make frozen french fries.  Which set off the smoke alarm when I decided that broiling them on high would make them crispy like Mickey D’s.

Why then, am I obsessed with recipes?

I think it’s for the same reason that I love office supplies.  Office supplies are about potential.  It’s not about actually being organized, it’s the mere idea that if everything were filed and tabbed and highlighted then life would be so much simpler.

So too, with cooking.  I read recipes imagining thier tasty, homemade deliciousness and the mouth-watering smells.  Envisioning my dinner guests raving over my gourmet cooking that I made in my fabulous kitchen while my children played quietly by my feet.

My excuse has always been that I didn’t have the time, so busy with work was I that by the time we’d get home it was too late to make a meal.  But I would love to if I had the time! Alas…

The past few months of staying home have proven that even when I’m here all day, I rarely get around to chopping and dicing and mixing.  By the time I get the kitchen clean, usually around 2pm, the last thing I want to do is mess it up.  And Law & Order is on then.

So as much as it pains me to admit it, my name is Heather and I subscribe to recipe blogs purely for the food porn.  I will never make any of these dishes, just like you will never do it on the copy machine at work.  I like to eat, but I want someone else to make it and clean up. 

I feel a great weight lift when I tell you..I hate to cook.  Tell me it’s not just me.

The argument being that yes, it was one piece of cake because theoretically all the little cake-y, frosting-y molecules were still connected but that it in NO WAY qualified as ONE SERVING.

I stand before you in judgement.

For reference, that is a MINI Hershey bar next to it.  And yes, I had already had a bite.

Mount Cakemore viewed from the base station.

After the shower, they sent me home with enough cake for me to have a piece with for every meal for the next week.  Seriously, my bicep is sore from carrying the cake leftovers out to the car yesterday (whether that says something about the cake or my state of fitness I’m not sure).

And this morning, before I could change my mind I carved it all up and re-distributed the cake among Brett’s work and Alex’s daycare, leaving only one piece for me to have after for dinner tonight. 

ONE PIECE. 

To be eaten in it’s entirety guilt free (on a plate with a side of milk) because after this there is NO MORE.  There will be no sneaking over to the fridge to peck away at the cake forkful by forkful until the leftovers are stale and crumbly and I’m sick of cake and myself.  No sugar highs.  No hearing the whistling siren sound of the cake calling me to come have a bite while I sit on the couch.

ONE PIECE.

Edited to add: Here’s the picture…

My mom got me that toaster oven for free from her book order points.  She’s a teacher, you see, and every time your kids order books from those flyers the teachers send home, the teacher racks up points to get free stuff.  And some of it is good free stuff.  If I’m not mistaken, I think my parents have a camera that also came from orders of Judy Blume and Choose Your Own Adventure books.

My toaster oven…my friend.

They just don’t make toaster ovens like that anymore.  This one was simple.  It had nothing digital, it toasted stuff and occasionally baked if I so desired.  I was never ambitious, I never asked it to roast a chicken in there (who am I kidding?  I don’t know how to roast a chicken) even if the included recipe book implied that I could.

I thought replacing you would be easy.

I went to the home store to pick up an identical model.  No high-falutin-technical-doodads for me, no sir.

Apparently, non high-tech toaster ovens do not exist anymore.

I got the next best thing – the cheapest model of the same brand, with dials instead of buttons – and unpacked it.  Gently, I packed the old oven away in the box and sent it to a happy place. 

Or, I pitched it in the garage where it will sit for all eternity along with the cabinets we ripped out two years ago, multiple bags of scooped kitty litter, old windows, and bugs.

For two weeks, my new toaster oven performed admirably, with the one drawback being an annoying ticking sound to let me know my bread was toasting.  Until, it stopped toasting and continued to tick.  

If I slammed the door really hard, it would kick on and get busy.  But if I forgot and just heard the ticking, by the time I realized that no work was being done, i.e. toasting, someone (ahem) would be yelling for his breakfast waffle and it would still be a frozen slab of ice from the freezer lovingly sitting in the oven, all home-made like, waiting to bake.

I couldn’t return the toaster oven until I bought a new one because we are a toast-needy family and I was determined not to succumb to the realm of ginormous, shiny, $150 digital models.

I went to Target and found an even cheaper model from a brand I’d never heard of, and returned the first one. 

Can you pick out the red flags in that sentence?

Eagerly, I unpacked the box and expected great things.  I turned it on with nothing in it just to make sure we didn’t have the same problem with ticking and no heat.  Har.

Four minutes later the smoke alarm was going off, even though it was a good TWENTY FEET AWAY from the new toaster.  Rushing into the kitchen, I felt a wave of heat but no flames.  The bottom of the cabinet above the toaster was hot to the touch.  Mr. Toaster glowed a malicious red.

I am determined, and probably a little stupid so Mr. Cheapy-cheap Toaster is still here.  His door sticks a little when you try to open and close it, but goddammit he’s HOT!

Toasting goes like this:

Attempt #1

Yes, every single time I take a bite to see if it’s edible.  Answer=no.  Answer to the other question you’re thinking=peanut butter.

Attempt #2

Hmmm.  Still a little raw.  Maybe a few more minutes.

Milk waiting thirstily for it’s companion peanut butter toast…

The end result of something akin to edible is usually obtained by hovering over the toaster watching the object inside slowly brown.  And yes, this is a little like watching paint dry.

Not a day goes by without something being toasted in our house.  I cannot switch to a regular toaster because occasionally I like to warm up pizza in there.  And I hate it when a fat bagel gets stuck in the slot and I have to go in there with a knife and dig it out.

I need a toaster oven that is simple, and relatively inexpensive, and will stop playing these games with me.  I know it exists.  We just haven’t found each other.

I am not that person.

I’m not really sure what I weighed in high school. I don’t know how much pregnancy weight I gained, because I mentally blocked it after the first 40 for the love of God.

Since I don’t know how much I weigh, when I start to gain weight, it sort of sneaks up on me. Like I just feel fat one day and then my pants are tight, so I assume I shrunk them in the wash. This happened in college, and I think it’s happening again. The problem is by the time I realize it the Chubmonster is firmly wrapped around my middle, glued there by brownies and ice cream and potato chips. And now that summer is gone and big fuzzy sweaters are about to take hold, the only incentive is being able to breathe in my work clothes.

Despite what the mommy magazines tell me, chasing my kid around the living room and doing little bits of housework clearly do not add up to enough exercise to counteract the poor eating habits developed while trying to work and parent full time.

So it looks like I need a lifestyle change. Har. Here is where I set lofty goals for myself. If I come close to even one or two, I should be able to dislodge Chubby.

1. No drinking during the week (unless I have a really bad day, then a straight shot of low cal/low carb vodka is allowed.)
2. I will try at least one recipe from Deceptively Delicious and I will do it smiling (without wanting to punch Jessica Seinfeld’s millionaire, household-help-having smiling cartoon face. I praytell anyone to explain to me how exactly you can make a weeks worth of purees in less than an hour all the while smiling and chit-chatting with your funny, funny husband. Oh right, your servants do the prep, steam and clean up while you push the button on the blender in between laughing at Jerry’s jokes.)
3. I will attend yoga at lunch on either Monday or Wednesday. (Probably so far the most do-able item on the list, and included so I can feel successful seeing as how I’ve already done it this week.)
4. I will add a session of cardio during the week. (This should be easy because I’m counting anything over 20 minutes as my session. The hard part is keeping track of where my sneakers are and remembering to pack workout clothes so I HAVE NO EXCUSE.)
5. I will snack on fruits and vegetables while Alex eats dinner, instead of stealing Cheerios and goldfish crackers off his high chair tray.

Or, maybe I could go Hollywood and consume nothing but coffee, water, and grapes for a few days. That oughta do it.

Completely randomly this morning, one of my new co-workers and I started talking about coffee and artificial sweeteners. He mentioned that Splenda had given his brother, who is diabetic, severe migraines that started in the back of his neck and moved up to the front of his head. At this point, I hadn’t mentioned anything about my issues because it’s not exactly how you introduce yourself to people unless you want to be labeled a whiny complainer or hypochondriac.

My eyes must have widened, because he asked me if I used it and if I ever got headaches. Without relaying the entire conversation because that would bore you and me, I put down my 2-Splenda coffee and googled splenda and headaches and can I just say OMG Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (WTF for you non-military types)? (To digress – Someone actually had a blog titled “Splenda Sickness” which, really? How do you write an entire blog about this? Do you keep using the stuff every day just to see how bad it gets?)

The articles I found the most interesting were not the ones with people complaining about their issues but this one, which taught me that while Splenda is made from sugar, the way they make it is by replacing three molecules with CHLORINE molecules.

And that it was actually discovered when scientists were trying to create a better PESTICIDE. How can this be? The manufacturer and the government say it’s made from real sugar! It’s natural! I’ve been hoodwinked by the evil corporate machine! Again! I can’t remember when I started using 2 packets a day in my coffee but it’s been at least a month. And I’ve been generally feeling crappy for at least a month.

So yeah, my project this evening will be cleaning out the cupboards. I’ll be taking my Splenda, mixing it with a little water and using it to kill the spiders that are starting to stealthily creep back and spin new webs in the kitchen windows.

************Edit**********

I hereby apologize to my desk chair at my old job. The headaches are not your fault after all. But you still sucked.

************Edit #2********

Lead in lipsticks is the latest thing to worry about. I linked to this particular article because it included an FDA quote saying the agency was aware but has no plans to do anything. And before you think that I allow the government to be 100% responsible for my health and well-being, I do not. For the most part, I distrust much of the media and government. The point of this post is that sometimes your wake up call to take better care of yourself comes in unexpected ways.