Sweet Success: Being Honest About Sugary Yogurt
My kids love yogurt. They always have. But I now realize, looking back at the trajectory from their early, plain-yogurt-slurping days to now, when they pilfer my private stash of Greek yogurt in between sucking down squeeze yogurts, that I let too much sugar into the system. And once you go sweet, can you go back? To this? That’s James, currently addicted to any kind of yogurt that comes in a tube or is perceived to be Mommy’s, when he was just under a year old (dig how he swipes the back of the spoon on the bowl, the way …Keep Reading
Settling Down: Thoughts on September
Since my last post was a sort of farewell (“here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?”) to August, I thought I’d check in with an I-love-September post. School has started. Despite a first September week plagued by high humidity and rain, it’s now my favorite, most energizing, soul-pleasing (not to mention hair-pleasing) weather of the year. It’s someplace between warm and cool, the air is crisp, the breezes ideal for sleeping, the sky as blue as it ever gets. For me, life speeds up in a pleasing way, after the doldrums that the summer ends on. My niece just got married …Keep Reading
The Hard Lesson of the $5 Fries: Me, My Kid, and Envy
I talk a good game about how important it is to let kids feel disappointment, to experience failure. That’s how they learn important life lessons, how they grow stronger, how they develop skills to get along in a world that, come on, is not fair or, as kids would prefer it to be, “even.” In a New York Times Room for Debate feature the other day, I contributed an essay about this very subject. Life isn’t fair, kid. On the lighter side, I refer you to a five-second scene from one of my favorite movies, The Princess Bride: Still, …Keep Reading
Food From a Pouch: Space-age, or Scary?
Kids have been drinking out of pouches for a generation at least. It bears remembering that when many of us were in our juice-drinking days, juice boxes and pouches, as well as sippy cups, didn’t exist. Now, it’s more common in some circles for kids to drink out of so-called spillproof devices or disposable containers than to use cups. I get (and have availed myself of) the convenience factor, but there’s a point at which convenience far outweighs commonsense. And I think we may have arrived there. It occurs to me that drink pouches (and now food pouches, about which more in …Keep Reading
Take a Big Gulp and Read This: Does Anyone NEED 32 Ounces of Soda?
I have never had a giant-size or super-size or Big Gulp size soda. In point of fact, I’ve had almost no regular (as in, non-diet) soda in my life, apart from a span between about age 12, when I suddenly decided I liked grape and orange soda or root beer, in cans served up out of garbage pails full of ice at family parties; and age 16-ish, which is when I switched to Tab. Lots of Tab, then Diet Coke. I don’t even drink much of that anymore, since my husband and I decided telling our kids “no soda” while …Keep Reading
Book Giveaway! Debbie Koenig’s “Parents Need to Eat, Too”
A few weeks ago, my friend Sally and I were emailing about dinner ideas; she’d invited us to her house for a causal family dinner, and wondered what might be good for her to make, and for me to bring to help out. She wanted to make pulled pork in her slow cooker, at which suggestion my mouth immediately commenced watering. But what about the kids? Between my two and her two, we have varying levels of picky/mercurial. Pulled pork? Would they go for it, in the absence of a fall-back serving of mac-and-cheese or plain pasta or hot dogs? …Keep Reading
Fighting a Rising Tide of Candy: What’s a Mean Mom to Do?
I got a letter from a reader recently that I want to share: Hi Denise, I love your blog. My only child, my son, is 5, and you certainly present an interesting take on many issues that I’ve faced as a mom. I was wondering whether you had an opinion on the candy culture in elementary schools these days. It seems like every other day my son is coming home with a lollipop that he got from the treat bag for being good. Now, I’m delighted that he’s being good, but enough with the sugar already! I certainly don’t …Keep Reading
Confessions of an Impatient Mother
Well, the title says it, eh? I’m confessing: I’m horribly impatient. (Those of you who know me are, I realize, sitting there rolling your eyes, like, duh.) I want to be started with things, and then I want things done. When I wanted to become pregnant, I wanted it to happen pronto, and quickly became frustrated and upset when it took longer than immediately (6 months, for the record). I was sure we’d never find a house we liked and could afford (it took 3 months, for the record, though the closing process dragged for another 5 months until …Keep Reading
The Experts Aren’t Always Right, Part One: Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad, Choking Hazard? (Guest Post)
Two things this week: One, I’m starting a new occasional series, this one called “The Experts Aren’t Always Right.” And two, I’m going to treat you to a guest post as Part One of the series, by my colleague and fellow blogger, Debbie Koenig, who writes the (seriously) delicious blog, Words to Eat By. The experts are, I believe, trying to get it right, trying to give us life-saving advice. Use car seats, for example. Don’t smoke two packs a day while pregnant. But when the attitude veers from helpful to paternalistic and big-brother-ish, and when following it means erasing …Keep Reading
Mommy’s Meatballs: Why Keeping Control Over Kids and Food Pays Off. Sometimes.
So the boys started their six weeks at the local YMCA camp yesterday. I love this camp. Love it. But as with any situation where kids gather, bad food options seem to be the norm. I work around it; I try not to get my hackles up when I see the Snack Shack stocked with Nerds and Sour Patch Kids and heaven knows what else. Kids like candy, right? The battle I’m having — already! on day one! — is whether I’ll give them money every single day for a trip to the Shack (or is it Shak?). This intro …Keep Reading
