Happy Chaos (11 page)

—Nicole A.G.

 

O
nce our kids get past the baby years, we're confronted with an amazing—and scary—prospect. Those infants who weren't able to do anything without our help can suddenly talk, and walk, and do plenty of other things without us—and without our permission. And when that happens, we as mommy or daddy, who were so used to being nothing but one hundred percent supportive all the time, are faced with being . . . disciplinarians. You can definitely add that to the long list of things that I never expected to be when I grew up. But as a mom I've learned that discipline isn't a bad word. I'm the least rigid person on the face of the planet, but still, we all need some rules to live by.

I'm lucky enough to be able to spend a lot of time with my kids. I work from home, and even when I'm juggling ten different things, my kids are right there. It's wonderful! And I'm so fortunate! It's also
exhausting.

I'm also incredibly lucky to have a supportive and totally involved spouse. As parents, I think we agree about the really important things, but sometimes our parenting styles are just,
well
, different. Jason is more of a daredevil, and the girls love that. At the end of the day, he swoops in from work full of fun energy. I want to go with the flow and just be happy that the girls are happy, but sometimes I feel like the bad cop to his good cop. When they're racing around the house or jumping on the beds, I'll admit that I'm kind of losing my mind.

It's a little easier to be good cop when you work outside the home, and you've missed most of the daily meltdowns. Just the other day, Poet was exhausted and inconsolable. It was that point in the evening when it's not quite time for bed yet. I've noticed the girls' emotions can be very close to the surface during that time. And of course that's when I'm also tired and my patience is on its way out the window. Anyway, Poet really wanted her daddy—
now
. Jason was working late, but finally, Poet seemed so upset, I decided to call Jason to see if he could come home and help out. By the time Jason got home, Poet was fine, the crisis was over, and he kind of wondered why he'd raced home. I tried to explain that as calm as things might have seemed when he walked in the door, not a half hour before, all hell was breaking loose.

That situation was a good reminder to me that a lot of times, when the girls are at their most difficult to manage, it's not because they're being defiant—it's because they're tired. I was frustrated trying to get Poet to relax, because I was trying to fix whatever problem she was having—instead of realizing that her biggest problem at that moment was that she just needed to go to sleep. I've learned, through a lot of trial and error, to try to give them a little room for their emotions when they're exhausted like that.

Weekdays can be tough. The kids have full days, and Jason and I are each running around doing our best to manage work and parenting, but weekends are when we all get back on the same page and remember that we're a team. During the week we might be Mommy the disciplinarian and Daddy the daredevil, but when the weekend comes, everything evens out. We're both with them all day, every day, and we get to appreciate how each of us contributes. And every once in a while, Daddy gets to play bad cop, and Mommy just smiles.

I can't remember the first day Poet said, “Don't speak to me like that,” or rolled her eyes at me, but I am pretty sure I was in complete shock. Now I try to remind myself to breathe as she is having her five-going-on-fifteen moments. Heart-to-heart talks are great, but when our kids are having a hard time articulating how they're really feeling, I will ask them to draw it out. Rather than send the kids to their rooms to calm down, I'll ask them to draw me a picture about how they are feeling. I give them a piece of paper and some crayons or pencils and let them put all of those overwhelming emotions down on paper. It gives them a safe place to put their feelings, no shouting needed. It has really worked wonders. We look at the drawing when they are finished and we talk about it, and usually all of us are coming from a much calmer and happier place.

Question of the day: What is your favorite dessert to make with your kids?

“Homemade waffles with fresh fruits.”

—Mary

“A trifle—it's so easy and fun. You make the chocolate devil's food cake and let the kids help you layer the Cool Whip, cake, pudding, berries, and fruit.”

—Hillary

“Birthday cakes for the people we love. The kids love to get the decorative icing and draw themselves. Plus, there's something insanely cute about ‘Happy Birthday' written by a 3 & 5 year old!”

—Jennifer

“Homemade cookies. It may sound simple, but with a 3 year old rolling dough with a pin and my 10 year old decorating it's hours spent in the kitchen baking and cleaning flour off the kids' noses.”

—AnnaMae

 

M
y mom was a food artist, and my earliest memories all involve food in some way. I vividly remember her cleaning shrimp in one side of the sink while I sat in the other. She came home from events with lobster tails and salmon, and our perfect dessert was a massive bowl full of Queen Anne cherries, eaten outside. Meanwhile, my dad's side of the family—the Nashville side—stuffed me with fried chicken and corn three meals a day—it was
heaven.

Here I am covered in eggs. My mom let me wear my food while I ate it, which was one of my favorite things to do as a kid.

 

I don't remember any food ever being forbidden when I was a kid. Food was a good thing, something to enjoy, and there was nothing negative about it. And thankfully my kids love to eat everything—Indian, Japanese . . . and cupcakes.

The other morning I took the girls out for breakfast, and Jagger really wanted a red velvet cupcake. So I figured, why not, and I got cupcakes for both of the girls. While we waited for our eggs, Jagger dug into her cupcake right away but couldn't get past three bites. Poet decided to save her cupcake for later. My friend Stephanie walked over, took one look at my girls with their cupcakes for breakfast, and she laughed teasingly and said, “What's for dessert?” A few minutes later she watched in amazement as the girls sat gobbling up their eggs and toast—and veggies, too.

I guess what some people would call being permissive, I call being flexible. Of course, we don't eat a bag of M&M's before dinner, although I have been known to give the girls one or two when they ask. My belief is that food is like anything—try to deny your kids' impulses too long and eventually they're going to blow and probably go overboard in indulging.

Some of my favorite memories from childhood are the special treats my mom would put in my lunch box. It might be a candy ring, or a candy necklace. Then one day she put something
really
special in my lunch box. Right around that time there was a launch of a new alcoholic beverage that was packed, conveniently enough, in containers that looked exactly like juice boxes. My mother grabbed a six-pack of those fruit-punch boxes, not realizing that the second ingredient was vodka. She sent it in my lunch box the next day. I pulled it out, and my teacher grabbed it right out of my hand and called my mother. Poor Mom; I can only imagine how she explained that one away.

Of course, I'm not recommending we all stick booze in our kids' lunch boxes! But I do think a treat now and then is a fun way to get our kids to look forward to their lunches. Creating healthy eating habits is all about giving our kids a healthy balance. We wear organic clothing and go to the local farmers' market often, but we also have gummies in the cabinet—and our friends' kids who don't have any sugar at home all want to come over to our house. I have a friend whose son refuses to eat anything vaguely unfamiliar. He came over recently and I convinced him to try a “surprise smoothie.” The surprise ingredients, known only to me? Avocado, broccoli, and chocolate ice cream. He loved it. It helped that it looked (and tasted) more like chocolate ice cream than broccoli, of course.

I try to make food as fun and exciting for my girls as my mother did for me. A few weekends ago my kids and my nieces decided they wanted to make a candy cake. By the end of it, there was candy everywhere, and the cake was way too sweet to eat—even for the kids—but they had a blast. Another fun thing we do is a game I call Mystery Eating Experience. During these experiments I have the girls close their eyes, give them little tastes of food, and have them guess what they are eating—an olive, a piece of cheese, a chocolate-covered pretzel, one jelly bean.

I'm not saying that cupcakes for breakfast are always a good idea. Or that you can cure a picky eater with a blind taste test or a particularly fun mealtime experience—but it couldn't hurt to try. And if it takes spoonfuls of chocolate ice cream to make the broccoli go down—whatever works for you!

I'm a big believer that food and eating should be fun. And one of the best ways to have fun with food is to enjoy a variety of tastes and textures. I was told by a friend that one of the reasons American kids tend to be much more picky as eaters is that we give them blander foods than other cultures, so strong flavors and spices can taste weird to them. I'm lucky that my girls are good, diverse eaters, and one of the things I do to mix things up and keep it fun is to make a platter of little dishes of things. So when we're watching a movie, instead of a big bowl of popcorn, I'll put a whole bunch of things on a tray—a small bowl of Pirate's Booty or Smart Puffs, five or ten chocolate-covered cranberries or yogurt-covered raisins in another dish, some cut-up apple in a bowl, plus slices of cheese, some crackers, a few strawberries or sliced grapes, and a little saucer of olives. I know it may sound crazy, but it's fun to have choices and options, and it's also kind of festive and makes a snack into something special.

A friend of mine gave me the best idea for making lunch boxes more fun. I saw her making her daughter's sandwich and cutting it into fun shapes with a cookie cutter. Her daughter was a tween at this point, and my friend had been doing it for her since she was little. The daughter never wanted her mom to stop doing it for her because it made her feel so loved. So I do the same thing for my girls, and it really does encourage them to finish their lunches. Here are some other ideas for making lunch boxes fun: