Meal Planning

Thanks for all your kind comments on my slogging post. And a bunch of you asked about meal planning, so I thought I'd fill you in on how I make meal planning work for me.

But first, before I get into that, I have to mention my dinner date with Tanika on Saturday night! We met halfway between Baltimore and Virginia and enjoyed an awesome dinner and drinks at a very chic Italian restaurant. :-) You'll have to read Tanika's post to see a picture and get a much better description of our evening, but suffice it to say that gab time with girlfriends is AWESOME!!!!

Okay--so back to meal planning. First of all, keep in mind that there is no ONE right way for everyone. Once you start doing it, you'll find that you have to tweak things and things will evolve as you go. You'll find that some weeks/months are better than others. Some weeks, even with a plan, things will go to hell in a hand basket. Just stick with it and be flexible. And if you find that what you're doing now--without a meal plan--works for your family, then don't sweat it! If you're good at keeping track of things in your head and you don't forget things all.the.time, then you're already doing great!

If you're like me, however, and the daily chore of putting together dinner makes you want to jump out of your skin, then a meal plan just might be worth a try. I only go to the grocery store once a week, so I really have to be organized about what I need. I have NO TIME to run to store during the week, unless I go at 9:00 p.m, which I HATE. And I can send Ed, but I just hate for either of us to take the time to do that. So planning helps. It also helps the budget, because I can be very impulsive when I grocery shop!

So begin by making a list of meals that your family likes to eat. Includes sides and veggies, and keep in mind leftovers and desserts. Also include quick, last-minute meals (like cheese and crackers, or sandwiches, or frozen stuff you just quickly heat up). And when you first start out, just start with things you make now for dinner--hot dogs, mac 'n' cheese, chicken nuggets. You don't need to be fancy and you don't have to slave in your kitchen. As you get more accustomed to meal planning, you can start shaking things up a bit and try recipes that you've been wanting to try. I tend to try new things on the weekends, though, when I have more time. It stresses me out to do new stuff during the week.

Next. look at your calendar. Consider what's going on each weeknight, and figure out what nights you'll be able to spend a little more time making dinner, and what nights will need to be quick. For this week, for example, we have an after-school event on Tuesday night, and William has soccer practice on Wednesday night. So we'll do fast food on Tuesday (probably Subway), and on Wednesday, we'll do spaghetti (using jar sauce) and leftovers. The other nights, I'll have a little more time, and the weather is supposed to be nice, so I'll use the grill. Just write down a meal with a side for each night of the week. I try to alternate the kinds of meat I use, so this week, for example, Sunday was fish, tonight will be steak, Wednesday will be meatless (although William will probably eat leftover steak), Thursday will be chicken, and Friday will be tacos. You can also make a lot of something early in the week that can be repurposed later in the week. So I could use the leftover steak from Monday to make fajitas on Thursday. Or I could make extra chicken on Thursday and then make quesadillas for Monday. You get the idea.

The trick to this method for me is that I have to remember to take meat out of the freezer when I need it, and to do whatever prep I need to do beforehand. This is the only way I can make it work on week nights when I don't get home from work until 6:00 p.m. For meat, it has to be able to cook in about 20 minutes or less. Making cutlets out of chicken breasts and boneless pork chops is great for weeknight meals because they cook so quickly. You can marinate them quickly, too, or use a rub, and they get pretty flavorful because they have a lot of surface area per bite. We like breaded cutlets (I fry them in oil), or sauteed cutlets with pan sauce (like pork or chicken picatta, with lemon juice and a little white wine or chicken broth). Lots of options. So for the prep, I'll either do the meat prep when I get home from the grocery store (make the marinades and put the meat in freezer bags with the marinade and into the freezer, or I'll pound out chicken breasts or pork chops and divvy up the cutlets between freezer bags and put them into the freezer), or if I didn't have time to do that, I have to do it the night before I plan to make it.

As for how I keep track of our meal plan, in the past, I just tended to scribble my menu plan on a piece of paper, and on the same piece of paper, I would keep a running list of what I needed from the grocery store. That worked for me, but I really wanted to put something in the kitchen that we could all see (especially Ed), and that would be a better visual daily reminder for me. Our kitchen does not have a lot of wall space, however, and our refrigerator is not magnetic. But I found a space that works and I bought this magnetic dry-erase board from Target. ($13.00)

I got the idea from Pinterest, which led to this website. Her system is crazy, uber-organized. She printed all her meals on magnets and printed different colors for veggies and sides. Mine is not quite as pretty. I just write in our meals, and in the notes section, I jot down my grocery list. I put activities at the bottom (like soccer practice or science night) so I remember to plan meals accordingly. But I don't use it as our complete family planner. This one is just for meals so far. Jotting down my grocery list has been way more helpful than I anticipated. I had been keeping a notebook in my purse where I wrote down my grocery list, but inevitably, I forgot to make a note of something we were out of. With this system, I write things down as soon as I think of them. I do have to transfer this list to something portable to take to the store, but I've been using my grocery store's online list feature, which organizes the list by aisle. I can access the list with my iPhone, and that makes shopping super easy! Also, I don't usually plan more than a week ahead. I tried planning two weeks ahead, and grocery shopping only every other week. But that didn't work well for us. I have to go to the store every weekend anyway for milk and fresh produce. And I need more flexibility than I get with a two-week plan. So for now, just one week ahead works. But as the calendar fills up, I like seeing what we've eaten over the past few weeks. It definitely helps with the planning so that we're not repeating as much.

So that's pretty much my system. Like I said before, it's evolving. And it works best when I get off my ass make the time to prep ahead of time. Buying in bulk is cheaper, of course, but if I don't have the time to spend on separating the meat and putting it into baggies and adding marinades or pounding it thin, or making hamburger patties or meatloaf or whatever, then buying in bulk does not really help much at all. And I'm hoping that my kids' preferences will continue to evolve. They still don't like rice or potatoes. William and Ed don't like casseroles. They're not big fans of soup or chili. And I haven't found many crock pot meals that work well for us--especially since it has to be on for about 10 to 11 hours. So my options are limited. But meal planning certainly helps me stay on top of things, try new things, and generally helps to keep me organized.

So any questions? Did I leave anything out? I'll post this week's menu, as an example:

Sunday: Salmon, corn on the cob, green salad (I used this Montreal steak seasoning marinade for the salmon and it was really, really good!)

Monday: Steak (with the same marinade), roasted potatoes (I drizzle olive oil over diced potatoes and sprinkle with Greek seasoning mix and put them in the toaster oven 'till they're done), asparagus

Tuesday: Fast food night (probably Subway)

Wednesday: Spaghetti or leftover steak

Thursday: Grilled chicken (from the freezer with zesty chicken marinade), broccoli, dinner rolls

Friday: Tacos (using taco-seasoned meat from the freezer)

Saturday: TBD (I often don't know ahead of time what the plans are for Saturday night, so it's usually TBD on my menu plan.)

Books, Books, Books

I've been thinking a lot about books lately--both my own reading list, and what books the boys love. I've come across some lists of "best of" books (like this list of 75 books that build character), and I've been tracking down books at our local library and on Amazon to be sure that I expose the boys to a wide variety of awesome books. In preparation for Screen Free Week coming up, I thought I'd post some books that were my favorites as a kid, and some that have been (and still are) favorites of the boys.

These were some favorites when the boys were infants and toddlers.

(We love all the books by Leslie Patricelli)

These are books they loved back then and still love now from time to time: 

(We have and love the board book--still!--but there's also a full version)

(William will read this book to Seth now)

 (Not sure why, but this was the potty book that both the boys loved the most)

These are some of our standbys--

(Any and all Berenstain Bears books. The boys love 'em!)

 (We also LOVE Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee Boy and Ladybug Girl and the Bug Squad)

 (We own and Seth especially loves ANY and all Little Critter books.)

(This is the sweetest story ever. Makes me cry every time.)

 (This was one of my favorites as a kid and now both boys love it. I have the original printing--the cover I show here--but the link goes to a newly illustrated version. I prefer the original!)

These are some of my favorites, and for the most part, the kids love them, too:

So there you have it. I'm sure I've left off a lot of books that I'm just not thinking about. In addition to books, we also read a lot of magazines, specifically High Five (which is a younger kids version of Highlights) and Ranger Rick (which William has just recently really gotten into). My mom bought the boys subscriptions to both and I love how the boys save every issue, and they like to go back and re-read them. I highly recommend them!

Slogging

LauraC wrote a post yesterday about how she's tired of hearing herself talk and wondering what else she wants to blog about, or if she wants to keep blogging at all. It's a blogexistential crisis! Clearly, I'm facing the same crisis. Why do we blog? What does this blog do for me? Is it an outlet? Or a chore? Is it my way to connect? Is it my baby book? My way to remember? For me, it's all of those things. It's my record of my life, but because I share it publicly and have an "audience," (even if it's just a tiny one) I feel a small obligation to keep it going, and that's a good thing. It's why blogging has worked for me where journaling has failed. I don't want to quit, and I want to blog more often, because I love looking back and I feel like this blog reflects my life pretty accurately. Which is what I'm going for.

But a lot of what I blog about is my personal journey toward being "better"--being more productive, being more organized, getting more sleep, reading more, exercising, being more "present" with the kids, chillaxin' more. And peoples, you can't do it all. I only have so much time each evening and on the weekends, so if I spend time in the evening making marinades for chicken, pork, and steak, and prepping ground beef for the freezer, AND making the next day's lunches, AND getting in some reading . . . well, you get the point.

So think of my lack of blogging as my success in the real world! My freezer is pretty stocked right now. I have hamburgers, meatloaf patties, marinated steak, marinated chicken breasts (two different kinds!), taco meat, frozen shrimp, and shredded chicken, all ready to go. I am on track with my reading goal to read 24 books this year. I have updated my budget on Mint.com and am keeping track of my spending. I am running. And I have been watching Downton Abbey and Ed and I are almost caught up with Breaking Bad. Not too shabby!

I keep asking myself if my parenting has improved this year--if I can honestly say that I'm doing a better job of nurturing my kids, not losing my temper, helping them become independent and considerate and thoughtful little people. Am I actively trying? I guess the jury is still out on this one. My head is in the right place. I've read some really good books and I think I'm on the right track. I guess parenting is always a work in progress, huh?

So back to slogging--this is what it really feels like most of the time. Just trying to get through the day, the week, the month. Trying to enjoy my kids, while also trying to teach them and to guide them and not to kill them and discipline them. Trying to have a good marriage and not annoy the living crap out of my husband. Trying to get through the chores with as little angst as possible. (Wow--does a cleaning woman do wonders for this one!!!) Trying to appreciate, every day, all that is amazing and wonderful about my life. I am so, so fortunate. So I will keep on slogging and sharing my journey. If for no other reason than I will be able to look back and laugh at myself for thinking that this time in my life was hard. These are the good years, right? So I guess I better make them great.

Happy 4th Birthday Seth!

Dear Seth,

Happy 4th birthday! You have brightened our days and filled our lives with laughter, exasperation, love, and wonder for four years now. You are so earnest and stubborn and self-possessed. You want the world to meet you on your terms, and you sometimes get disgruntled when that doesn't happen. But you also manage to recover quickly, asserting yourself in some new and imaginative way. You love to laugh and you love to remember things that made you laugh. And, of course, Daddy and I love to hear your little belly chuckle. It's contagious!

In your fourth year of life, you have learned so much and have grown up so much. There are so many things you can do by yourself, including get dressed! (Even though you usually rope us into helping you.) You have the best imagination and you love to play with William, whether it's "bad guys" or "rocket ship" or "submarine." Lately you have been very engaged in the space toys, and you're even starting to dabble in Legos. You still love your tools, of course, and for Christmas, Daddy turned your playhouse into a workshop, complete with peg board and bench to store everything. You also still love to ride your scooter and just this spring, you started riding the big bike with training wheels. You love it!

So while you are engaging more in playing with toys, you still mostly love to engage with people, and you still love to "help." You are a great worker, helping Daddy clean up the patio and helping me in the kitchen. You can fold laundry now, like washcloths and dish towels and underwear. You can sweep and dust. You can even clean sinks and toilets! As much as you like to help, you don't like doing any task alone. That's okay with me! I'll take what I can get because there will come a time, likely all too soon, when you won't want me around quite so much.

Daddy and I are so excited to watch you get older and to see all of the things you are learning and the ways that you are growing. You are bright and forceful and confident and determined and I hope these traits will stay with you always. We love you so much and we are so proud of the four year old you have become. We promise that we will do our best to nurture you, guide you, comfort you, protect you, and most important, to let you go, little by little--to watch you become the independent person you are so eager to be. We are always here for you, and we are so fortunate to have you for our son. You have taught us so much about passion and fearlessness and about the excitement to be found all around us. We love you and hope you you feel special today, and every day.

Love, Mommy

TV Time

We're coming up on Turn Off the TV week (or something like that) and I'm trying to decide if we'll participate this year. I don't really think we spend too much time watching TV, and the boys are already aware of the idea of moderation being a good thing. But then I wonder if I'm grossly underestimating the amount of "screen time" my kids are actually getting each day. Does "Turn of the TV" mean "Turn off the iPhone/iPad/Kindle" too? If so, that may make things a bit more challenging, if only for Seth who plays with my iPhone in the car on the way to and from school. Now that the weather has gotten nice, we hardly ever watch TV after school--except for about 15 minutes every night while William does his nebulizer. And I really don't think this would be terribly difficult to part with. The hardest part would be Saturday and Sunday mornings, when the kids get to watch TV for an hour or two. (We don't turn the TV on on weekday mornings, so that wouldn't be an issue.) I'm not sure if it would be harder for the boys to give up, or harder for me! (I just googled it, and it's now Screen-Free Week. Guess that answers my question!)

At any rate, these thoughts were mostly inspired by the speaker who attended this week's PTA meeting at William's school. It was Lisa Guernsey, who wrote Screen Time: How Electronic Media - From Baby Videos to Educational Software - Affects Your Young Child.

It was first published in 2007 (and titled

Into the Minds of Babes: How Screen Time Affects Children From Birth to Age Five)

and now she's written an epilogue that covers what little research there is on smartphones and pads. I read it a few years ago and found it really helpful in sorting out the "good" and the "bad" to television and electronic media. Lisa combed through the research studies that exist on the effects of television on infants and little kids and spoke to the researchers, academics, and scientists conducting the studies. It is a very interesting book, and I highly recommend it. But if you don't feel like reading the whole thing, you can get a taste by checking out the epilogue to the new edition.

Basically, what I got out of the book is what Lisa calls the "Three Cs"--Content, Context, and Child. Content matters. Young children gain the most from shows (or even computer games/apps) that are linear, or have straight-line storytelling; that encourage participation and engagement (those annoying pauses when kids are supposed to shout out the answer); have labeling (think SuperWhy); are repetitious, and are non-violent. Context is the way in which your child watches the show--are you watching with your child (I hardly ever do this) and talking about what you are watching? And the Child part--all children are different so what they're watching should be appropriate for their temperament. Also, studies have shown that background TV or talk radio is not conducive for language development with infants and toddlers. They may not be actively watching TV, but it can adversely affect them.

While Guernsey doesn't provide a list of "good" shows and "bad" shows, she does mention some shows in her book that researchers focused on. Shows like Dora, Blues Clues, Super Why, and Barney all had a positive effect on children learning. But therein lies one of the problems with the book--that most of the research available on the effects of screen time for children was initiated or sponsored by the shows themselves. This is not necessarily a bad thing. PBS, for example, wants to develop educational programming, so I would hope that they would conduct research to determine what's effective and what isn't. Arthur and Clifford, for example, are two shows that, it turns out, aren't all that effective in helping kids learn. Both shows have moral dilemmas that get resolved at the end. But until kids are about 7 or 8, they rarely walked away from the episode having grasped its moral lesson. They mostly fixate on the conflict. (Which is where context becomes important--talking to kids about what they watch.) And the sibling depiction in Arthur actually negatively affected sibling relationships. Anyway--back to who is paying for the research. It's just something to keep in mind that Nickelodeon, for example, has a lot riding on its programming, and research that supports its shows as educational or positive would certainly be emphasized by the network.

So where does all of this leave me? I am very guilty of letting the boys watch TV without me. In fact, for a while, I was skipping out on Friday night Movie Night--taking that time to get a few things done, surf the Net, read a book, while the boys watched the movie. And then it hit me that watching TV and watching movies can be a bonding experience--something that the whole family shares. So I am back to FAMILY movie night--where we all watch together. (Although this is so hard when the boys pick stupid movies!) I also let them watch dreadful TV shows, like Power Rangers. (Damn you, Netflix!!!) Fortunately, they also like shows like Dora, Wonder Pets, Backyardigans, SuperWhy, and Curious George. Seth also like Fireman Sam (which I'm a little on the fence about.)

William loves documentaries, which is a whole 'nuther issue. Is it appropriate for him to be watching a documentary on the Marine Corps? Or the the World's Deadliest Snakes? Or Sunken Submarines? And, of course, Seth watches these shows, too. And then there's Phineas and Ferb, which we all love. I think it's a pretty good show, content-wise, but maybe not so much for younger kids. It jumps around between the boys' adventures and Perry's quests. Not sure that there's any moral lesson to it. So maybe it's not exactly benefiting the boys, but is it damaging them? Obviously, time spent watching mindless TV could be time spent reading or using their imagination or engaging in other beneficial activities (puzzles, coloring, blocks). But if moderation is the key, is mindless time such a bad thing?

Which brings us back to the book and the question of quantity--how much time should kids spend watching TV every day? Guernsey stresses quality over quantity. Two hours of Dora is probably better than 30 minutes of Power Rangers. But it's probably obvious that two hours of pretend play is probably better than two hours of Dora. Common sense always reigns, right?

I should also mention that the point chart, where William has to "buy" his TV time with earned points, has also made him much less likely to choose to watch TV. On the weekends, he has sometimes chosen to watch 15 minutes of TV for 10 points, but he doesn't like to spend a full 20 points for one 30-minute show. Of course, he gets 15 minutes free during his nebulizer, but maybe if we participate in Screen-Free Week, he'll find that he doesn't really need that TV fix anyway. So I guess maybe we will participate.

Spring Break 2012

Our spring break trip was great! We left on Tuesday and came back on Saturday, which was pretty much ideal in terms of how long to be gone and how to still get some down time at home. It was also ideal in terms of traffic, since both drives were pretty-much traffic free. The trip to Charlotte took 7 and 1/2 hours (I think we stopped twice--once briefly and once for a good bit) and the trip home was broken up by our stop in Cary to see LauraC's family. On the way home from Cary (which took about 4 and 1/2 hours) we only stopped once, briefly, for a bathroom break. The boys impressed me with their stamina!

As for what we did during our trip, we spent time at Baba's house, playing in her yard, exploring the greenway near her house, and getting bitten by mosquitoes.

We also took the train into the city and visited the Discovery Place museum. The boys had a lot of fun (they even got to pet a snake!) and Baba even bought them souvenirs from the gift shop.

Right as we were walking out, we spied the ultimate gift for William--a live Venus Fly Trap. He was ecstatic. We brought it home and put it outside. The next day, William insisted that we try to feed it. He found a pair of tweezers and we caught a little beetle and put it on one of the open fly trap petals. I was skeptical that we would get any action, but wouldn't you know it--that little bugger closed right up on the beetle! It was pretty cool. Since then, however, our poor little Venus Fly Trap hasn't been looking too good. I don't think it's getting enough light or humidity. But we'll keep trying! Fortunately, I know more now about Venus Fly Traps than I ever wanted to know!

Anyway, back to our trip. After we left Charlotte, we headed to LauraC's house and probably the highlight of our trip--Monster Truck Jam!! William and Seth were super excited to see the monster trucks, but also super excited to see Nate and Alex. None of it disappointed. As usual, Laura and Jon were awesome hosts. Laura and I even got time to chat about deep stuff (and not-so-deep stuff) and hopefully, some of her mad parenting skillz rubbed off on me. (I figure if I get in enough visits, I might actually have a chance of absorbing her awesome parenting style!) (I should also give a shout-out to Jon's mad parenting skillz, too. He is patient and kind but firm--exactly what parents are supposed to be!) After ALL FOUR boys took naps (Yay!), we headed to the Monster Truck Jam and loaded up on popcorn, hot dogs, pretzels, dippin' dots, and beer for the grown-ups. Then we put in our ear plugs and put the headphones on the boys and enjoyed the show. It was a little surreal for us adults. William loved it and Seth was a bit less enthused after the second truck that came out popped a wheelie and then landed on its back.

He got his mojo back after an awesome motorcross display during one of the transitions. The motorcyclists performed all manner of awesome tricks and Seth thought that was really cool.


We finished up our trip on Saturday morning with a Case neighborhood party/Easter egg hunt. The boys loaded up on candy and then we headed out, stopping to visit HeatherV and the Vinson boys before leaving Cary. It was great to see Heather, the boys, and her awesome home. (Her front porch is to die for!) I don't think Ian was thrilled that we were there, but hopefully he'll forgive us. Heather and I had one of those fabulously disjointed and distracted mommy visits, but I loved it all the same and can't wait to see her again!

Although I had valiant plans to take lots of pictures on this trip, it didn't happen. The ones posted here are from my iPhone. I took a few with my point-and-shoot, which I haven't downloaded yet. But those probably aren't worth posting anyway. Laura got some cute pics that she posted on her blog. And since I didn't get any of the boys with my mom, I'm going to redouble my efforts when she comes to visit us for the boys' birthdays.

So that was our spring break! We were glad to get back home and enjoyed the fantastic weather on Easter Sunday by spending most of the day outside. All of the kids on our street hunted for Easter eggs together and spent the rest of the day riding bikes, racing remote control cars, and creating "forts" in the "maze" (paths) behind the townhouses. Now it's back to the grind--back to school, back to work, back to activities and schedules and plans. All good stuff, but it was great to get away for a little while!