Family Briefs

You know all those little pre-packaged fruit snacks? They come in all shapes - princess, Dora, smiley faces, and on and on - the manufacturers make these VERY appealing to little people! I don’t buy them, however, citing to my kids that “it’s not on the list so we’re not buying it.”

These little packages simply don’t provide any snack-worthy benefits, and the dentist says they are awful because these little sugary “snacks” stick to kids’ teeth. So, we only enjoy these “fruit snacks” when they are included in a birthday goody bag or the kids go to grandma’s house. I wish there were a REAL fruit snack that the kids enjoyed as much . . .

Ta da! Here enters Doug with Jerky.com. Doug contacted me about trying some of his products and reviewing them, and you know how I’m all about FREEBIES! He sent me some pineapple jerky for us to sample. The kids quickly devoured it, and my husband almost didn’t get to try it. I salvaged a package for him so he could share his thoughts on it too.

With four children, we’re on a pretty tight budget these days and I was disappointed to find that the pineapple jerky wasn’t $1/box like at the grocery store. Of course, it’s much better for you - why is it that it costs so much to eat healthy?? Well, that’s my soap box for another time. Anyhoo, where was I . . . oh yes, my budget. We buy pineapple every week, have a food dehydrator and decided we could duplicate Doug’s creation - I mean, the label says the only two ingredients are pineapple and honey. How hard could it be?

Apparently they have a magical brew there at Jerky.com. Our jerky just didn’t measure up . . . it fell flat. So, guess we’ll splurge every now and then . . . ‘course with Father’s Day coming up, I should have already ordered one of their Beef Jerky Gift Baskets. You have to splurge a little on fabulous fathers, right? I’m really eyeballing this one. Reckon’ they could get it here in time? I’m off to order!

Can you guess what this is a picture of?

A) A turtle that died eating Easter basket grass
B) A collection of rocks and trash found in my yard
C) Evidence to clear my name

The correct answer is C - this is really gross. Just looking at this picture, I doubt your first guess would have been dried dog poop. Great Dane dog poop. Great Dane-that-finished-my-youngest-child’s-chocolate-Easter- bunny-out-of-her-Easter-basket poop.

The kids thought I ate the last bit of it (which I was tempted because she just wasn’t eating it fast enough!), but I didn’t - I really didn’t. Here in the yard, amongst the weeds and pine needles, I found the evidence. Aren’t you glad I shared it with you?

Summer boredom busters . . . well . . . . our favorite is the waterpark. The best part is, I have my mom give us all season passes as a Christmas present - mind you it’s not very exciting to open (unless you’re the one who has to find a home for all the new goodies delivered on Christmas Day), but an awesome gift come the 90^o mark!

So plan ahead and ask for waterpark passes so you can splash down all summer when everyone is bored. Read my original waterpark post for tips on how we manage the waterpark with 4 kids, and read on for more summer boredom busters:

1) You just gotta have a Wii - wii love the Wii Sports, Wii Play, and Wii Fit! Great during a sudden afternoon thunderstorm or when it’s just too stinkin’ hot. But THIS is the game going on my Christmas list this year!

2) We plant things in the garden - it provides ongoing entertainment (weeding, watering, harvesting, and finding creative ways to keep the critters away from your crops). We’re currently anticipating blueberries . . .

3) I take the badminton set and put it up in the backyard. A little extra physical activity usually ensures good naps!

4) This year we’re heading to the bowling alley more often - they have a great deal during the summer you’ll definitely want to check out!

5) Wash the car - a little extra water play that makes the car look good is a definite win-win in my book! You can even wash the dog (which are known to turn in to automatic sprinklers :-)).

6) We participate in the library summer reading programs - every day during quiet time, I have the two oldest read while the two youngest nap. They record the books they’ve read and turn it in to the library to choose a prize.

Typically, my kids don’t complain to me too much about being bored. I think they know I’ll come up with something for them to do - like organize a bookshelf, scrub the baseboards, file paperwork, de-clutter a closet, or take a nap!

There is an area just below our excuse-for-a- garden (3 blueberry bushes, struggling strawberries, a fruitless fig tree, and a lone cabbage school experiment) that is becoming something of a jungle. Not that Tarzan would feel safe swinging on any of the vines, but he’d at least find some prickly shade under the young mimosa tree. The prickles are attached to a thriving blackberry bush - something of a slap in the face for all the work we’ve put in on the strawberries.

I had plans to go out and chop through all the undergrowth and restore order from chaos, but the kids don’t want me to disturb the blackberries. They’ve read “Blackberry Banquet” by Terry Pierce, one of the books in our Sylvan Dell library, and they want to try the “juiciest berries any critter could eat.” I’ve tried to explain they are not critters and probably won’t be nearly as fond of the blackberries as the mouse, bluebird, and squirrel in the story. After all, we’ve seen plenty of these critters stealing our blueberries (despite the net)!

And while I doubt that a bear is going to tromp through the yard looking for our delectable blackberries, I”ve tried to convince the kids that by “flaunting” these berries outside the net, we might be at risk for just that! Apparently, they are all FEARLESS, as the blackberry bush remains. Heck, I might as well just clean out around it and integrate it into the garden. That’s my best hope for getting rid of it, ’cause it’s sure to wither and die once it’s a part of the garden!

**Find out more about the educational books at Sylvan Dell Publishing. Each one of their books has a wonderful section for learning more after each story. There are questions to discuss, recipes to try, and things to think about.**

I remember a wise parent telling me when I began having children (and apparently couldn’t stop) not to eat the food left on the children’s plates . . . it adds up. This is so true! Yet, as I would push all the food off the plates, I would cringe seeing it all piled up in the bottom of the sink. What a waste!

With one child, it’s not so bad to eat their “leftovers” . . . but by the time I got to three kids, I was afraid that I’d be as big as the side of a barn just trying to keep from wasting food. I tried cutting back on my own meal so I could eat their remnants . . . still it was hard trying to balance what I ate with what I THOUGHT they would eat. Sometimes when they ate more than I expected, I just “fixed” my hunger with an extra bowl of ice cream (after they’d gone to bed, of course :-).

So, I was back to scraping food into the sink for the disposal to handle.  Then it hit me!  There was at LEAST another meal sitting there for someone (of course, it was a bit unappetizing there in the sink).  Instead of dumping this food in the sink, I put all the extra food into a divided Tupperware-style plate and put it in the fridge.  Now when the girls want PBJ’s, I just pop this one-person meal in the microwave (killing any little-people germs) and I’m set!

No wasted food, no extra wasteline, and one less PBJ sandwich I have to endure :-)  It works for me!

Without fail, more than one child will tell me to ask the bank teller for however many suckers are needed to go around for the number of children in the car (they never ask for one for me).

We’ve always called them suckers. In fact, when they are chomping away at these sweet delights (breaking away bits and pieces of baby teeth as they go), I remind them that they are called SUCKERS - you’re supposed to just SUCK on them!

Today, as my 4- and 6-year olds are singing the “Hannah, Hannah, Fo Fannah, Banana, Nana” rhyme in the back seat (suckers in hand), I realized I should have called the treats from the bank lollipops from day one. There are a lot fewer words that rhyme with”lollipop,” and you won’t have to worry about the “F” word being one of them!

Seems our community is running rampant with a stomach virus. Some of the company we had on Thanksgiving Day came down with it just hours after leaving (it wasn’t my cooking, honest!). We’re so glad to have narrowly escaped the vomiting and diarrhea, especially with small children!

I’m not so sure we’ll be so lucky to escape a bad case of stripes; I can already see the early symptoms in at least two of my children - the two who care what other people think. What? You’ve never heard of this dreaded disease? I hadn’t either until we found it at the library - a book, that is, by David Shannon.

A Bad Case of Stripes is a delightful story about a young girl who loves lima beans. Now, she didn’t tell her friends this, of course, because no kid likes lima beans and she wanted to fit in. She cared a lot about what other people thought of her, so much so that she had a terrible time choosing her outfit for the first day of school.

Of course, who cares about what clothes you’re wearing when your body is covered in bright, bold, rainbow stripes? This is exactly what happens to Camilla Cream as she’s trying to get dressed for that first day of school. Her mother sends her to bed and calls the doctor, but Dr. Bumble can’t seem to find a reason to keep her home from school.

At school the next day, Camilla is laughed at by everyone. Of course, when her stripes changed to red, white, and blue with stars during the Pledge of Allegiance, her classmates began shouting out different designs. Sure enough, her skin changed to match the polka dots, chekerboard, and camouflage patterns that were being called out.

The specialists are called in; the experts are called in; even an Environmental Therapist is called, but Camilla’s condition only seems to worsen. No one can determine a cure for this odd skin condition that seems to take on the colors and shapes ofwhatever they mention (especially yucky when the experts talk about viruses and fungi).

Only when a sweet, plump, old woman stops by and offers to help, does Camilla seem to have a chance. The woman offers Camilla some lima beans. “”Are those magic beans?” asked Mrs. Cream. “Oh my, no,” replied the kind old woman. “There’s no such thing. These are just plain old lima beans. I’ll bet you’d like some, wouldn’t you?” she asked Camilla.”

Just after refusing the lima beans, Camilla finally admits that she really does like lima beans. As she eats the beans, Camilla is cured.

Oh, if only the stripes were really that easy to get rid of. But aren’t they? Maybe not after one dose of being ourselves, but after regularly practicing being ourselves - you know, on a daily basis. Getting dressed in the morning with no one else in mind but ourselves - not what others will think, but what do I think of the clothes I’m putting on?

I’m so glad that my oldest daughter (who currently cares quite a bit about what others think - and she’s only FOUR!) absolutely loves this book - don’t tell her, but she’s getting it for Christmas (the library wants their copy back :). Hopefully, she’ll see the hidden message amongst the pages and learn to make choices for herself and not for others.

Happy Reading!

How is it that we can send a man to the moon, yet no one seems to be able to create a bottle of spray butter that actually SPRAYS!!!????

My eight-year-old is an avid reader. He devours books quicker than we can loop back around to the library. And thank goodness for the library, or we’d be living in a cardboard box somewhere to support his reading habit! It’s a good problem to have, so don’t hear me complaining. So when MotherTalk was looking for book reviewers for a new book by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge called, The Dangerous Days of Daniel X, I’ll admit I selfishly signed up just to have another book for my child .

I was a little nervous when the book arrived - the back cover read, “They killed my mother and father - and I will hunt them to the ends of the earth.” Not quite your garden variety “Magic Tree House” adventure series . . . Mmmmmm. I figured I was going to just have to read this to myself and let the eight-year-old wait until his 21st birthday to take this one off the shelf.

Instead, I began reading it aloud to him with the stipulation that I might have to stop sharing it with him at any moment that it became inappropriate. He warily agreed, curious to step into the pages of this seemingly “inappropriate” book!

This adventure/science fiction story is told by Daniel X himself. The first-person dialogue pulls readers in from Daniel’s introducing himself as an alien hunter. Even more of a connection is made when his parents die (no spoiler - remember the back cover?) and he is left alone with just you, the reader.

I have had to be on guard reading this aloud to my son, making corrections - like “smart-alec” and “darn” along the way. I was a little disturbed that a book being marketed to the 10-15 year old demographic would include profanity. Ah well, guess that’s my conservatism showing again :).

As the vocabulary is sometimes a bit over his head and the action often moves very quickly, we have had lots of opportunities for discussion about what is actually taking place in the story and why. There is a scuzzy scene with kids dealing drugs . . . that led to some interesting conversations which made my husband want to toss the book (I didn’t bother to mention the profanity to him . . . ). I just took it in stride as the opportunity to have one of those “Just Say No” conversations.

My son and I have read several “Fantasy” books together - our recent favorite is the Deltora Quest series. To me, that’s a lot of very realistic stuff happening with a few twists of fantasy. Daniel X is LOTS of fantasy taking place on our very realistic planet. While it’s not my most favorite, my son is LOVING it. He loves the good guy vs. bad guy stuff (very super hero-oriented) and can’t wait to find out how Daniel X rids the world of all the bad aliens living here.

Oh, did I mention, we haven’t finished the book yet? Sorry, MotherTalk. Reading aloud is very slow, and of course all the discussion about what’s happening and why . . . then there was our week-long trip to Disney, my sore throat, homework, laundry . . . do I really need more excuses??? We’ve done quite well to get more than half way - don’t get me wrong - we are enjoying the book. There’s plenty of suspense such that we’re both disappointed when our schedule doesn’t give us ample time to read several chapters each night (BTW - I LOVE the super-short-chapter format of the book - we’re on page 155 and chapter 59!).

At the point we’ve reached in the book, we have absolutely no idea where the story will go from here or what the ending could possibly entail . . . but we can’t wait to find out! Be on the look-out for a follow-up post with the final “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” - so far it’s definitely a “thumbs up!”

A friend of mine, who is not a book lover, likes reading my book reviews. She knows the importance of reading to her child, but she has no idea which of the MILLIONS of available children’s books to choose. Since she just had her first child a few months ago, she asked me to suggest some good books for babies.

While I was pregnant with our first child, my husband and I read aloud to each other from The Runaway Jury, by John Grisham. Shortly after he was born, we finished reading it to him. Now, I’m not suggesting that you read John Grisham or Stephen King to your children; but I am saying that when children are very young, it doesn’t matter what you read to them as much as THAT you read to them. So if you aren’t into children’s books, you can get away with reading them something you like when they’re really really young (unfortunately that changes as they grow, and they are likely to choose your least favorite book as their all-time-have-to-read-it-every-night favorite!)

As they get a bit older and you want to begin drawing them into the world of books, a popular choice for years has been Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt. When I received this book at our first baby shower, everyone else seemed to recognize it as THE children’s book to have. I felt like I’d been living under a rock somewhere for the last decade - “what kind of mother is she going to make if she doesn’t even know about Pat the Bunny???” Well, that’s what they said in their minds . . . if nothing else, perhaps this review will save you from that embarrassment.

Pat the Bunny is an enjoyable little interactive “touch and feel” book, there are several others in the Pat the Bunny series that I enjoy more (for varying reasons). I think one of my favorites is Five Red Apples. There are five plastic apples across the top of the book that slide back and forth. Presumably for counting, but I love how they entertain my youngest in the car! Another in the series, called Butterfly Roundup, is also great for entertainment value - there is a plastic bunny that swirls around up and down a little pole, so the butterfly seems to be fluttering around.

Another Pat the Bunny series favorite is Sweet Dreams. This little book has a extension attached to the book that has a plastic bunny with a push button. When you push the button, the bunny lights up! One of our children enjoyed sleeping with this book in their bed - if she got scared, she had control of her own nightlight (in addition to the three that were already on, of course!).

Within this same series, we also received a fabric book, called Sleepy Bunny. It has a stuffed bunny on a string that you can slip into a pocket so he looks like he’s “in” some of the pictures in the book - all of course while working his way to bed! Several of my children like to sleep with books, and soft ones like this make it easy to say, “yes!”

If you’re looking for more books with textures, we really like DK Publishing’s “Touch and Feel” series. We have the Baby Animals book, but I’ve seen others that are equally good. The bunny fur feels so real to me, and I love the leather for the baby elephant’s ears. And of course you can tell your little one, “They are all babies, just like you!”

My favorite tactile book is That’s Not My Puppy by Fiona Watt (Usborne books). This book goes through all these different dogs with, “That’s not my puppy!” and then says why it’s not (its coat is too hairy, or its collar is too shiny, etc.). The various textures presented combined with the repetitive nature of the story, makes this such a fun read for children AND adults!

Enjoy these and may others and snuggle up and read tonight!