RECIPE for POTATO-PEAS: Make mashed potatoes….. Add cooked peas……. Act as if they came that way…..Do NOT actually SAY they came that way….
Mix foods they don’t like with food they DO like
As a toddler, my older daughter did not like vegetables very much… particularly the green varieties. However, she DID love mashed potatoes. (Who doesn’t?) So… I mixed peas into mashed potatoes and discovered she liked them. Potato-peas were born!
I stopped serving plain mashed potatoes… I always mixed them with peas. And we called them potato-peas.
This worked well for about two years… until she want to visit a friend whose family had mashed potatoes for dinner. My daughter asked the hostess, “How did you get the peas out of the potatoes?”
As you may imagine… my four-year old daughter was HIGHLY indignant when she returned home.
Meet Mr. Potato Peas
A few thoughts on Halloween and Easter
We also did Halloween and the Easter bunny… perhaps a few of our ideas may help you:
- We stipulated BEFOREHAND how many pieces of candy the kids could have a day
- We kept the candy up high
- The Easter bunny was accommodating enough to pack the candy in one-plastic-egg-per-day rations
- The Easter bunny left a note explaining how this worked!
At some point your child will catch on to your… shall we call them… culinary tall tales.
This happens about the time your kids go to school. For example, my daughter learned:
- Those pastries I optimistically referred to as pop tarts (flavored with fruit juice) were NOT like her classmates’ pop tarts!
- Not all oatmeal has brewer’s yeast in it. (She hated meat too so this is how I got her to eat protein.)
- Bread comes in white and it tastes BETTER than whole-wheat bread!
- Those healthy carrot muffins with a thin layer of frosting on top are NOT the same as a birthday cake.
- Captain Crunch boxes in the cereal aisle are not really there as decorations.
At this point… you have to make a decision. My decision was to give in to junk food a little to help my kids fit in with their classmates.
So, I bought them marshmallows for their lunch box. I figured that the marshmallows LOOK big, but they are mostly full of air. (This was way before the whole corn syrup thing.)
No matter how you handle sweets in your family, SOMEONE will disapprove. People are VERY opinionated about these things.
In my experience… you don’t have much control over whether your child craves sugar or not. Over the years, people have assured me that:
- “I didn’t have ANY sugar as a child… so I did not learn how to handle it. As a result, I CRAVE sugar.”
- “I had TOO MUCH sugar as a child… as a result I CRAVE sugar.”
- “I did not have sugar as a child, and as a result I do NOT crave sugar.”
In fact, no matter what your strategies for feeding your family… there may be a small (but VOCAL) group who disprove. This can be stressful for young parents. Try to remember:
- Every one is different.
- You are the best judge of what is best for YOUR family… and you can always it tweak it if need be.
- No matter how you do it, someone will disapprove.
- People who know exactingly what YOU should are often insecure in their OWN decisions… they believe there is only ONE way to do things.. and usually have a very small percentage of the facts. But that does NOT make them bad people… we ALL have things we need to change… I know I do! Sometimes it is good to try to assume that we are all doing our best. For some of us (like me) it takes practice to be positive like that… but I think we will be happier and get along better if we can do that.
Seriously, some people are very opinionated about these things….. accept this simple fact of life, as it applies to every aspect of parenting.
A few strategies for handling a sweet tooth around the holidays
A Happy Squirrel in front of the Freeman household after a dinner party!
I love sugar and if I keep it around the house I will eat it in less-than-healthy manner. I am not proud of this… but it is a fact of life. I know freezing sweets works for some people… but I can eat it frozen. Or nuke it in the microwave.
It is hard get away from sweets some times… so I have another compromise. If a guest brings a dessert I serve it for dinner. Then I send the desserts home with a guest. Or… I toss the desserts over the hill in front of our hill after people leave.
This is how we compost. It is kind of fun. I throw cookies over the hill like a Frisbee… and round cookies like a little ball. I hate to admit this… but I sometimes am eating the cookies WHILE I am carrying them to the hill.
That is why you may notice that after significant holidays, the squirrels and chipmunks in front of my house look very happy and active.
Again, I am NOT proud of this. But I already spend so much time dealing with my OCD, ADD and PTSD panic attacks… I really can’t figure this out right now. I figure sometimes it is better just to accept ourselves the best we can. After all… being a musician and writer dealing with these things has motivated me to create new things nobody has ever made before…. so maybe that’s the flip side.