November 2010 Archives

Some people think bacon makes everything taste better - bacon in dessert is just one example - but I am going to make a case for breadcrumbs. If your kid isn't into vegetables or won't try something new, breadcrumbs might convince him otherwise.

I especially like Panko, Japanese style breadcrumbs, because of the crispy texture. Panko absorbs less oil than traditional breadcrumbs so you may find your dishes less greasy. Coat veggies such as sweet potatoes, sweet onions, or green beans and fry them in a heavy pan. Absorb the extra oil on paper towels and serve them hot - or warm for the little ones. It's a deliciously different way to serve the same old vegetables. Fish may be the best candidate for Panko breadcrumbs. Kellan will pretty much reject any fish, but he will try it if it's breaded and crisp. I even season the breadcrumbs with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley to add flavor. You don't even have to fry foods to use breadcrumbs. Dishes like baked macaroni and cheese or steamed asparagus can be healthy and low fat.

If there's one place that's truly miserable for children, it's baggage claim. After a long day of travel, the last thing anyone, especially a kid, wants to do is wait around for luggage late at night. While Erik hunted down our luggage, I sat in a chair with Kellan sleeping on my lap. I noticed several unhappy campers, especially the poor boy whose mother woke him up as he slept in a chair. Too bad vacations can't last forever.

Kellan, Erik, and I had a memorable time in Panama over the Thanksgiving holiday. We met interesting people, enjoyed amazing unspoiled beaches, and spent a full week free of any responsibilities other than enjoying each other's company. We stayed at an eco lodge called Al Natural on Isla Bastimentos. We loved the small setting and relaxed atmosphere (no internet for a whole week!). While there's no set definition of eco lodge or sustainable tourism, there are some factors that make all the difference, including environmentally friendly practices, employing local or indigenous people, and building structures that work with the natural landscape.

This is the second time we've stayed at an eco lodge in Central America. Not only do we want to do our part to support these types of businesses, but many of these places offer great rates for what you get. We also love getting to know the locals, which is much easier when we aren't staying at a traditional hotel.

Like millions of Americans, we are traveling over the Thanksgiving holiday. We are headed to Bocas del Toro, Panama for a Caribbean Island getaway and I'm not sure we can get to warm weather fast enough! I am looking forward to a vacation, but I'm definitely not looking forward to our time in airports or the long flights. It takes careful planning and extra patience when at the airport on any occasion, but holiday travel will require an extra dose of patience.

Besides having a positive attitude, my biggest challenge when traveling with a child is packing the perfect carry-on bag. We've flown quite a bit with Kellan and I am always trying to get the right mix of necessary items in my bag.

I've blogged about traveling in general with a small child, but for this trip I am really focusing on the contents of my carry-on bag. Take a look at what I'm packing.

1.       Passport/Itinerary wallet - For me, having our passports and travel itinerary in one convenient place is an absolute necessity. We also keep hotel confirmation numbers, airline phone numbers and other important phone numbers on a sheet of paper as a back-up, just in case the batteries to a cell phone or laptop fail us.

2.       Toiletries - if your luggage ever gets lost, at least you'll have your toothbrush (and in my case, glasses, extra contact lenses and a few makeup items). I also keep Kellan's toothbrush in my bag too.

3.       Extra clothes - It's worth having an extra outfit for your child. Once Kellan spilled water on his pants and socks and all I brought was an extra shirt and underwear. I have no idea what I was thinking, but now I always bring an entire outfit in a small packing cube. I also bring a long, lightweight cardigan that can double as a blanket for Kellan. It can also cover any spills on my shirt or pants (when wrapped around my waist).

4.       Small toys/small notebook - The key words here are small and lightweight. The flight itself should have plenty of exciting elements. Kellan likes the overhead light button and the screens on the backs of headrests. For this trip I bought a roll-out play scene that I know he will love, and I'll pack his travel notebook and markers for drawing.

5.       Healthy snacks - I cannot express how vital it is to pack healthy snacks on trips. If you've ever bought a two dollar granola bar or three dollar yogurt at the airport to appease your starving child, you know what I mean. Even if you think you are over-packing food, you probably aren't. You never know if a delay will keep you at the airport or inside a plane longer than expected.

Those are the necessities and the two other items I'll include are my iPod and a paperback book. Now if only I can actually get some reading done on the plane! Feel free to share your "can't live without" carry-on items in the comments.

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, my husband and I are talking to Kellan about what the holiday means.  We haven't discussed the pilgrims yet, but we do talk about being thankful and giving to others. Kellan can't stop playing with a potato turkey he made at in class!

Kellan's school is having a food drive, so gathering up our donation has allowed us to talk about giving. That's not always the easiest concept for a preschooler to grasp, but it's worth talking about just the same. We're tried to relate it to situations he understands, like helping out at school or giving something to a friend in need.

Even though we will be celebrating Thanksgiving in another country and won't do the traditional turkey dinner with family and friends, I do want Thanksgiving to be about being grateful for everything we have - our family, friends, good health, and the ability to add to our family adventures through travel.

How are you talking about Thanksgiving with your child?

I am a big-time magazine junky. Whether I need mindless entertainment or want to learn something new, magazines allow me to do that without committing days, even weeks, like a book. Not that I will ever give up books, but sometimes I want glossy pictures to go with the words.

So because of my (and my husband's) magazine habit, we are actually recycling quite a bit of paper each month. Don't even get me started on the stacks of magazines I can't bear to part with yet. Let's just say, we could probably do better in the reducing and reusing departments.

One thing I should definitely do is repurpose magazine pages for art projects. Kellan loves to use his scissors, so he can practice cutting out pictures and gluing them on cardboard for collages (glue sticks may even rate higher than scissors on a preschooler's list of cool crafting tools). We've also been making and decorating paper airplanes. Magazine pages would make for colorful creations.

If there's one sure way to make it a happy afternoon at our house, it's making chocolate chip cookies. Kellan calls the chips "bettersweet" chocolate. I should probably correct him, but hey, he won't be three forever!

For a recent cooking activity at preschool, Kellan's class made chocolate chip cookies. Everyone has a small task and each child gets to spoon some dough onto the cookie sheet. When it was Kellan's turn, he spooned a big helping of dough in his mouth instead of the sheet. Then he spit it back out in the bowl. Thankfully, the teacher had a good sense of humor about it and there was plenty of dough ready to bake.  Whew! I'd hate to be the kid who ruined cookie day.

What's especially amusing is that Kellan told his teacher that he gets to eat cookie dough at home. That's a head-scratcher because I don't remember letting him eat raw cookie dough. Not only because of the risk of salmonella, but because I'm not a fan of uncooked dough. I do let Kellan lick homemade frosting off spoons so maybe he got mixed up.

Months ago, I cut up a bunch of Sunday newspaper coupons and had Kellan use them as money for playing. Even now, when he sees coupons he calls them money. He definitely has more of an awareness of money. He loves putting coins in his piggy bank, and thanks to his dad's unending supply of loose change in pants pockets, laundry days are a bonanza.

Recently, when I told him we couldn't buy something because it cost too much, he demanded to look inside my handbag. Who needs a piggy bank when you've got mom's purse? I know he's only three, but I wonder what age is the right age to earn an allowance. It seems like a good opportunity to teach the concept of managing money, but maybe preschool is too young?

If there's one product we can all cut back on, it's paper. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, using recycled paper products - napkins, tissues, or toilet paper - can save over a million of trees a year.  We try to buy recycled products as much as we can, but I know we can do better.   

One way to go a greener route would be to use cloth napkins. We actually have plenty of cloth napkins, but I've always been reluctant to use them (unless it's a holiday dinner) because they are white and tough to keep clean. Please tell me I'm not the only impractical bride who registered for white napkins. Anyway, those napkins need to get used!

I also found an easy to follow tutorial on making cloth napkins. My sewing skills aren't the greatest, but I can sew in a straight line, and thankfully that's really all it takes to make napkins. It's also a great way to use up any extra cotton or linen fabric. Your napkins don't even need to match since it's just for everyday use. If you are really willing drastic measures to help the planet, you can assign a napkin to each person in your household and have everyone reuse their napkin until laundry day. If you use similar napkins, you can get each person their own napkin ring to keep track of individual napkins as you reuse them. I may have to see how our napkins look at the end of the day before I try to go a week without washing, but I applaud anyone who can hold out that long.  

It's embarrassing to admit, but I have become an app addict. Well, maybe not an addict, but I won't think twice about playing Doodle Jump just to occupy myself while waiting in line.  Rest assured, I make sure the sound is turned off!

What's so wacky about my newfound habit is that I don't actually like video games. So why have I suddenly found games so irresistible? And it's not just games. If I have to wait even one minute, I'll take the opportunity to check the latest news, the weather forecast for cities where I'd like to travel (my current obsessions are Venice and Stockholm) and even shop online. I barely have time to read the newspaper, but somehow find time to use my New York Times app several times a day.

Not only does Kellan recognize different apps my husband and I use, he even has favorites. Doodle Buddy (a drawing app), iWrite Words (a handwriting app) and MeeGenius (a storytelling app) are fun and preschool appropriate. He also loves "playing" Angry Birds, a very addictive game for grown-ups, and Alpine Crawler, a driving game I can't figure out but it comes with a demo that Kellan likes to watch over and over.

I definitely don't want my child to seek out apps as his main source of entertainment. As a matter of fact, I don't want that to be my main source of entertainment. Maybe I should just carry a good book in my handbag... unless of course I get an iPad.

Do you ever get a "great idea" and then realize perhaps it wasn't all that? It happens to me all the time, but not as comically as a recent dinner. In my ongoing effort to encourage Kellan try new foods, I thought a fun presentation would be worth trying.

Well, my bright idea was to serve pumpkin soup in a hollowed out pumpkin. There's a recipe in one of my cookbooks and it suggests serving it that way for an extra flourish. The problem is, even if your pumpkin isn't nearly as big as the jack o' lantern you carved for Halloween, it's still hard work. As I was scraping the inside of a sugar pie pumpkin I thought to myself, I really despise scraping pumpkins! 

If you had to guess which home appliance uses up the most energy, which would you choose? If you picked your refrigerator, you get a gold star. Or should I say Energy Star? Now it's time to see if you are doing everything you can to make sure your fridge runs more efficiently.

One of the easiest things you can do is to make sure to clean the coils twice a year. You can find them at the bottom of your refrigerator, behind a panel in the front or exposed in the back on older models. Dusty coils make your fridge run more often and for longer periods of time. I try to run a mop or dust cloth under there every time I clean the floors just to stay on top of the dust bunnies.

Another simple way to make your refrigerator run more efficiently is to set the temperature between to 37° F and 40° F and the freezer between 0° F and 5° F. Keep your fridge and freezer stocked--less cold air is lost when the door is open, because the food retains the cold.

Kellan: "Mama, are you edible to play with me?"

Me: "Ha, ha! Do you mean, am I 'available' to play with you?"

Kellan:  (pause) "No, edible."

It's amazing the types of words kids pick up. Even if you swear you've never used a specific word around your child, one day he'll say something completely surprising. My husband and I try to be extra careful about what we say and how we say it. Still, it's not always easy to remember that your preschooler is tuned into every word.

Once when Kellan was two years old, I asked flippantly, "Do you want a knuckle sandwich?" when he refused to eat anything I offered him. He looked at me and said, "I want an Uncle sandwich!" I couldn't produce this Uncle sandwich and that didn't go over well.

And  it's not even just words that can cause trouble. The tone of your voice can make a big impact. Tonight at dinner Erik and I were talking about the recent election. I got a little worked up about a specific issue and Kellan said, "Don't be angry, Mama!" We tried to explain to him that I wasn't angry with anyone, and that we were just talking about something that made me frustrated. I did feel badly about sounding angry though. Perhaps political discussions should be saved until after dinner.

Portland has an active cyclocross community so we've talked about taking Kellan to a race. I think he would be beside himself with excitement. A trip to a cyclocross race would definitely require waterproof boots and a nonchalant attitude toward getting dirty, but it would be a memorable outing for all of us. However, I'm happy putting off his racing dreams until he learns to ride a real bike.