Clean and simple

The closer to the way God made it, the better food tastes.  Sure, grape jelly is good in a PB&J, but there is nothing like the taste of cold fresh grapes.  And chicken nuggets are ok, but baked whole chicken...simply delicious.  I've been thinking a lot about food lately, and I have noticed that as a family we were eating and buying a LOT of processed food.  Six years ago a lady I worked with told me, "Only eat food that would go bad if you left it out on the counter."  I kind of got what she meant, but didn't pay much attention to her.  Now, I understand, I think of the things I eat and about their shelf life, fruit, vegetables, eggs, meats, cheeses...they would all go bad if the refrigerator went out.  THOSE are the things we should be eating.  And not just the foods that would spoil, but the things that are closest to their original form.  Lunch meat with the fillers and preservatives don't count.  Ice cream with the crazy amounts of sugar and fat don't count.  Milk counts.  Sliced turkey breast counts.  Canned fruits, vegetables, and beans are great for food drives and survival kits, but that isn't what we should be eating every day.  And food in its purest state is the most scrumptious!  How can jellybeans ever hope to compete with fruit salad?

Now when I fill my grocery cart I try to be aware of the things that go in it, rather than buying the simple boxed or canned items, I buy the whole food and find ways to make it different ways.  Tonight Mike and I discussed a better way to make apple cinnamon oatmeal, rather than buying instant oatmeal I am doing an over night crock pot recipe I found.  Chopped apples, cinnamon, homemade vanilla extract, honey, and oats...we will see tomorrow morning how it turned out.  My goal is to get us eating as clean as possible.  I am not naive enough to believe that we will ever go 100% clean foods, I'd be happy with 70% though.  I won't deny my kids the occasional bowl of ice cream or handful of M&M's, but I want them to prefer the taste of a banana over a pack of fruit snacks and the taste of fresh squeezed orange juice to kool-aid. Clean and simple.

Sweet and Sour

It is hard to imagine how your children will be as the grow.  Every parent believes they will have sweet, kind, well behaved children but then you actually have one and that little monster doesn't fit those descriptions, at least not as often as you'd like.  As you have more children, you realize that the sweet, giggling, happy four month old will eventually grow into a rowdy, misbehaving, stubborn four year old.  So how do you keep the sweetness lasting as long as possible?  Sure, every kid is different.  Some kids are sweet forever, some listen the first time you tell them something, some even poop rainbows and lollipops!  But for the rest of us who some times confuse our children for tiny minions from the devil, how do we discipline without being hypocritical, angry, or send the wrong message? 



Discipline is a hard thing.  As a parent, you try to guide your child to doing the right thing.  You try teaching, reasoning, compromising, bargaining, shouting, yelling, spanking, time out(ing), and punishing.  Each kid will respond in different ways, my oldest girl cries if she even thinks I am displeased with her behavior, my oldest boy lashes out, and my younger girl looks at me with an attitude usually seen in the hallways of the local middle school.  I can deal with the crying and the attitude, those are typical girl responses and I get those emotions.  What I don't know how to cope with is the typical boy reactions.

I recently read a parenting article that said when your child lashes out at you, verbally or physically, the best thing to do is ignore them, let them vent their rage, and then talk to them peacefully when the child has calmed down.  Ignore them, fine...talk to them peacefully, ok...but my issue is with the let them vent their rage part.  What is the appropriate way to let your child vent?  Mine likes to stomp, hit furniture, and punch things.  I don't think those are good habits to get into and I don't know how to get my son to redirect his anger and learn self control.  And let's be honest, yelling at an already angry child is about as pointless as telling the rain to stop falling.  So what?  Hope he grows out of it? Hug it out of him?  Try to find other ways to let him vent?  I don't know the answer and I guess that is the most appropriate sentence for any parent to utter because truthfully, you can never know the answer.  By the time you figure out one stage of your child's development, they have moved on and you have to start over.  And the best part...if you have another child, that one will be completely different than the first one! 

So, any brand new parent, soon to be parent, or not yet parent be prepared and at the same time, know you can never be prepared.  And those who are parents (especially to more than one child) you already know that there is nothing you can do but try and try again, lead them in the right direction, and hope at least some of it sticks.