Solutions for Picky Eaters

We have been struggling a bit lately with picky eaters. Penny has essentially the same three meals every day. Sure, there's a little rotation since there are three or four veggies she'll eat and there's only two meals a day where I serve veggies, but it's pretty much the same menu every time. I've settled into a rut with Paul too, which is sad because it's a little early to get him onto the picky path. It was just easy having a set menu instead of trying to come up with new finger foods all the time.

When Penny picked up one of the suggested books for the NYPL summer reading program, I found it remarkably inspirational - Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban. In the book, Frances chooses to eat bread and jam instead of her various meals. Mom, sick of having Frances leave the food she's served and thinking she's got a clever idea, then feeds Frances exclusively bread and jam for every meal. I won't ruin the ending for you...go and read the book at your local library with the kids.

In any case, the situation resonated with me and reminded me of dinners at Grandma's house. No matter what the meal, there was always a little plate piled with bread and a jar of peanut butter. If there was pot roast, hand made mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans with butter, there was a jar of peanut butter and bread; lasagna and garlic bread, some plain white slices accompanied by the familiar jar of peanut butter. I never knew why it was there, though I often enjoyed its presence. I LOVE peanut butter and would often end my meal with a little peanut butter sandwich (or a gravy sandwich if that was one of the available items). Reading the Frances story finally helped me put the pieces together. My grandmother had 10 kids in 20 years. She had no time to prepare individual meals for each of her kids as I still struggle to do. She made one meal and whoever didn't like it had that peanut butter sandwich option available to them. It's a reasonably nutritious and certainly delicious backup that works at pretty much any meal. I imagine it led to a considerable amount of sanity compared to what I'm currently putting myself through.

Since spring I have tried to feed Penny and Paul the same things more often, with mixed success. They're still calling for substitutions, which often keeps me from even sitting down to dinner before they finish. Perhaps employing some of my grandmother's ideas will help me survive a bit better.

PS: I DO feed my children things other than cakes and chocolate pies...dinner is just such a struggle most days that I don't have any pictures of it. Wish me luck!

Bit of Op Ed

Since we moved overseas, I've been avoiding the news. In England and Grenada, it was easy - we were too cheap to own TVs, so we had to seek out the news. I've never enjoyed watching the news, just felt it was a necessary evil to be able to keep up with the tragedies going on in the world. It almost cost us pretty dearly as I didn't hear or heed warnings about Hurricane Sandy until it was all the moms were talking about when we were dropping the kids off at school. Thankfully, that still gave me a day or two to prepare, but the store shelves were pretty empty looking at that point.

So, perhaps I'm a little late in developing an opinion about the Trayvon Martin case. I know WAY too little to say anything about the case or the decision really, but hearing about the circumstances brought up some pretty fierce emotions and memories of my childhood. I think the thing I found most disturbing was hearing that "Stand your ground" laws are a growing trend. The general understanding I got about these is that there is some kind of protection for people who shoot in self-defense. My worry about protecting people who shoot someone in self defense is that people are dumb. Just because you're ALLOWED to have a gun for self defense doesn't mean that it's a good idea to use one. I can picture people going out and buying guns - totally above board and well-intentioned - and keeping them someplace handy for self-defense. Do they invest in training so they know how to use the gun? Maybe. Do they store the gun safely? Maybe. Is it likely that the criminal has more experience with a gun? Probably. Do the defenders have the guts to live with themselves if they are successful in using the gun? Maybe. What happens if they shoot someone in error? Hmmm...

In my neighborhood, even the six-year-olds flashed guns occasionally. There was one kid on our block who was hospitalized because his buddy had been trying to show off a gun that had been improperly stored in the house. When I was in fourth grade, a woman was shot in our front yard. I watched from my bedroom upstairs as her car idled in the intersection, her turn signal flashing. She never quite made it to the police station behind our house before her boyfriend drove by and shot her in the face. Would being allowed to shoot him in self-defense have helped her, or would we just have had a shootout in our front yard where we as innocent bystanders would then have been more likely to catch it in the crossfire? Our neighbors certainly expected a shootout as we all watched from our windows, watching, listening, as she cried for help. My mom was at least brave enough to go out and offer her a towel to mop her face while we all waited interminably for aid to arrive. (BTW, I understand the difficult position in Detroit with nearly one hour police response times: the cops were the last to arrive on scene for this woman, even though they could likely SEE the incident from the police station behind our house. The news crew beat them there and they came from across town.)

I've lived immersed in prejudice for most of my life.  I obviously don't have an insider view on prejudice, but I've seen what it does to people. My parents probably had an uphill battle trying NOT to raise prejudiced kids in our neighborhood. I try my best not to be prejudiced, though I have definitely done things interpreted to be prejudiced and not been observant enough to notice that I was offending someone. I don't know how prejudice will affect my family specifically. I know that as we investigate where we go after residency, we have contemplated whether certain locations might have higher incidences of prejudice and so be bad places for us to move. Of course, how do we guess at how prejudiced an area is? Is that something you can measure? In most cases, I make guesses based on, well, prejudices about various parts of the country - this area is a KKK stronghold, so probably bad; the South has a history of being prejudiced, so probably bad; this area has a really diverse population according to the Census Bureau, so probably good, etc. Of course, it only takes one prejudiced person to make life miserable, or take life away.

I am by no means qualified to opine about the verdict in the Trayvon Martin case. I just know that what I've heard of it worries me. I'm worried that "Stand Your Ground" laws will encourage people to put themselves in potentially hazardous situations. I worry that prejudice will continue to breed more prejudice and the cycle can never be broken. I also wonder if I'm ready for what my kids will have to go through because of their racial background. It will make me sad when they come home and I have to explain it. They're good kids and don't deserve to be exposed to hatred. Alas...I hate listening to the news.

Refuse Reflections

 For some reason, I find the NYC Sanitation Department absolutely fascinating. It is a model of conservation and waste all at the same time. For example, I remember going home to Ohio and hearing folks marvel at how quickly NYC would dig itself out of blizzards. When we first moved here, it seemed we were having 1.5 feet of snow every other weekend for a month or so, yet kids didn't miss a day of school. How could the City sustain the reputed fleet of more than a thousand snow plows? Easy - those snow plows are actually garbage trucks. Just strap chains to the tires and plows to the front - you've got guys to staff them already and their shifts are all worked out. Good to go. Sounds amazingly efficient, until the third snow storm blows through and you suddenly realize that trash hasn't been collected in several weeks because the trucks are otherwise engaged. I guess it was at least too cold for the rats to go to town too much in the growing heaps of refuse that lined every street.

I have always been impressed by their recycling system here. It seems like they can recycle just about everything. From orange juice cartons to metal hangers, just chuck it in a blue bin or a clear bag and you're good to go. The one big exception was plastic - NYC only recycled small mouthed plastic bottles. Though everyone in NYC claimed they knew exactly what could be recycled, I found very few people actually grasped this distinction. When I was working at the museum, we incorporated a recycling sorting game into our green school program. Every group that came in was tripped up by the yogurt or takeout containers that couldn't be recycled. Everyone was convinced that since their bins said "plastic," any kind of plastic could be chucked inside and recycled. When we walked to school on recycling day, it looked like most of our neighbors suffered the same misconception about the breadth of NYC's plastic recycling program. It made me sad because I remember that Dayton recycled many kinds of plastic, even though we had a pretty sad recycling program back when I lived there.

By the way, they're not kidding that you can just put a couch on the corner and they'll pick it up. It's absolutely mind-boggling to me what that truck will just pick up. We put our box spring out last weekend - finally gave up on freecycling it or otherwise finding it a use. It was bagged (as is required due to bed bug issues in NYC), so the sanitation guy just picked it up and chucked it in the back of the truck. He hit the lever and Paul, Penny and I watched it slowly get pulled into the truck and crushed. I've seen a truck pick up what looks like an entire eviction and squish it, then carry on with their route.

In any case, I was so excited to get the pictured notice in the mail, saying that NYC now recycles all kinds of plastics - from takeout to toys to yogurt containers. How awesome! No more confusion! I'm guessing the folks who were previously sorting the recycling will either get cutbacks in their hours because they can now take everything...or they will have lots more hours as they have to sort all the different kinds of plastic. The one thing that concerns me is that their choice of image for recycling plastic toys bears a striking resemblance to Paul's current favorite toy - a red and yellow dump truck.

The new guidelines have already led to a dramatic increase in what we can shift from trash to recycling. I'm excited. I don't know if I'll increase the breadth of what I collect on our walks for recycling, though. I usually pick up recyclables from the streets as I walk Penny to and from school. When the only recyclables were small mouth bottles, I had collected about one full trash can a week through our daily jaunts to school. It was usually about a grocery bag a day along our 1.2mi round trip walk. I usually overlooked all the coffee cups, ice cream lids, etc. since they previously were just trash. There's only so much I can carry on a stroller, after all. I do wonder how much additional litter can now be recycled each week.