candy in the morning time, candy in the hot sunshine

I just wanted to remind you all that this song exists.

My kids want candy all the time.

I mean, ALL the time.

They'd ask me for it a hundred times a day!  And the more they asked, the less I knew what to say.  Do I become a "no" machine?  Do I give up and always say yes?  Do I have them quit asking and just eat it whenever?  Should I throw it all away?  Am I being consistent?  Should I make rules about when I'll say what?  

You get the idea.  Candy was driving me crazy.

*brainstorming*

Here's what I came up with.

Each of my kids has a napkin on the counter.  Every night, they can choose four pieces of candy to put on their napkins.  The next day, they can eat it whenever they want, with four rules:

1. Not during dinner

2. Not after you've brushed your teeth at night

3. When it's gone, it's gone.  

(If you ask for another piece, I'll say no and you'll have one less tomorrow.)

4. If you ask to eat it, I get to eat one of yours. 

And can I just say, life has been amazing.  Little Boy usually eats all his before breakfast and Little Girl spaces hers out a little better, but hey.  Whatever floats your boat.  They're happy because they get candy "whenever they want," and I'm happy because I know how much they're eating but haven't had to answer a candy question in a month. 

The candy they choose from is whatever's been on sale lately.

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Two is the beginning of the end.

Peter Pan

snack bags!

I try to make most of my posts for a general audience, but this one is especially for parents.  We've tried a few things lately with our kids that have worked SO well! so I felt like I needed to share. :)

Problem: It's snack time! and I never know how much food to give my kids.  Whether we're talking crackers, nuts, dried fruit, ... - Too little and they're hungry again in five minutes.  Too much and they won't eat dinner (and I'm feeling guilty about giving them a pound of Chex Mix).  "Little Boy, I'm sorry that my handful came out looking like more on her napkin than yours."  

BUT They never complain about the amount of snack in a pre-packaged bag, I noticed one day.

Solution: Snack bags!

The day I gave them pre-packaged snacks and enjoyed the heavenly sound of no complaining, I went home and got out my snack-sized Ziplock bags, kitchen scale, and our boxes and bags of snacks, and I started separating.  I measured out bags according to the serving size on the nutrition labels (usually around 30 g / 1 oz).  I ended up with around 50 baggies of snacks.  I put all the bags in a designated drawer in the kitchen, along with any granola bars and "official" snack packs we had.  I explained to the kids that some bags look like more full, but that they all had the exact same weight - some foods are just heavier than others.  

what's in our snack drawer right now

Sometimes I surprise them by putting in two baggies of chips or M&Ms, but it's usually crackers, dried fruit, or nuts.

We also have a snack box in the fridge that has string cheese and baggies of carrots, apples, other produce.  Sometimes I let them have one from both the drawer and the fridge - crackers and cheese or apples and peanut butter, for example.  The kids are allowed to eat produce basically anytime so it's handy to have that cut up (especially if it's something like cucumbers or broccoli).

We fancy.

We have snack time at about 3:00 every day.  When that time comes, I no longer have to think of an answer to the question of what snack will be.  I don't dread the whine that comes when I give an answer someone doesn't like.  I just tell them to grab a snack bag!  And everyone's happy.  They're excited to choose their own, and I'm excited that I don't have to choose anyone's but mine.  We literally have never had a complaint about portion size, either.  When it's gone, it's gone and snack time's over.  If you're still hungry, good!  That means you'll be ready when it's dinnertime. :)

This has also worked great for when we're going to be away from home at snack time.  Sometimes I have baggies in the car, but usually I just tell everyone to grab one before we leave.  So much more convenient than passing around a whole box!  Even when we went on a car trip recently, we just brought a bunch of baggies.  

The adults in our family follow the same portions, by the way.  It's been great for helping us not eat a TON mindlessly.  I wondered if we'd fizzle out after a week, but we still love them as much as we did on Day 1!  This is definitely a trick we'll be sticking with.

Part 2: CANDY

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Life isn’t to be found in holding on and looking back, but in letting go and looking forward.

Life Goes On

Philip Gulley

A Tale of Two Pinterest Projects

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

The best: 

We were having trouble with the kids getting up as soon as they woke up, even if they woke up much earlier than normal, so we decided to try this out.  The hope was that they would still let themselves get rest even if they were awake early, and it's totally worked!  Red = Stay in bed.  Yellow = You can get out of bed, but you have to stay in your room quiet.  Green = Feel free to play outside of your room.  White = Breakfast time, if it hasn't already happened / Wake us up, if we're not already up.

The worst: 

There's a recipe out there that calls for 1/2 - 1 bar of grated soap, one tablespoon of hot water, and food coloring.  Mix them all together, press the soap into a cookie cutter, freeze it (to set it), and voila!  You have a homemade bath crayon!

Each kid made one.  In both cases, the crayon started falling apart with the first line "drawn" - and it didn't actually draw anything, unless you count leaving behind colored chunks of soap.  Maybe I used too cheap of soap?  These are the remains of his after one bath (most of which time was spent sitting in the soap dish):

It started as a gingerbread man.

The moral:

It can be fun to try out Pinterest ideas, even if they don't work out.  But be prepared for them not to work out, just in case.  :)

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There is always a reason that people do things a certain way.

Jennifer Riding

let's get real.

For those of you who don't know me in real life or otherwise don't know, Joel and I recently became foster parents.  There are hard parts, but overall we love it!  I have been thinking about some things lately, though, and ask as many of you as want to to chime in.  The invitation's extended to people who have young children, people who have had young children in the past, and people who were young children at one point and remember what their parents did.  And anyone else with something to offer. :)

I keep having questions come to mind that I want to ask other parents.  I need someone other than blogger moms to compare myself to.  Slash... I know I shouldn't be comparing myself at all, and it's really not that.  I really feel pretty good about my mothering and how I do it.  I guess I just read these articles and see pictures and want to know how REAL people really are.  

How much TV do you watch?  We watch about an hour a day - one episode of "Mister Rogers's Neighborhood" (a kids' TV show I love and don't get annoyed by like the shows our current kids like) and sometimes part of Dolphin Tale, which they love.  We would maybe watch more if they had a longer attention span... haha. :)  

What kinds of snacks do you eat?  Sorry, but we're mostly crackers.  I know we should be fruits and vegetables or string cheese or yogurt... but we're mostly crackers.  One ate a saltine cracker sandwich today for his snack.  I don't care if you judge; I feel fine about it.  I mean, we're not going to do that every day, but I feel fine about it doing it today.  

It was just Halloween.  What do you do about candy?  Ours probably eat like... five pieces a day.  Not always, but often I let them have one after a snack or meal.  It depends on how well they ate their real food.  I don't feel bad about it - candy stashes don't last forever and it's only been a week.  

I know this is a hard question to answer, but how much do you actively play with your children?  I've heard some people say it should be all the time; I've heard others say if you do half an hour dedicated playtime in a day, that's great.  I, personally, am a huge proponent of individual (and with other children) playtime.  I play with them a lot, but I also do a lot of sitting back and watching - or not watching.  I consider it a victory if they'll play in the backyard without me being outside.  I try to make sure they know I'm paying attention to them, and if I'm on the computer, I typically only do productive stuff (not checking Facebook, blogging, or reading blogs), but I think it's important to not always play with them.  They tend to use their imaginations better when I'm not actively participating and they learn about conflict resolution, and I like that.  When I play with them, we're dancing, reading, playing at the playground, or drawing on white paper usually.  We're not doing elaborate crafts, practicing writing in sand, or taking tours of cool factories.  

What about fruits and vegetables?  I give them one at lunch and one at dinner.  So... two-ish servings a day.  (How big is a serving of fruit / vegetable for a person who only eats half a cup of food?)  Sometimes we have apple or watermelon for a snack.  I should be better about that, but the excuse I'm giving myself is that they weren't raised with me, so I'm allowed to transition them into fruits and vegetables.  (The real reason is probably that I don't always think of it or feel like fighting when I think crackers are decently healthy.)  Also, we eat cereal for breakfast every day and a sandwich almost every day for lunch, usually with meat and/or cheese OR peanut butter.  

People talk about how parenting is so tiring and moms never take time for themselves.  It is tiring, I often have to get up a few times during the night with a crying child, and I'm worn out at the end of the day, but I also take a nap - or at least a close-eyed rest - every day.  Quiet time is about an hour every day after lunch.  Hopefully you didn't break anything while I was having mine and you were ignoring yours.  Oh, and when it's time for me to take a shower, want to watch the Disney channel?
EDIT: I don't say bring that up to say that people who say parenting is tiring are wrong or to say I do things better than anyone.  Parenting is DEFINITELY tiring and what works for me doesn't work for everyone.  It's just, when I wrote that paragraph, I had just barely read an article about a mother who was always putting herself on the back burner and wanted to say that doesn't need to be the case.  You're important, too!  (I didn't have any negative comments on this part, but it's just been sticking in my mind and rubbing me wrong, so I wanted to explain.:)

Oh, and we basically have no toys.  We have a lot of Legos, a lot of books, some plastic food, and a slide in our basement.  That's about it.  I love not having the clutter or needing to find places to put toys, and they really haven't seemed to need more than that.  Also, we hardly ever have to clean up.

So.  What is your parenting life like?

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“I was a fool!” Percy roared.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows