Peanut Butter Buckeye Bars--Warning! Danger!!!

Take my advice, do not make these when you're home alone. Mucho, mucho delicious!

Tuesdays Jacob and Julianna take piano lessons. With three kids in private music lessons, when the piano teacher offered to barter for lessons, I jumped on it. I make her family dinner every Tuesday. So far, at least on my end, and hopefully on hers as well, it's working out great.

Today, I'm making Tyler Florence's Spaghetti and Meatballs. Truly one of my favorite recipes. I'll take them the pasta, a salad, some bread and dessert. I've been stumped on the dessert though. As you can imagine, with three young children here during the day, I don't have a lot of time to make anything fancy. The first week I did brownies, last week cupcakes, I didn't want to repeat either of those and was looking for inspiration on the internet. I did a search for Buckeye Bars. Rebekah loves Buckeye Bars. The recipe I was looking for makes a bar cookie version of the famous candy. I did not have any luck finding that, but I did stumble across something awesome. Seriously. It's quick. It's easy. It's inexpensive. It's made from items you may very well have in your pantry. It doesn't get much better than that. In fact, this recipe was so good, I felt compelled to share it with my best bloggie friends. Just don't make it alone.


This recipe was found on many sites in the internet, evidently a lot of people are aware of it.

Peanut Butter Buckeye Bars
1 19.5 oz. pkg. brownie mix (I use Duncan Hines family size fudgy brownies)
2 egs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 chopped roasted peanuts
14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13x9 pan with cooking spray. Combine brownie mix, eggs and oil. Mix well. Stir in peanuts. Divide mixture in half. Pat half into prepared pan.

Combine sweetened condensed milk and peanut butter. Pour over brownie mixture in pan.

Top with remaining brownie mixture. Flattening it in your hand before putting it on top helps. Do not try to spread it in the pan, it won't work.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until top is set and edges are golden. Cool.

Disregard the missing bars from the top pan. :-)

Things I don't understand...

• The opposition to Roman Polanski being brought back to the US to finish out the legal action against him. Is drugging and raping a 13 year old girl really not a crime against the girl as well as our society?
• Khloe Kardashian. Okay, really, the interest in Khloe Kardashian. E! paying for a $1 million wedding as long as it's accomplished really, really quickly so it can be on their reality show. Isn't this a wonderful example for our children of what marriage is all about?
• My nine year old taking a two and a half hour test tomorrow. Two and a half hours. To me, that's insane. Jacob, like most if not all children, is not capable of sitting at a desk and intensely concentrating on something for two and a half hours. How on earth is that test going to give teachers an accurate picture of what my child or any other child truly knows?
• GE Service. When I called the service center to schedule service on my dryer, the tech treated me like an absolute idiot because I told her we have a 10 year in home warranty on our washer and dryer. Yes, that is highly unusual, but 8 years ago GE manufactured a line that were so confident in that they included a 10 year warranty with it. Unfortunately, they have since neglected to inform their service representatives. Anytime I've had to schedule service it's been horrible. Horrible.
  
• GE Service techs. While the tech was out last week to service said dryer one of the problems was that the interior light does not work. Yes, I realize that an interior light does not have anything to do with the dryer's capability. No, the light not working was not the main reason I called, it was a secondary reason. Still, yes, as the dryer is under warranty and I am entitled to have it fixed for free, I "really would like you to fix the light" Yes, "really". Yes, even if it's inconvenient for you. Sorry. Not really.
• Thirteen teenagers in our upper-middleclass community that have been arrested for heroin this past week. Seven more arrests coming. Heroin. Dealing. In our neighborhood. In large enough quantities that it would be considered a big bust in New York or Chicago. Heroin. Un-flipping-believable.
  

Meal Planning and other goals

Do you do this? So many times I feel paralyzed to move forward in life until certain events come and go. School starting? Check. Kid's activities starting? Check. Mark's trip? Check. Visiting Jason and Lori? Check. All righty then, breathe, ready to find our routine. It's got to be around here somewhere...right? Please, right?

Here's what I'm struggling with the most...cleaning and exercising. Neither of these activities are innate for me. Our house is constantly, constantly, dusty. Seriously dusty. I'm beginning to wonder if it's because our home is almost 50 years old and I'm quite positive no one has ever had the heating/cooling ducts cleaned. I'm thinking about checking into having it done. I've always sort of felt it was scammy, but I'm finding myself rethinking that. Have you ever had it done? Know anyone who has? What did you think? Worth it? No? Let me know your thoughts.

How do you find the time to keep your house clean? I keep my house acceptable, but I would love to have a truly clean house. No dust, no cobwebs, shiny sparkly bathrooms. Does that describe you? How do you do it? Is it just a pipe dream when I have kids here round the clock...three that aren't mine during the day, three that are after school and all other times. What do you think, possible, or give it up?

I'm having the same struggle with exercise. Thanks to my parents amazing generosity, we belong to our rec center's fitness club. I just can't find the time to use it. There's babysitting there during the morning hours, I might be able to leave the older two boys there while I worked out, but that still leaves the problem of the baby. I don't think I'd be allowed to take him on the fitness floor, and I have him until 4:00. By then, I'm supervising homework, chauffering and making dinner. After dinner, which is later than I would like right now because of the kid's activities, there's barely time for some family time, then stories for the kids. Our bedtime routine takes almost an hour and by the time the kids are in bed, it's 8:30. The rec center is open until 9:30, but honestly, by 8:30, I'm done. The last thing I feel like doing is exercising, and I'm concerned about it keeping me up at night. Many, many nights I have a hard enough time sleeping, I don't want to add to the problem. We have a treadmill in our basement, I'm thinking I need to psych myself into using it while the two little boys nap in the afternoon. The problem with that is: 1. it's in the basement and noisy. I may not hear if the baby wakes and cries or if the 2 year old wakes and starts "exploring". 2. I can't see the tv from the treadmill, or indeed anything but a blank wall, and that makes using it very, very boring. Again, I'm all ears for advice.

On to the menu plan:
Monday: Club Sandwiches with fruit, roasted asparagus
Tuesday: Scrambled eggs, rye toast, roast beef hash
Wednesday: Spaghetti and Meatballs, Jimmy's Favorite Garlic Bread, broccoli, salad (I'm liking bartering for piano lessons, I cook the teacher's family dinner on Tuesdays, our family benefits with a great pulled together meal as well.)
Thursday: Tuna Noodle Casserole, peas, applesauce, honey wheat rolls.
Friday: TBD ???
Saturday: Mark and Jacob are camping with scouts, Rebekah has a band activity during dinner. Julianna and I will do whatever's easy and good.
Sunday Dinner: Grandma's Chicken and Rice casserole, green beans, dinner rolls.
Sunday Supper: Waffles, kielbasa

Hope your week's are great. I'm looking forward to all the great advice I'm going to get. Thanks.

Alice

So, the school year's in full swing. Everyone's activities are settling into a comfortable routine. I'm getting used to the three little boys I watch. Life is good. A while back I wrote a post in a bit of a panic along the lines of when am I ever going to be able to get anything done?

I'm still struggling with that, big time; however, I'm being kinder to myself about that. I'm accepting that it's a learning curve, and that I will indeed, get there.

One thing that I have found to make my life much easier is a new site called Alice.com. I saw it on someones blog over the summer, made note of it, but didn't really give it a whole lot more thought. Well, as life has gotten more and more hectic, as I found myself one day being precariously close to just about everything our household uses and not relishing a one hour trip to Target with three little boys, I decided to check it out further. I was very pleasantly surprised.

Now, it's important for you to know I'm not doing an "official review". I'm not being paid to write this in any way, not with a discount off an order or anything else. With the official link below, I would receive a very tiny percentage of any order placed through that link, but honestly, the percentage is minuscule, available to anyone through their Refer-a-friend program, and not the motivation of this post. I'm writing this post as a sort of PSA. Just to let other mom's who may be in the same position I so often find myself in today, of not having time to run and get household supplies. That's when Alice.com can really be a lifesaver.

The site is easy to use, easy to navigate and nicely organized. I "chatted" with a customer service representative and was pleasantly surprised to learn that I would receive my orders within 1 to 2 business days of the order being placed, because of our area's proximity to their warehouse. Shipping time estimates are easily available.

I decided to take the plunge and spent about 15 minutes organizing a rather large shopping list. I shopped for shaving cream, shampoo, toilet paper, napkins, toilet paper, laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, drain cleaner, personal care products, and many more items. I may have gotten a bit carried away, or maybe it's just been too darn long since my last trip to Target, but my initial order was for almost 50 items. If there's a coupon available for the product, they will automatically apply it. That's a real plus for me, since I love the idea of coupons, but seldom have it together enough to have clipped the coupon and remembered to take it to the store and actually use it. Prices were decent. Some things were the lowest I've seen, most were average, a couple were higher than I would typically pay. The only things I weren't happy with were when I hadn't paid enough attention to product size--for example the body wash was half the size I normally buy. The vast majority of the things I purchased were exactly what I expected.

It was wonderful to come home from dance last night and see my order sitting there waiting for me. Everything was well-wrapped and arrived in perfect condition. My only true concern about the site had to do with how well-wrapped everything was. There were packing bags of air surrounding everything. All liquids were taped shut and sealed in plastic bags. It came as close as they can come to making sure everything arrives in pristine shape, it just made me cringe when I thought about wasted packaging. I'll do my best to reuse all the packaging however, which will definitely mitigate that concern.

All told, I will definitely use Alice.com again. Point of fact, I already have. Last night I noticed we were out of tissues, Julianna's teacher sent home a request for Post-It notes, Zippy ran out of her favorite treats. A minimum order is 6 items, and trust me, I can always find 6 household items we need around here. :-) Shipping is always free, and the way my days are flying by, I expect I will find myself turning to Alice again and again. With no shipping, next day delivery, and no impulse buying, Alice.com may not completely replace my sojourns to Target, but I bet it will greatly reduce them.

I loved The Brady Bunch when I was a kid. I always thought it would be really cool to have an Alice. This is as close as I'll ever get to that, but I'm okay with that.

It's Popcorn Time!

It's Popcorn time in scout land. Across the country, for many packs and troops, popcorn is to Cub and Boy Scouting what cookies are to Girl Scouts. If some little (or big) Scout comes knocking on your door asking you to buy some popcorn, I urge you to say yes. Not only is the popcorn really yummy, it goes to a great cause.

Of course, if no Scouts come to your door, you could always support my favorite Bear Scout and go to Trail's End website, enter Jacob's personal ID code: 2599223. He gets credit for all online-sales too.

FYI

So, when you've been out of town all week at a luxury resort, do not call your wife and tell her how tired you are and how you couldn't eat another bite, and how you're simply exhausted. Don't. Not when said wife has been here, single parenting, having your teen leave the house every morning at 7 and returning for the day at 9:30 at night meaning she's been no help whatsoever. Let's see, this week you've:

• ridden in a corporate learjet
• sunset tour of Monument Valley
• sunrise tour
• eating four and five course dinners that last for hours at excellent restaurants where the chefs come out to greet your party and make personal recommendations
• played golf at a fancy golf course
• stayed in a plush, luxury resort all expenses and perks paid
• sat around and done exactly what you want to do, when you want to do it, or simply done nothing at all
  

My week? Looked a little different.

• rose at the crack of dawn every morning to get ready for the day, pack lunches, make several different breakfasts, get younger kids showered, dressed and out the door
• worked everyday wiping noses, tushes, cleaning up puke, entertaining other people's children
• did dishes and cleaned kitchen everyday
• took your shirts to the dry cleaner, finally crying uncle and realizing I can't get this batch done in time
• did 8 loads of laundry
• cleaned bathrooms
• cleared away clutter every night only to have it magically reappear, multiplied the next day
• chased the cat around the house while she had a live mouse in her mouth, doing my best to do it quietly so as not to wake the sleeping kids too early
• taxi'd kids to dance classes and piano
• did homework with kids every night--a frustrating experience this week
• paid bills, hired someone to work on our piano, scheduled appliance repairmen, and generally kept things running around here.

Someone do him a favor and clue him in, I really don't want to hear how tired he is. I'm sitting here trying to figure out when I'm going to get to the grocery store to make a nice 'welcome home' dinner since he'll be home a few hours earlier than he expected. Do I take all three little ones with me that I watch? Do I put it off until after school, after homework, after we've delivered the canned food flyers we have to deliver for Daisy scouts? What do I make for dinner when I have no idea and you have 'no idea' what you want, have no time to make it anyway, but we both know you're going to want something nice and I want to make you something nice to welcome you home?

Yeah, do not tell me how tired you are.

Edited: I think I got my tone wrong here. I'm glad Mark got to go on this trip. I'm glad he had the opportunity, I'm glad the owner thought enough of him to bring him along. He works really hard, things have been extremely rough on him this year, he definitely deserves this trip. I just don't want to hear how tired he is. :-)

School lunches

Leave it to my youngest two children to break me out of my box, so to speak. Jacob and Julianna are not big sandwich eaters. It's forced me to be a bit creative when I pack their lunches.

Jacob's favorite lunch to date? Pasta, italian salad dressing, feta cheese, garbanzo beans, corn, sliced up carrots, and tuna or cooked chicken. I don't always put everything in there, just whatever I have on hand.

Julianna's favorite lunch to date? Reheated and scooped out baked potatoes, a smidge of butter, salt and pepper with cheddar cheese on the side to put on as she eats them.

Not your typical first and third grade lunches. :-) Still, fairly nutritious, especially Jacob's, and they scarf up every bite. It's just so funny to me. They definitely teaching me to rethink lunch. PB&J is just not going to fly with my kids. I have four kids and none of them would touch a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a 10-foot pole.

Help!

I will try here to straddle the fine line between asking for the advice I'm seeking while at the same time respecting my child's right to privacy.

Didn't that sound good? Of course I'll fail miserably. I tend to put everything out there, in our own names, for better or for worse. I'm banking on a forgiving universe. :-)

At the wonderful program we went to Sunday morning, Jim Jones talked about real listening. He did some exercises with the kids (and adults) that pointed out that most of don't truly listen. Think you do? Play a tough game of Simon Says. I bet it will kick your tush. Still don't believe? Do things like have someone tell you to raise your hand slowly while jerking theirs up quickly, chances are you'll do what you see not what you hear.

Along the same lines, I have a child (Jacob) who is fantastic about doing his homework. He comes home from school everyday, and cheerfully sits down at his table, pulls out his stuff, and does his homework. This year, thank the teacher responsible, it doesn't take him long, he knows the stuff, it's a 15 minute exercise most of the time. At least, it should be 15 minutes. It often takes much, much longer. The problem? Jacob doesn't truly focus on his homework--listen to it if you will. He glances at the problem assumes he knows what they're looking for, fills in the answer and is off to the next problem. Example: put 4 numbers in order biggest to smallest. He'll fill in the circle by the one that's smallest to biggest.

He'll make stupid, petty mistakes all through his homework just because it's not challenging to him so he doesn't feel like he needs to be spend any energy thinking about it. It's wham, bam, check it mom. We've slipped into the parallel universe where I spend all my time saying no, you got this one wrong, and this one, and this one too. What's up with that, you know this stuff? Oh, I didn't see that.

The thing is, he really does know this stuff in his sleep. It's very easy, non-challenging work for him, which I'm fine with, because homework doesn't need to be challenging. However, I also know it doesn't matter how easy it is, how well he knows it, if he can't demonstrate that at some point through written work and/or tests, no one else will know he knows it.

Right now we spend a good 10-15 minutes everyday with me correcting his work, him grabbing the paper fixing a problem, giving it back to me and me saying no, you forgot to correct this part or that problem, etc. It takes forever, and it feels more like me doing the work than it should. I need some advice on how to fix this. I thought about just not correcting it more than once, but there's really no consequence there. He turns it in wrong, she marks it wrong, end of story. There's no consequence for missing items on homework though. There are no grades that count, etc. I hate to see him in such a sloppy mode because his not-paying-attention attitude will transfer over to tests and sooner-or-later, those will have consequences. He will get lower grades than he should. His teachers will not get a true reflection of what he knows and what he doesn't.

What to do? I've thought about going over his work with him once. If he doesn't correct it correctly after that, I would take away video games for the afternoon. Somehow that doesn't seem proportional, but I'm truly struggling trying to figure out the best way to get him to focus on his work, even when it seems easy-peasy, and to produce the best work he's capable of. If you've been there done that, or have any advice for me otherwise, I'm all ears (oops, eyes)!

Truly life changing...

Today was Rally Day at church. You know, the Sunday where they welcome back all the slacker parents (me) who have not made church the priority it should be and have barely set food in the place the entire summer?!?!?! Seriously, how did that happen, and do we get credit for the week of VBS? Yeah, didn't think so.

Anyway, thanks to the amazing gift of grace, we had the nerve gall to head back to church today. It was one of those Sundays where Matt had spent the night, Lily was at our house until almost 1 in the morning because Jason, Lori and Rebekah were at the OSU/USC game, and I woke up TIRED. Very, very tired. So tired my mind started to play the worn out "do we really need to go" game. Yes, we did, we do, we went. I'm so happy and blessed that we did. It was the most amazing experience.

Jim "Basketball" Jones was there as a special Rally Day treat. I have never been so touched by someone's personal story before. First of all, he was completely entertaining and amazing. Very fun to watch. Very fun to be around. I won a basketball by achieving a feat of skill with basketballs, which if you knew me you would be able to appreciate that I should have been tipped off right then and there that the experience to come was very out of the ordinary. Normally, I have no basketball or any other athletic skills.

Jim is an amazing juggler, basketball spinner and ball handler. Yet he is so much more. He has such a strong message of listening, respect, good choices. I enjoyed his show and his positive message very much. Then, at the end of the show, he quietly told his story. It begins with him being in first grade and walked by the hand out of his regular classroom, with his friends, to the special ed classroom down the hall where he spent all five years of elementary school due to his battle with Dyslexia. He struggled in special ed classes his entire school career. You can imagine how the kids treated him. Somewhere in 6th grade he decided if he could do something cool with the basketball like his big brother, the kids would be kinder to him. Many years of practice later and in 10th grade he got the call from the Cleveland Cavaliers to entertain at a half-time show. His career took off from there. He attended Bowling Green State University, earned a business degree and received the Wall Street Journal Award, being named one of the country's top 25 business students. He went on to a career in Finance, which he eventually left to become the powerful motivational speaker that he is now.

As he shared his story, tears just streamed down my face. It was truly amazing. Check it out.



What a powerful lesson that you never know what is possible and how important it is to keep encouraging, keep dreaming, keep trying for ourselves and for our children.

It was a really powerful message that I hope will stay with me for a long, long time.

Silly Siblings

So, we're taking the required first day of school photos, two different days because Jacob started on a Thursday and Julianna started on a Friday. Inevitably, our photo session soon degenerated into silliness. I hope these two are always such good buddies.











Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

So, this is lovely.

Julianna came home yesterday and started telling me about her day. There's a little girl in her class who is not appropriate in her social behaviors. She's mean and nasty. Yesterday Julianna told me about this little girl in her class pulling her shirt open, looking down it, and making a rude comment about her "boobies". I had to have her repeat it a couple of times because I just could. not. believe. what I was hearing. Julianna was definitely not happy. I was livid. Seriously livid.

I emailed her teacher and the good news is that her teacher is wonderful and responsive and she was properly horrified and promised me to deal with it. Today when she did deal with it she emailed me what she had done and what the response had been. I really like her teacher. I very much appreciate her helpfulness in dealing with this, but if anything like this ever happens again, I will escalate this to dimensions unknown.

I have put up with Jacob having a child in his class who threatens to kill people. I have put up with Jacob having a child in his class who kicks, hits, punches, verbally abuses kids. I have always regretted towing the line in those cases and accepting the very lame excuses that those kids had issues and were therefore somehow not responsible for their actions. I will not put up with someone touching my daughter (or son) inappropriately and looking and commenting on their private parts. Not going to happen. Hopefully it won't be an issue and the teacher was able to make the impression she wanted to. I am a really, really angry mama-bear right now.

Meal Plan

We had a really good weekend. Saturday we shopped for an upcoming trip my hubby's going on for work, Sunday we went to my parents and had a great time, and yesterday we went and saw Night at the Museum 2. It was fabulous! So much fun. Rebekah and I laughed so hard we cried.

I'm trying to begin a fall routine today. Writing down a meal plan is a big part of that. I can't cook it if I haven't shopped for it, and there's only so many pizza rolls and soft pretzels one can look at. (Sadly, those are the foods that are typically in our freezer when nothing else is.) Jason, Lori, Matt & Lily will be in town this weekend, so that makes a meal plan a little challenging because I don't know when they'll be here and when they won't. Additionally, I'm still new to the cooking for a vegetarian thing, so that throws me a bit. It's okay, he's worth it. ;-)

Next week I'll be flying solo, so it's bound to be a crazy, crazy week. Rebekah has theater and marching band plus her private saxophone lesson, Jacob has scouts and a dodge ball class, Julianna has dance and they both start piano lessons, for which I have to cook their teacher dinner--all of this after working all day. At least I work at home, I honestly don't know how single parents do it. I'm exhausted just thinking about it already.

Tuesday--Bobby Flay's Cheyenne Burger--it's a turkey burger with BBQ sauce, bacon, cheddar and onion rings. I found the recipe in Food Network Magazine. I love this magazine. It's very visually appealing, and so far, there's always been a handful of recipes I want to try. I'm substituting boneless chicken breasts for the ground turkey, we'll also have corn on the cob, and melon

Wednesday--Southwestern Chicken Salads

Thursday--Tuna Noodle Casserole, applesauce, wheat rolls

Friday--need an inexpensive picnic for a picnic dinner/ice cream social at the elementary school before we go to Rebekah's first home game. Ideas anyone?

Saturday lunch--quick, easy, cheap
Saturday dinner--Beachcomber's casserole, italian salad

Sunday lunch (brunch?)--???
Sunday dinner--Pork chops, smashed potatoes, glazed carrots

I'll fill in the blanks as we get closer to the weekend. Hope everyone else's fall is off to a good start.

Remember when???

Remember when there were topics that weren't discussed in polite company? Politics, sex and religion? Oh, how I long for the good old days.

I absolutely cannot believe how people are going ape-sh** over President Obama's speech next week to students. I'm sorry, no matter how you feel about our President, I don't believe there is anything inherently dangerous about him addressing kids and urging them to get an education and work hard. I know people feel differently, I've heard the arguments, and honestly, I don't get it. Period. I think kids should be taught to respect the office of the Presidency, I worry for us as a nation if we've reached the point where we're afraid to allow our children to hear a President speak whose views may be different from our own.

Today, I received an email from one of Jacob's closest friend's mother. It was full of really extreme, really angry, really outside the main, viewpoints of President Obama, his administration, and all sorts of secret agendas. The email encouraged everyone it was sent to to contact our school administration and air our concerns. I did take the opportunity to do that, although my concern was regarding the email, not so much the speech. I encouraged our administrators and school board to show the speech, thereby, in my opinion, showing respect for the office, and not be pulled into the hysteria that seems to be going around.

After stewing on it for a bit, and trying to figure out what on earth to do with my feelings about having received the email, because I really do like this woman, and I did not want to offend her, even though she had deeply offended me by assuming I would want to hear this, I sent her back a reply letting her know we have very different views, let's agree to disagree, and to please not send me anything like that again. I did reply all because I wanted everyone on that list to know I did not agree with the radical propaganda in the original message. Me too replies started flying through cyberspace. It did make me feel better, I'll be honest, to know that there were many people on the list who did not share these views.

A little later, the original sender of the email sent a note apologizing if she had offended anyone, which she definitely had. I truly like this woman, I've been aware of her extremist views for a while, and done my best to avoid discussing politics with her. I will definitely continue to like her. She's a great person, a great mom, a great asset to our community. It just makes me long for the good old days when people didn't discuss religion, politics or sex with people whose views they are unfamiliar with.

One, Two, Three…None?

As I was making the kids' lunches this morning, I realized things have gotten a little (?) out of whack around here. Treat in the lunchbox. Check. It's fun to have a treat in your lunchbox, right? Treat after school? Sure, it's fun to come home from school and have a treat, right? Treat after dinner? Oh, okay, there's lots of stuff around, it's cruel to say no. WAIT! That's three treats a day, and that's way too much.

When I make lunches, I try to make them as healthy as possible. I always scoff at the touting of how healthy school lunches are, I even read recently the average school lunch includes two to three servings of fruits and vegetables. Um, no, not in our program. Popcorn chicken with breadstick, sherbet and vegetable, does not have two to three vegetables. Neither does French toast w/sausage or cheese, fruit juice and hash browns. Okay, maybe technically that one does, but it's also starch, fat, empty calories and more starch. Seriously? This is the way we want to teach our children to eat? No thank you. I make my kids lunches they enjoy, but are healthy for them and do have at least two servings of fruits/vegetables...not relying on juice or ketchup to get there. However, I have always included some kind of dessert.

As of today, I'm no longer putting a daily treat in their lunch boxes. When they were home all summer long, I certainly didn't let them have a cookie as soon as lunch was over, or even worse, with their lunch. They ate their lunches, went and played for a few hours, and a few times a week had a cookie for a snack. Why am I putting it in their lunch now? Because I have a romantic idea of what a packed lunch should look like, and that includes some nice treat to enjoy. Not a romantic idea I want to pass on to them. I'm not making big pronouncements about it, and I'm curious to see if they notice, but as of now, the daily treat in the lunchbox is over. If they do notice, and if they really miss it, we'll have a chat about why I think it's a bad idea, and I'll see if they want to have a treat at lunch or after-school. When all this junk around the house is gone though, I'm going to be cognizant of not loading it back up. I'd like my kids to be able to enjoy the occasional sweet treat, say three times a week or so, but be just as content with a healthier choice as well. Same thing with an after dinner snack. We need to scale that back as well. If all the junk's not sitting around they're perfectly happy with a snack bag of baby carrots or a healthy cereal, they don't miss the constant junk once the habit's broken. We need to get back to those healthier roots.

Okay, I wrote this ahead, and I’ve been working on it, revising, etc. Well, when Julianna picked up her lunchbox this morning to put it in her backpack she eagerly asked me what she had for lunch. Tuna, I told her. Yummy! She was excited, and did I get a cookie, she wanted to know. Um, no, you can have one after school. She said okay, but she was obviously disappointed, and I felt like the Grinch that stole Christmas. What’s right, what’s wrong here people? Am I going about this the wrong way? Maybe I should keep the lunchbox treat and eliminate the after school one? After dinner? [side rant: Jacob will no longer take tuna, even though he loves it, because the kids make fun of him and say it's weird to eat tuna, Julianna got made fun of this day too, but so far, she still wants to take it. *sigh* Is eating tuna weird? I won't be making it that much for her anymore anyway because all of a sudden I feel bombarded with information about the amount of mercury in tuna and frankly, it's scaring me. *double sigh*]

How do you handle things like this at your house? Do you think this is much to do about nothing, or are you horrified at our constant daily treats? Do you worry about the amount of mercury in tuna? Do you still serve your kids tuna? (Not you Jill, choose your battles, ;-) ) I don't want to make junk the forbidden fruit, I truly don't think that's healthy, but I also don't think it's healthy for it to be something they count on as part of their daily routine...or worse, several times a day routine. I'd really love some feedback as to what you feel is appropriate.

First days...WW

Check out more wordless wednesday.