Paul Mesner Puppets!!!!

We love us some local talent.  (Miss you, Biscuit Brothers.) One that we love is Paul Mesner Puppets- they are 2 blocks away from our house.  On Sunday afternoon, my man and I walked over there with our 3 youngest to take in Go Dog, Go.

The dogs leapt from the pages of a favorite storybook and transformed to 3D, to dance, delight and dare us to snap and sing along.  The pink poodle's hats were nailed... although when I've read the books aloud (thousands of times) I always interpreted her "Good-bye!" as being a bit miffed that her hat was dismissed so easily.  The maze was clever. The cars were just perfect.  We did sort of wish there had been a puppet stoplight prop.

After the show, we were able to purchase dog puppets to assemble on site in a craft room or take home to assemble at our leisure. That was an appreciated bonus for my kids.

Paul says that he has had kids intern for him- homeschooled kids are great for winter internships, brick-school kids can intern in the summer. He needs interns and volunteers who can help with all manner of puppet-making, set design, costume sewing and website and graphic design. As an award-winning puppeteer, he's bound to be a fantastic mentor.

Go Dog, Go plays through Sunday at Paul Messner Puppets, and you can purchase tickets here. Betcha wish you'd followed my link to the Living Social deal to get a season pass or 4-pack of tickets, huh? Invite to LivingSocial

Pizzas are Veggies, And 7 other ways to get along with kids.

Not a vegetable.

I'm reading some brouhaha over the frozen food lobbyists declaring pizza is a veggie.  People are missing the point when they focus on whether pizza is a vegetable, I believe.  The shock is not that pizza could count as a veggie.  The shocker is that the frozen food lobbyists have such a hand in our policymaking.  The true shocker is that 90% of the food served at my kids' schools is from a freezer.

There is a reason I never got into "Once a Month Cooking" and "freezer meal preparation."  Because it sucked. Yes, I use my share of frozen food around here.  There are 7 reasons to use frozen food.

Oh wait, you say, I called the post "7 ways to get along with your kids." Stay with me.

1. The first reason to use frozen foods is because some of them taste really good.  The ones that taste really good, however, are extra-chock-full of fats and oils, breadings, corn syrup solids and even chemical excitotoxins that turn on addiction receptors in their neuro system in addition to creating symptoms of ADHD, migraines, and more. Sadly, this is the ditch where the frozen food used in schools lies.

2.  The second reason to use frozen food is because they are very convenient.  If you can neatly pack a freezer and keep that freezer running, and you keep track of what's in there so nothing freezer-burns, then you can make your budget go further with less waste. (Unless you count the waste of the food ending up in the trash because it doesn't taste good.) Studies have been shown to us that indicate not much nutrition is lost in freezing.  Even some have said that frozen food can be more nutritious as foods are picked at ripeness and frozen immediately- unlike "fresh" produce that is picked before it is ripe and then travels hundreds and thousands of miles over hours or days to market.

The convenience factor means, for me, that my kids can have more of my time during the "witching hour." You know, that late afternoon/early evening period when kids' need for attention seems to peak.

3.  It's the only way to get popsicles and ice cream.  (See? I told you it was about getting along with your kids.)

4.  You can get fruits and vegetables that are out of season.  The frozen strawberries at the store are the same price, all year long, and always ripe to perfection.  This is where mom saves the day for the kid who loves strawberries.  I found strawberries this summer for 77 cents a pint, and flash-froze them myself.  This leads me to....

Fried green tomatoes. Not frozen.
Can only eat in September.

5.  Because you can have more control over your food supply when you use the freezer.  I'm sure the schools like this too.  As long as you have the freezer space and electricity, you can control your food supply and even the costs.  Yes, I was able to get hopefully a winter's supply of strawberries flash frozen and put away for half the cost of buying the big bag from Costco.  In addition, I put away 10 quarts of mustard and collard greens. I buy meat in the markdown case and save it in the freezer, so I can provide them the meat they want within our budget.  I even freeze bread when we've gotten more than we can eat at once.

6.  Every single person knows-  with a decent supply of freezer foods, dinner is as easy as freezer-(toaster)oven-table.  There are many days that even a busy family of 10 uses that excuse.  It's honestly still cheaper and healthier than a restaurant meal. And you can't go to a restaurant in your pajamas or if someone is sick.

7.  The proper use of freezer food can give you a more varied, more balanced, more budget friendly, and more convenient food service system.  This is where I think the schools fail.  I freeze ingredients, and use them to make simple homemade dishes for my family.   I use frozen meals sparingly. I keep it in balance.  I can feel ok with feeding them chicken nuggets or even an occasional frozen pizza, because I know that usually they are getting homecooked meals.

School children eating
fresh homecooked meal.

The sad truth is that, particularly in the urban core, kids are never getting homecooked meals.  I have had kids come to my house, and watch me make breakfast tacos with amazement and a proclamation, "Why is everything you make so fancy?"

My go-to fast food should never, ever be perceived by some kid as fancy.  That makes me sad.

I don't care if you call pizza a vegetable. Here is a lesson plan to incorporate it into your school day.  Call it Al. Call it Ray Jay. Even call it Mr. Johnson.  Call it late for dinner, whatever.  I ask only 2 things:   Don't let the frozen food lobbyists set policy for our schools.  Put real commercial kitchens and chefs back in the schools.  Go to Two Angry Moms and Fed Up With Lunch to become informed and find ways to combat this issue.

P.S. On your pizza, try smearing some pesto made with your own garden basil and the local nut you can gather freely, then layer the top with eggplant, fresh tomato and basil and sprinkle with fresh romano and parmesan.  If that ain't a vegetable serving, what is?

The Root of Choosing Joy

The ROOT of choosing joy?

Yeah, that's something I made up.  Yesterday.

See, I woke up and something came to mind-  I felt a little slighted by someone in my church last week, so suddenly I felt morose and didn't really want to go back this week.  I let myself start feeling depressed.

I let myself be late.

When I walked in, I thought I heard the man say to open our Bibles to Romans 12.  So I did.  I started reading.  But my mind was bogged down by the familiarity of the passage, so I touched the icon to change translations, and scrolled to The Message. And that's where I met God yesterday.

And He taught me about The Root of Choosing Joy.  I was smiling by the end of verse 2. Then, remembering that Paul is speaking, and he's speaking as a brother and also a teacher, verse 3 hit me square between the eyes.  Choosing Joy is as simple as believing the gospel. For real.  Do I believe the gospel or not?  The root cause of my depression is failing to believe the gospel.  So the Root of Choosing Joy is believing the gospel.

I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

By the time I got to the end of Romans 12- which is something I memorized long ago and have used as my Mission Statement for Life-  I had realized that the man didn't ask us to read Romans 12, but Acts 12.  No matter.  God and I had met and we were having church, there at a table in the back of the room, and I contemplated what He was saying to me for the rest of the hour as I also enjoyed watching my girls play with their dolls, making them write each other love notes. I'll catch up with Acts 12 later.

Are you struggling to live out of deep gratitude for grace and understand yourself by what God is and does?  Let's stick together on this.

Seven Kids: 7 Beauty Basics I pass on to my daughters

Three tips are detailed at Aspiring New Moms, a blog I discovered through WFMW last week.

She said: 1.  Make your hairstyle last 3 days.  2.  Invest 5 minutes into skincare.  3.  Wear quality basics.

To those I'll add:  4. Use a nail brush and pumice stone.  5. Buff, not paint, your nails.  6. Exercise and stretch morning and night.  7.  Smile.

The hairstyle thing seemed hard for me since I have been keeping a short hairstyle.  Can we adjust her tips for short hairstyles?  I find that honestly, washing your hair too much does more harm than good in the long run. We stopped using shampoo years ago, but since we moved to a new climate started using some again- but try to limit it to once or twice a week.  How we do manage between days?  I do like to wet mine on between days, sometimes scrub my scalp with just water and I'd just as soon use only conditioner rather than shampoo.  But I have found that headbands and scarves are fun, funky, and beautiful!

Skincare- what can I say about it?  I mean, that Susan and Chloe haven't said? Look, ladies, we all know that there is only ONE thing I have that you don't have.  About ten years.  Yep, that's about it.  Ten years.  So, this is why I read your blogs daily-- to take advantage of those ten years.  And so far I can attest-  the five minutes a day on the skincare routine is absolutely the beauty secret you cannot afford to ignore.  I remember as a child, watching my grandmother perform her skincare rituals of cleansing and moisturizing each night, and I'd pat her face. It was so soft and wonderful. She was in her 50s, and I thought she was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. I'd look at pictures from her Mad-Men 30-something years and pat her beautiful soft face, with total conviction that she'd only grown ever more beautiful.

Quality basics- here is MY secret to the high quality basics: Thrift stores.  Clothing on the rack at a retail store can fool you-  it's all primed with fabric starches that make them look crisp.  Who knows what will happen to those clothes with the forces of nature and laundry?  Shop at the thrift store and choose the clothes that stood the test but were passed on because the owner changed sizes or simply buys new each season.

Nail brush and pumice stone-  in the shower, every time.  I use them after I've done the general cleansing of body and hair. I brush under the nails and the cuticles of both hands and feet.  Follow after toweling off with a good moisturizer. Personally, I use a salt scrub in the shower- I like the Lavendar one from Trader Joe's.  I live in the city, and the oils and exfoliation combat the skin fatigue from sun and smog.  I'll toss in the next tip here, I like buffing my nails rather than polishing.  Polish leaves chips and is hard to maintain.  I can keep a buffing tool in my purse and to tell the truth I use it at red lights. Holding the buffing tool in the car keeps you from the lure of texting, too.

Ten-twenty minutes in the morning, ten minutes at night. Stretch, some push ups, crunches, balance poses. It's a combo of yoga, pilates, even the calisthenics from grade school.  This was something else I learned from my grandmother- who stayed supple and limber through knee replacements and right up until arthritis and a broken hip slowed her down. I hula hoop to get my blood flowing - with a full cup of water, it's more effective than the first cup of coffee.  Several days a week of more serious exercise is needed to do weight-checks and keep my pants just right, but we're still just talking about 45 minutes of brisk walking like my grandmother did (5 miles every day, rain or shine, for over 30 years).

SMILE.  Do you ever catch what you look like when you are not smiling?  Smiling reminds you that you have to choose happiness in life. It looks kinder and is more appealing to others.  And it really can lift your spirits.

Linking this post with WFMW.

Seven Kids: Toddlers hitting

First word was "Ow."  Yep, second born.

Most people respond to the hitting toddler by saying, "No hitting! Hitting hurts." 


If you tell your child what NOT to do, then you set them up for failure in 2 ways. One, they only hear the thing they are not supposed to be doing. You say "No hitting," and he hears "Mwah hitting." You say "Don't run," and he hears "Mwah run." The other way is that you are not giving him appropriate alternatives to try out.

Try this one.
"Oh! Ari hurt a friend. So sad. Ari, touch gently." or "Ari, use words." or "Ari, play over here a little further away from that child."

Give him something he can respond to. "No hitting" doesn't give him any room to respond.  "Touch gently" and "Come hit this drum" do give the child something to respond to positively.








This post is being linked to WFMW.