Soapbox

This encouragement is from my dear inspiring friend, when I had emailed her about the awkwardness of addressing my concerns with my child's daycare feeding her hotdogs and other "toddler foods". (There's not many childcare options around here...). The provider would not allow me to send lunch for my daughter - if you bring food, you must bring it for everyone. I can understand the reasoning, but I am not feeding all the children in her care...

"Tell her you have nutritional concerns/restrictions and you need to send her own food. Stating that there are certain foods she just can't have should be good enough (regardless of the reason). When people have allergies or religious restrictions no one questions it (& I'm not trying to discount those reasons), but why should personal choices in feeding your kids be given less weight. Those raising their kids to be vegetarian are better respected than those just trying to feed their kids healthy food!"

Craft dud

I decided to try a recipe for bathtub crayons.

Creating these little wonders starts with your basic ivory soap flakes, which haven't been made for the last 15 years. Not to be deterred, I purchased a bar of ivory soap and grated it with the cheese grater (kinda fun, actually).

Then I dutifully added a bit of water, mushed and smushed, separated into several lumps, added food coloring, shaped into vague chunky crayon shapes, and let them sit out to dry until they seemed quite firm. They didn't exactly look professional, but like my 21-month old would care, right?

In fact, she was quite thrilled. I, on the other hand, was less than happy with the result. They didn't color at all - who knows how much food coloring you'd have to add to actually have it make a mark. And since ivory is the soap that floats, well, we basically had floating soap terds.

My daughter played with it, in and out of her containers, until it became soft, and then she squished it, laughed joyously at the goo, and proceeded to wipe it all over her belly, hair, face, the tub, and the walls.

I guess she had fun, though not as I intended...

Quesadillas

We make these when we all need food fast - DD needs dinner, and dinner just isn't going to happen for the adults until after she's gone to bed. The bonus for us is that we usually have all these ingredients on hand.

Ingredients
2 flour tortillas
2 heaping tablespoons black beans
Cheese to lightly cover a tortilla (shredded, thinly sliced, or cubed)
1 small tomato, diced
1 shake garlic powder (optional)
Sliced avocado (optional)
Scallions, jalapenos, or salsa (for adults!)

Directions
Mash the black beans with a fork once or twice through, and spread over one tortilla. Spread with half the cheese, and then add the tomatoes and the rest of the cheese, evenly spread. Shake on a bit of garlic powder for flavor. Top with the 2nd tortilla, zap for 30-45 seconds or until cheese melts enough to make the tortillas stick together. Pull up the top tortilla and add avocado slices (optional), and replace the top. Slice into wedges with a pizza cutter.

Toddler meatballs

Daycare woes have kept me from posting in the last few days. Alas, I will forget our troubles in some home-cooked goodness. These are easy to make, but can be time consuming, depending on how fast you roll out a meatball. I usually plop all the ingredients in a bowl in the fridge while I'm getting dinner around, and actually make them after the little one goes to bed.

This makes a whole bunch, to fill at least a quart-size tupperware container. Keep some out for now and freeze the rest in small batches.

Ingredients
1 lb lean ground beef (organic, if possible)
1/2 cup quick rolled oats
1/2 cup frozen spinach, defrosted
1 small-medium carrot, peeled and shredded
1/4 large onion, loosely chopped
salt
garlic powder

Directions

1. Mix all veggies in a large bowl.
   
2. In a food processor (or blender), blend until veggies are minutely chopped.
3. Remove the veggies and add the oatmeal - process for about 10 seconds.
4. Add processed oatmeal and meat to veggies, add a few shakes of salt and garlic powder.
5. Mix roughly, and then put the whole mixture back into the processor. Process until it is sticky. This is key to having meatballs that keep their ball shape.
   
6. Take one small dollop at a time, and roll into nickel-sized balls between the palms of your hands
7. Place onto medium-hot skillet, use canola oil to prevent sticking.
8. Using a spatula, gently keep the meatballs turning so they don't get too flat on one side. Cook until done (about 5 minutes, but just split one open to check)

Tips

• While cooking the first batch, continue to roll out more meatballs, but be very careful about keeping raw meat (and meat-contaminated hands) away from cooked meat
• Be sure to thoroughly cook the meatballs - no pink inside for safety

Meat, carbs, and veggies all in one bite! And we like them too, especially when I go a little heavy on the onion.

Country Chicken... but it's really Vegetables

I started making this recipe when my DD loved to chow down on the commercial baby food by the same name. Instead of a carrot base (like the baby food), I use a sweet potato base. She still loves this, and it's stiff enough for her to feed herself with a spoon.

Ingredients

• 1 large or 2 medium/small sweet potatoes
• 1/2 cup chicken or veggie broth, or mixture of stock and water
• Mixed veggies, fresh or frozen
• Add-ins (see below)

Microwave or bake sweet potatoes until soft or nearly soft. Cool, peel, and cube into a medium pot. Add broth and simmer until potatoes are completely "mush" able. Add more broth or water as needed to get a consistency that's firm enough to pile up on a spoon, but not so thick it would send you running for a glass of water if you ate it. Add mixed veggies.

Save some out for now, and partition the rest into serving sizes (about 1/4 cup), and freeze in ice cube trays, freezer bags, or tupperware. Pull out and zap at meal time, and add in something from the adult dinner or leftovers to make it more interesting, such as:
- cubed chicken
- rice
- pasta
- green beans
- anything you want to disguise

Travelling with a Toddler: En Route

By necessity we've become more adventurous. When DD was a baby, travel was such a hassle, particularly having to stop the car to nurse the child, stop the car 15 minutes later to change the child, stop the car 15 minutes later so I could use the little girls' room (after chugging 16 oz of water)... you get the idea.

Plane travel was not much better, as I was reliant on the breast pump, and my hand-me-down mammoth was prohibitively heavy and full of hassle. Not to mention finding a way to sterilize the pump parts or store pumped milk. Plus my kid is so squirmy, and has never been fond of having her space restricted. But I digress...As soon as we stopped nursing, as sad as I was, it made travel so much easier. When DD was 11 months we flew across the country to Seattle. She has also been on vacation to Phoenix, Mexico, and North Carolina, and on several moving-related car rides between our current residence in MI to our former residence in the DC area.

Every kid and every family is different. Some may have a good temperament for extended travel. Here are some tips I've gleaned from our experience and friends. If anyone is reading this, your comments and suggestions would be a great addition.

I will preface these activity-oriented suggestions with one more logistical one: Take LOTS of baby wipes! Hands, face, spills, and that's just for my husband...

1. Pack lots of bite-size snacks. You eat when you're bored too, right? Raisins, cheerios, cut up grapes or cherries, dried fruit, and toddler crackers all work well. Remember safety - a sudden stop can cause your child to choke. Even if your child can handle whole grapes, for example, cut them in half.

2. Pack bite-size snacks in lots of little containers. I use the plastic Gerber baby food containers. For one, it makes a handy serving size. And two, opening and closing the container is half the fun. Yes, it makes a mess. Personally I'd rather vacuum up cheerios than have an grumpy toddler strapped in the back seat.

3. Books - For you to read aloud and for your child to look at and 'read' alone. Go with any favorites you have and first word books. It's amazing how much the little ones love to look at a picture of something and identify it. Board books with lots of colorful pictures of a variety of items (household, animals, food, etc), are great, especially when that vocabulary starts its upswing.

4. Of course, take the most favorite toy (or 2) with you in the car or on the plane. Just make sure it's not electronic if you are on the plane! DD could stay occupied for quite a while with a baby doll and a bottle. She also loves (and we struggle to tolerate) the leap-pad reader, where you press an item and it makes a noise, and the leap frog alphabet radio.

5. Take nap-time security items, even if it's not during nap time. This makes your little one feel comfy cozy on the trip. And it just might help them fall asleep outside of normal sleeping hours.

6. Music, music, music. We are partial to Wee Sing and anything from Raffi. Brush up on your own repertoire - Twinkle twinkle, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Patty-cake, Head-and-Shoulders (knees and toes), Wheels on the Bus, Old MacDonald, Bingo, etc. An enthusiastic sing along with hand motions and lots of applause fills up a toddler's happy-tank.

7. Finger games - where is Thumbkin, This Little Piggy.

8. Activities -
a. Magnetic dress-up dolls (older toddlers)
b. Paper and stickers (parcel out the stickers to younger toddlers, they also may prefer to stick them on their shirt)
c. Spiral-bound notebook paper and a pen.
d. Pipe cleaners - they can bend into shapes or just flap them around
e. For preschoolers, "I spy with my little eye" is a fun game

9. For car rides, plan out a place to stop and let everyone run around (literally run) at least every 2 waking hours, and be prepared to stop more often, just in case. It's not fast traveling with these guys! Play tag, bring a push-toy out of the trunk. Climb on benches and up and down stairs at the rest stop, play chase, hunt for leaves, play follow the leader with mom or dad leading running, galloping, skipping, and jumping. Plan AHEAD of time how you will entice the child back into the car (food or the special blankie often work for us).

10. On plane rides, a stopover takes longer, but if your flight is longer than 2 or 3 hours you will be glad to have it. Try to plan enough time to engage in physical activity, and do your best to wear out that child before you get back on the plane.

For more on traveling logistics with kids, check out: http://www.flyingwithkids.com/

Soup!

My daughter learned to say "soup" because of this basic soup. I can't believe how much she loved it. It made me so happy to see her eat kale - a green leafy veggie that is about the most nutritious thing going (Alton Brown said so!). And it was tasty - the whole family enjoyed it.

• 1 qt chicken broth, or enough for the desired amount of soup (we usually make our own stock, just pull it out of the freezer)
• 1 large carrot, slided bite-size
• 2 stalks celery, sliced
• 3 large leaves of kale, chopped fairly fine
• 1/2 small onion, diced
  
• 1 cup cooked cubed chicken (a good use for leftovers)
• 1 cup cooked pasta, room temp or cold (rotini, shells, elbow, or similar, also a good use for leftovers)
• salt and garlic powder to taste (I don't know how much I used, maybe 1/8 or 1/4 tsp each)

Heat up the broth to a simmer and add the veggies, simmer until carrots are tender. Add chicken and warm through. Ladle into bowls piping hot, and add a small handful of cold pasta (so it doesn't get mushy in the soup).

Frazzled

Let me start out by saying, I am no expert. I have a friend that I would consider to be an expert, but she is too busy doing wonderful things with and for her family to have a blog such as this. I have also have spent so much time searching the web and the library searching for new ways to get great nutrition into my kid. I'm not talking just about balanced meals, I'm the kind of mom who refuses to give her kid a hotdog. One of my daughter's favorite foods right now is broccoli, and that just makes me so happy I could cry. But when time is short and the family is hungry I do have to admit to resorting to frozen precooked chicken nuggets (all white meat real chicken breast, not those patties... but still not great). There are lots of recipes for wholesome, nutritious food out there, but c'mon, I'm working here! Give me something nutritious and EASY. I also want something I can feed us parents, too!

Our family has gone from living in a bustling city with no end of things to do, to a small... and I mean small, rural town... thank God there's a college. Which is where my husband is currently working. I telecommute, so where he goes, we all go. Childcare for the early years in this area is, shall we say, lacking. In fact, after having done an excruciating childcare search in the city, I am utterly, unbelievably, and completely shocked at the quality of childcare. Ahem. That being said, I have no choice, I have responsibilities and we need the paycheck. In effort to counteract the "daycare effect," I've redoubled efforts to find fun, stimulating, engaging activities for my not-quite-2 year old that we can enjoy together.

So this blog will help my organize my efforts in finding healthy easy recipes and activities, and in dealing with childcare issues.