Healthier Kids

I need mom advice.

Whenever Twinkle's behavior is off, my gut reaction is, "she needs to eat healthier food." I'm working on having healthier snacks available at home. Now I need help with school food.

I've fallen into a pattern with school lunches of picking various prepackaged foods and dropping them into her lunch box. Some of them "seem" healthy, or at least not unhealthy, but I do wonder about what has been done to that food and how healthy it really is.

We are vegetarians, so I can't send a turkey and cheese sandwich to school with her. I send milk and cheese to school, but I'd like to send more protein with her. The girl doesn't really like peanut butter/jelly sandwiches. I used to send a boiled egg, which she likes, but I need more variety.

Help! How do you keep you kids healthy?

What Do They DO When We Aren't Here??

Mr. S and I just returned from a week in paradise to celebrate our 20th anniversary. It was wonderful. Very relaxing and quiet and ... aaaahhhhh. [Name that movie: "And we're off....to Haiti!" "Not Haiti!...Tahiti!]

While we were gone, the 2 sets of grandparents split the time staying with the girls. I find interesting all the things we find in our house after they leave.

For example, light butter. Not something the Swizzles buy. Why? The ingredients on our butter? Sweet cream, salt. The end. Light butter has 11 ingredients that are marked with an asterisk that says, "ingredients not found in regular butter" like water and modified food starch and tapioca maltodextrin. It felt wasteful, but I threw it away. I couldn't feed it to the family (although they apparently ate it while I was gone). The other oddity about the butter? I bought a pound of "regular" butter a couple of days before we left. No idea how it was all used in less than a week.

Another oddity? A brand new, used once, jar of peanut butter. In the refrigerator. With 2 other jars of peanut butter already in the pantry. Alright.

2 loaves of bread, one with about 6 slices left and one about half gone. Despite the fresh loaf in the bread box in the pantry that we left. K.

TONS of leftovers in the fridge no matter how small. A washed empty sherbet container. (Mr. S's comment was "what kind of storage container-less lives do they live?")

Interestingly, we can tell who bought what. Mr. S's mom shopped at Kroger. Mine shopped at Target. All the Kroger store brand stuff - his mom. All the Target store brand stuff - my mom. All the things that make us say, "huh?" - his mom, but we would have known that anyway.

The thing is, this time before we left I went to the store and shopped for food to leave here. LAST time Mr. S's mom watched Twinkle while we were in China getting Sparkle, one of her many complaints was "there was nothing to eat." Pantry full. Fridge full, though not by her standards. I specifically went shopping simply because she complained last time, even though I knew we'd left her food. Problem solver that she is, she complained instead of...shopping for food.

This time, I guess she thought we did not have things that we did, though she did not complain about it. I can't help but think she left here thinking that WE are odd for not having various items of food that we did, a stocked diaper bag (we did, but she grabbed a big shopping bag and put all the essentials and then some into it), bath wash for Sparkle (she couldn't see it) and all sorts of other things.

I can't help but think that she is so unfamiliar with our house, where things are, etc. because she visits so rarely. But there's also the probability that she wouldn't know even if she lived here. We always leave instructions for everything from what days the girls go to school to how to operate the television, but she doesn't look at those or listen when Mr. S tries to explain a few things while we're still here. No matter how easy we try to make it, we just can't cover everything.

After being married 20 years, I'm used to this. They are merely slight annoyances and kind of amusing at this point. Mr. S's mom is a rare bird. She has lots and lots (and lots) of quirks, but she is the most giving person you'll ever meet. Whether it's actually something you want or not. You'll take it and you'll like it.

So, what's up with you?

It's a Good Thing They're Cute

It's been quite a week.

Sparkle is being 2 and testing to make sure that I mean everything I say. If I say, "NO, don't touch that." She smiles and looks at me and slowly inches her hand toward whatever it is. Guess what! She found out that the glass on the fireplace gets hot! Just like mom and dad said. Luckily, she has super quick reflexes and didn't get much of a burn.

Twinkle on the other hand isn't testing everything I say. She, apparently, is totally deaf to the pitch and tone of my voice. Can't hear me at all. This is as annoying as Sparkle testing me. They both aren't listening. Sometimes I wonder why I even speak at all.

About half an hour ago, Sparkle asked for some chocolate milk ("cha mip" with a heavy emphasis on the p). I gave her a little bit of chocolate milk, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Then she asked for more. I told her (without yelling) that I was not giving her any chocolate milk and not to bother throwing a fit about it and scream and cry that she wanted milk because I was NOT giving her any chocolate milk.

When I was finished, she looked at her cup and looked at me (the crazy lady) and said, "How 'bout zhoosh?" I smiled at her, told her that she asked very nicely, and poured her some orange juice.

Cheers!

HOW long ago did she birth twins??

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have traveled to the East and are celebrating Thanksgiving with both families.

Kind of...Mr. S's sister is holding some kind of grudge over some imagined grievance at the end of September and is "punishing" us by going to Atlanta with a friend for a week. ODDLY, she actually took her son with her instead of dropping him at the grandparents' house and traveling on.

It's been lovely.

Twinkle is spending the night tonight with my parents. My brother and SIL and their kids are there, so Twinkle is in heaven.

Sparkle is with us at Mr. S's parents' house. She is sleeping rather well on a cot in the same room as Mr. S and I.

I made a tasty mince meat pie an a decadent dark chocolate pie. My dad and brother both love the mince meat pie. My nephew does too. He just discovered today that it has BRANDY in it. It was really kind of funny seeing his face when I poured the brandy in with the dried fruit.

We will not be shopping tomorrow. We don't usually, but this year we are awaiting replacement credit cards because of fraudulent charges on the old ones. It's been an interesting experience needing cash to buy things like pie ingredients.

Now, I think I'm off to bed. Sparkle is sleeping well, but will no doubt wake me earlier than I'd like tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Gift a Gift?

When did "gift" become a verb?

Was it before or after "office" became a verb?

Is Martha Stewart responsible?

Why not use "give"?

Just wondering.

Things That Made Me Go Hmmmmm Today

Still feeling giddy and hopeful.

These are a few things that made me shake my head today...in different ways.

Heard on NPR:
"I'm terrified. I think he's going to appoint people that blow things up."

"I didn't vote for him...that whole not putting his hand over his heart during the National Anthem just really bothers me." (um...never mind)

And something that I can't say I've ever seen before:
After dropping off Twinkle at school, I was driving Sparkle to school. Something caught my eye. I saw a hawk flying about 5 feet off the ground, like a line drive...carrying a squirrel in its claws (but somehow parallel to it's body). This was not a small squirrel. It looked almost like the hawk was second guessing its ability to fly away with it. Preferring not to think about what awaited the squirrel, I couldn't help imagining the squirrel thinking, "What the....I'm a flying squirrel!! Look at me!!!!"

Do all of these things tie together? I might need some tequila to see the connection.

What will tomorrow bring?