It seems that most of my (adult) conversations are all going about the same way lately. Everyone seems to want to know HOW it is going- especially in light of cutting out nearly all of our extra-home activities.
The short answer is "fine."
The longer answer is that I am still convinced that the decision was Holy Spirit inspired and that He is enabling us to carry it out. I am relieved not to be driving around as much (I don't like driving around much, anyway!). The kids have yet to question why we aren't going anywhere that I thought they may miss. We don't feel like we are missing out on anything!
And the good answer, the one that I am MOST thankful for, is that I find myself being FUN again. I like to be a fun mom- not just a task-master, schedule-keeper. I love reading more books. Baking together. Taking time to go down the rabbit trails that always come up during school time. Playing outside.
Surely there are STILL not enough hours in my day. I want to explain that even without these activities I have not found myself to have any EXTRA time. No, not even time enough for all I still think we OUGHT to do. (It's kind of like a stay at home mom trying to explain that yes, she does work all day. I have more time, yes. . . but I'm still working hard all day.)
So, it is good.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Livia's Turn
Yesterday we visited our dear friends, the Martins. At one time in our visit I was reading a book to Rhyle, Livia, and Charlotte. I asked the children to point out things that they saw on the page. . . a cardinal, deer, etc.
Livia excitedly pointed to a spider web, covered with dew. "Oooh. What's that?" I asked.
"A WEBsite!" she exclaimed.
Livia excitedly pointed to a spider web, covered with dew. "Oooh. What's that?" I asked.
"A WEBsite!" she exclaimed.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Tangled
Owen sprinted across the back yard this afternoon and then ran back and leaped onto the swing. "Mom!" he said, "It feels like my breath is all tangled up."
What an appropriate way, I thought, of explaining what it feels like to run hard in chilly weather.
What an appropriate way, I thought, of explaining what it feels like to run hard in chilly weather.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Little Bees
Aunt Cara let R have some of her "spicy gum" as we call it around here. R typically doesn't like spicy gum. (which means he immediately spits it out- so we usually don't give him any!) He was very excited that Aunt Cara shared with him. For the first few miliseconds all I could hear was his quick exhales (I was driving; he was sitting behind me.) Cara asked him if he liked it.
R: "Yep. It's refreshing my whole body."
Cara: "Oh, good. It is refreshing."
R: "Yeah. It feels like thousands of tiny bees stinging my tongue."
R: "Yep. It's refreshing my whole body."
Cara: "Oh, good. It is refreshing."
R: "Yeah. It feels like thousands of tiny bees stinging my tongue."
A NEWtritional Adventure
Our family is off on a new adventure! We shall see how this goes, but at the moment we are excited to be trying kefir. There is a jar of kefir on our counter and we have been having kefir and complete smoothies daily (yum!). For more information on kefir and it's nutritional benefits, see the link: http://www.kefir.net/benefits.htm (Sorry, I don't know how to make links yet!)
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Nutrition Gleanings from "Chew On This"
It seems crazy that I can even post that I've read a book in the last month. But I have! And more than one, actually. This, I must confess, was in the juvenile section of the library, but I found Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation so interesting that I wanted to read this, too. Some of what I read surprised me, so I thought others might find it interesting, too. I carved out time to type a few of my favorite portions of the book, but I can't make time to add all the comments I would like, nor to even tie them all together nicely for you. The general synopsis is that Americans have a health crisis and fast-food and artificial colors and flavors and processed food are exacerbating the problems (or causing them!). These got me thinking. Hope this is still helpful or interesting to others, too!
From "Chew On This" by Eric Schlosser:
"If you went to a fast-food restaurant during the 1950s and bought a Coca-Cola, you'd probably get about eight ounces of soda. That was the adult portion. Today the smallest Coke that McDonald's sells (a child's Coke) is twelve ounces. That's a 50% increase in size. Many customers purchase a large Coke, which is 32 ounces- four times bigger than the Cokes that fast-food restaurants used to sell. One of these large Cokes has 310 calories and contains the equivalent of almost 30 teaspoons of sugar. Th hamburgers have gotten bigger, too. In 1957 the typical fast-food burger patty weighed one ounce. Today the typical burger patty weighs six ounces."
A shocker to me: "About 20 percent of American children between the ages of one and two drink soda every day." (page 144) We know the dangers of liquid candy, right?!
"About 19,000 public schools- one of every five in the United States- sell branded fast food in the cafeteria." (page 133)(Kids eating Subway, Pizza Hut and McDonalds every day is NOT a good thing.)
"Tartrazine, a yellow food coloring, can cause hyperactivity, headaches, rashes, and an increased risk of asthma in some children. It has been banned in Norway, Finland, and Austria but is still used by food companies in the United States and Great Britain. Tartrazine can be found in British and American sodas, candies, chewing gum, Jell-O, and butterscotch pudding mixes, among other things." (page 124) The Feingold website is really helpful with this.
"[Children] were more hyperactive when they had the drink full of artificial ingredients than when they had the fruit juice." (page 124, referring to a 2004 study in England on the behavior of 277 three to four year old children.)
"One of the most widely used color additives comes from an unexpected source. Cochineal extract (also know as carmine or carminic acid) is made from the dead bodies of small bugs harvested mainly in Peru and the Canary Islands. The female Dactylopius coccus costa like sot fee on cactus pads, and color from the cactus gathers in her body and her eggs. The little bugs are collected, dried, and ground into a coloring additive. It takes about 70,000 of the insects to make a pound of carmine, which is used to make processed foods look pink, red, or purple. Dannon strawberry yogurt gets its color from carmine, as do many candies, frozen fruit bars, fruit fillings, and Ocean Spray pink grapefruit juice drink." (page 121-122)
Artificial flavors in milkshakes and what is in "artificial strawberry flavor?" (see pages 113-114). You won't believe how many different chemicals it takes to make a shake TASTE like strawberry when it doesn't have any real ice cream or strawberries in it.
"Some of the latest research suggests that your taste in food can be formed even before you're born. The fluid in a mother's womb may carry the flavors of whatever she's been eating, and that fluid is often swallowed by the fetus growing in there." (page 108) Schlosser goes on to describe an experiment by Julie Mennella which seemed to show that babies whose mothers drank carrot juice (and they therefore learned to like it) were more likely to enjoy carrot juice than other babies whose mothers did not drink it. I love this because we can HELP our children to eat well and therefore LIVE well! (This is where I would tell you all about JuicePlus+, if you were interested. *smile*)
From "Chew On This" by Eric Schlosser:
"If you went to a fast-food restaurant during the 1950s and bought a Coca-Cola, you'd probably get about eight ounces of soda. That was the adult portion. Today the smallest Coke that McDonald's sells (a child's Coke) is twelve ounces. That's a 50% increase in size. Many customers purchase a large Coke, which is 32 ounces- four times bigger than the Cokes that fast-food restaurants used to sell. One of these large Cokes has 310 calories and contains the equivalent of almost 30 teaspoons of sugar. Th hamburgers have gotten bigger, too. In 1957 the typical fast-food burger patty weighed one ounce. Today the typical burger patty weighs six ounces."
A shocker to me: "About 20 percent of American children between the ages of one and two drink soda every day." (page 144) We know the dangers of liquid candy, right?!
"About 19,000 public schools- one of every five in the United States- sell branded fast food in the cafeteria." (page 133)(Kids eating Subway, Pizza Hut and McDonalds every day is NOT a good thing.)
"Tartrazine, a yellow food coloring, can cause hyperactivity, headaches, rashes, and an increased risk of asthma in some children. It has been banned in Norway, Finland, and Austria but is still used by food companies in the United States and Great Britain. Tartrazine can be found in British and American sodas, candies, chewing gum, Jell-O, and butterscotch pudding mixes, among other things." (page 124) The Feingold website is really helpful with this.
"[Children] were more hyperactive when they had the drink full of artificial ingredients than when they had the fruit juice." (page 124, referring to a 2004 study in England on the behavior of 277 three to four year old children.)
"One of the most widely used color additives comes from an unexpected source. Cochineal extract (also know as carmine or carminic acid) is made from the dead bodies of small bugs harvested mainly in Peru and the Canary Islands. The female Dactylopius coccus costa like sot fee on cactus pads, and color from the cactus gathers in her body and her eggs. The little bugs are collected, dried, and ground into a coloring additive. It takes about 70,000 of the insects to make a pound of carmine, which is used to make processed foods look pink, red, or purple. Dannon strawberry yogurt gets its color from carmine, as do many candies, frozen fruit bars, fruit fillings, and Ocean Spray pink grapefruit juice drink." (page 121-122)
Artificial flavors in milkshakes and what is in "artificial strawberry flavor?" (see pages 113-114). You won't believe how many different chemicals it takes to make a shake TASTE like strawberry when it doesn't have any real ice cream or strawberries in it.
"Some of the latest research suggests that your taste in food can be formed even before you're born. The fluid in a mother's womb may carry the flavors of whatever she's been eating, and that fluid is often swallowed by the fetus growing in there." (page 108) Schlosser goes on to describe an experiment by Julie Mennella which seemed to show that babies whose mothers drank carrot juice (and they therefore learned to like it) were more likely to enjoy carrot juice than other babies whose mothers did not drink it. I love this because we can HELP our children to eat well and therefore LIVE well! (This is where I would tell you all about JuicePlus+, if you were interested. *smile*)
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Sit-Ups on the Ball
Did you know that doing sit-ups on an exercise ball makes them up to 300% more effective?
Yep. It's true. So instead of wasting my time down here on the floor, I'm headed up to use my time MOST effectively.
Yep. It's true. So instead of wasting my time down here on the floor, I'm headed up to use my time MOST effectively.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Too slow
I was just a bit too slow to stop the kids from pulling out ALL the envelopes today as we worked on thank you notes. And by the time I found which letters were finished and which needed to be signed by which children. . . some of them were mixed up. (thank yous for the wrong gifts!). And I didn't realize until too late that Owen had been sealing the envelopes of the "finished" letters I gave to him to put in the kitchen (I just wanted them removed from the chaos). I guess the latest (first!) pictures of Tate will have to go out in some other mail. And then, after I mentioned that we may need to tape a few of the envelopes shut (I was too late to supervise the licking and sticking and somehow it just didn't seem to work out right) . . . I was just a wee bit too slow in procuring the scotch tape.
So, grandma, this is why you'll be getting a letter held together with masking tape (love, Owen), with a stamp folded over the corner (love, Livia), and a picture of a flower with a yellow dot right in the center (love, Rhyle). And no picture (love, me).
So, grandma, this is why you'll be getting a letter held together with masking tape (love, Owen), with a stamp folded over the corner (love, Livia), and a picture of a flower with a yellow dot right in the center (love, Rhyle). And no picture (love, me).
More Changes
Another note on the new year: we're making other changes. It's time to rethink what we are doing and why and in evaluating our goals for our family we decided that some changes were called for. Mainly this stems from my continually feeling tired and overwhelmed. (Am I really spinning my wheels, or do I just feel like it?)
I've struggled to stay focused on the things that are really important and I'm well aware that time is quickly passing. "All men are like grass" the psalmist says. My time to invest in my children is so short. This time when my husband really needs my support in extraordinary ways is fleeting. (Each day feels like it presents more than I can possibly bear and I am left clinging to His promise that He will never leave me or forsake me and that His plans for my life are for good. Let me consider it joy, then, all the work to be done; and let me do it with humility, pouring myself out for others.)
It was mentally exhausting to evaluate all the things we DO and their merits. I so look forward to my Bible study. CBS is great for the kids. Oh, we have so much fun at children's choir. We have always gone to the library every week! Worship team is fun. Amazement Square is the perfect place to play. Everything we were doing was good in some way. Some of them had no negatives. But were they EXCELLENT? And did they move us closer to our family goals? It became clear that the easiest way to simplify was to cut out EVERYTHING for this semester. That took the pressure off of disappointing some people (my reputation idol!), and having to explain so much. We can add things back in gradually, as time permits.
Let me just say that I feel so relieved! (Yes, I'm sad about some things, too.) Braden has a really busy semester; his first semester that he is working while going to school. (Is it even possible?!) We have one vehicle and it will help him to drive some days. Honestly, I don't like driving around anyway; it wears me out to schlep four kids in and out of the van and it literally takes at least 10 minutes to get everyone dressed (appropriately!) and out the door. So this will give me time freedom. That time can go back where it needs to be. We are in a season of training and schooling and me desperately trying to be the mom and wife and woman God desires. It's so hard! And yet I sense a deep goodness to this, too.
Perhaps I'll have more time to post? ha. Don't get your hopes up- unless you all start commenting again to encourage me!
I've struggled to stay focused on the things that are really important and I'm well aware that time is quickly passing. "All men are like grass" the psalmist says. My time to invest in my children is so short. This time when my husband really needs my support in extraordinary ways is fleeting. (Each day feels like it presents more than I can possibly bear and I am left clinging to His promise that He will never leave me or forsake me and that His plans for my life are for good. Let me consider it joy, then, all the work to be done; and let me do it with humility, pouring myself out for others.)
It was mentally exhausting to evaluate all the things we DO and their merits. I so look forward to my Bible study. CBS is great for the kids. Oh, we have so much fun at children's choir. We have always gone to the library every week! Worship team is fun. Amazement Square is the perfect place to play. Everything we were doing was good in some way. Some of them had no negatives. But were they EXCELLENT? And did they move us closer to our family goals? It became clear that the easiest way to simplify was to cut out EVERYTHING for this semester. That took the pressure off of disappointing some people (my reputation idol!), and having to explain so much. We can add things back in gradually, as time permits.
Let me just say that I feel so relieved! (Yes, I'm sad about some things, too.) Braden has a really busy semester; his first semester that he is working while going to school. (Is it even possible?!) We have one vehicle and it will help him to drive some days. Honestly, I don't like driving around anyway; it wears me out to schlep four kids in and out of the van and it literally takes at least 10 minutes to get everyone dressed (appropriately!) and out the door. So this will give me time freedom. That time can go back where it needs to be. We are in a season of training and schooling and me desperately trying to be the mom and wife and woman God desires. It's so hard! And yet I sense a deep goodness to this, too.
Perhaps I'll have more time to post? ha. Don't get your hopes up- unless you all start commenting again to encourage me!
Monday, January 7, 2008
The New Year
I have had many posts in my mind that have not made it to the computer. As soon as I sit down, there are too many other things to do at the computer and my mind is suddenly void of all interesting thoughts I've been storing up through the day. This is especially difficult now that it is a New Year. I'm a big list-maker, resolution-maker, goal-setter, last-year-analyzer. Sometimes this overwhelms me (as it usually does for the entire first week of January!)
Two thought that are still with me tonight:
1) Braden and i were thinking over the past year and realized how much healthier our family was. He was healthier. i was healthier. I had a great pregnancy, the longest gestation, and a wonderfully healthy baby. The kids were sick less often- in fact, besides e-coli, there were only a few runny noses. Granted, i don't have a great memory. But Braden confirmed that we have, truly, been healthier. We have made small changes in our diet over the past year, trimming down the sugar and refined flours and adding more fresh and whole foods. By in large, however, we attribute this health improvement to the JuicePlus+ our family eats. From the research, we know that it is helping our bodies- and now we have seen the cumulative effect over time! (Last year was our first full year eating JP+)
2) Nursing. It doesn't seem like it should be a big deal the fourth time around. For whatever reasons, though, it is. At first it was painful. Then I had mastitis twice. Then it was just uncomfortable. Then Tate only gained 4 ounces between months 2 and 4. Well, back i went to the lactation consultant. Now I'm nursing more frequently, and Tate has gained 3 ounces in 4 days! (Praise God!). So, things seem to be back on track. . . but this structured mommy is a bit uncomfortable leaning far over into the demand feeding zone. Ha! God is always stretching us, right?!
AND, there was something even better that I wanted to write about. . . but I forgot as I was typing the first thought. Ahhh. Lack of sleep, perhaps? Anyway, these are enough thoughts for now. It's a new year, and you, like me, have a chance to be a little bit different this year. I'm eating healthier, nursing more, sleeping little (less?). How about you?
Two thought that are still with me tonight:
1) Braden and i were thinking over the past year and realized how much healthier our family was. He was healthier. i was healthier. I had a great pregnancy, the longest gestation, and a wonderfully healthy baby. The kids were sick less often- in fact, besides e-coli, there were only a few runny noses. Granted, i don't have a great memory. But Braden confirmed that we have, truly, been healthier. We have made small changes in our diet over the past year, trimming down the sugar and refined flours and adding more fresh and whole foods. By in large, however, we attribute this health improvement to the JuicePlus+ our family eats. From the research, we know that it is helping our bodies- and now we have seen the cumulative effect over time! (Last year was our first full year eating JP+)
2) Nursing. It doesn't seem like it should be a big deal the fourth time around. For whatever reasons, though, it is. At first it was painful. Then I had mastitis twice. Then it was just uncomfortable. Then Tate only gained 4 ounces between months 2 and 4. Well, back i went to the lactation consultant. Now I'm nursing more frequently, and Tate has gained 3 ounces in 4 days! (Praise God!). So, things seem to be back on track. . . but this structured mommy is a bit uncomfortable leaning far over into the demand feeding zone. Ha! God is always stretching us, right?!
AND, there was something even better that I wanted to write about. . . but I forgot as I was typing the first thought. Ahhh. Lack of sleep, perhaps? Anyway, these are enough thoughts for now. It's a new year, and you, like me, have a chance to be a little bit different this year. I'm eating healthier, nursing more, sleeping little (less?). How about you?
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