Breakfast supper

/ faithsweatandtears / 2 Comments

Wednesdays are crazy. Kidzone (our kids’ church activities) begins at 6pm, which means there is barely a half-hour to get home, eat dinner and go. Did I mention that Wednesdays are insane? All of the boys enjoy helping out in the kitchen, but the older two have taken a particular liking to cooking, and I have let them help more & more over the past year. They’ve proven themselves pretty well with basic cooking techniques, safety, etc. (we’re still working on the clean-up part!) that I thought I’d experiment a bit this semester and give them some more freedom in the kitchen.

Wednesdays are now their day to fix dinner. We plan ahead (usually a week at a time, posted on a white board on the fridge but subject to change), so I know what they are planning to cook. We started last week with a very simple soup dinner. Open the cans, add water, microwave = viola! It was a big hit, especially with No. 5 who is limited to mush right now. For today, they decided to fix a breakfast supper. No. 1 was in charge of toasting waffles, and No. 2 fried up some eggs. One slightly burned fingertip later from getting too close to the skillet, but they managed to present a very yummy dinner that their three younger brothers raved about.

Even with the burned finger, I was proud of him for knowing exactly what to do. He ran it under cold water, then put an ice pack on it. I had to finish his eggs, which dug into our limited time, but it all worked out ok. I was pleased that I could trust them to get dinner started, at least. They are good lil’ chefs-in-the-making, and I look forward to planning more meals with them in the weeks to come!

Underlying questions

/ faithsweatandtears / 2 Comments

While I was out of town for Residency Weekend, one of my lil’ monkeys had an accident on an inflatable that dislocated a permanent tooth. Thankfully, the ortho was able to save the tooth, but now one of my 1st graders wears braces. His follow-up appointment is later this week, which is when I hope to learn how long he’ll be wired.

In the meantime, he is restricted to soft/mushy foods and liquids. I’ve tried to be creative with his lunches, so he usually takes things like applesauce, yogurt, pudding, Jello/fruit cups, etc. We’ve also done soup (I don’t have a Thermos, so I sent it in a travel coffee mug – LOL) a couple of days.

He also can’t participate in any rowdy activities, which greatly restricts his involvement in PE and kids’ church, but he’s still getting plenty of exercise. Long story short, I feel like he’s missing out on eating and doing things that his brothers get to do and eat. How little I knew that there was some jealousy brewing … toward him!

I guess it’s a matter of special treatment. Even though his “special” alternatives don’t seem all that great to him, most of the time, I found out this morning that one of his brothers felt left out. No. 4 came up to me after breakfast with those puppy eyes that he’s so adept at using and asked: “Mom, if someday when I’m a teenager or something and maybe I’ll need to get braces, can you make me soup in my lunch, too?”

I suggested that he ask me what he really wanted to ask me. If he wanted soup for lunch, all he needed to do was ask, and I’d try to make it happen. I told him that I didn’t know he would like that, but instead of asking me in a round-about way, just say what you need to say.

I keep a shopping list on the fridge, and now it has “Thermos” on it. I’d better buy a few.

Writing Wednesday: Backcasting

/ faithsweatandtears / 1 Comment

In my class on the Culture of Formal Work Organizations, we have a team assignment to apply organizational structure models to our case study: Dune, or more specifically, the futuristic planet Arrakis. My team has decided to use the backcasting model to speculate how the genetically-engineered Mentats could come to be. A Mentat in the world of Frank Herbert’s Dune is a human computer — not technologically enhanced like a robot, but an actual human who has been bred to perform at a very high-level intellectual capacity.

The point is to demonstrate mastery of the forecasting technique (looking from a future point backward to present day, in this case), not necessarily whether we believe it’s truly possible to achieve the end result.

We are going to chart a critical path using historical and scientific information about nanotechnology, gene mapping, etc. within political environs that would encourage the pursuit of human computers. It should be interesting!

Parent Meeting Night

/ faithsweatandtears / Leave a comment

… also known as: How To Be Three Places At Once. At least two of them are in the 1st grade, so we shouldn’t miss too much important info by splitting time between those two rooms while the other parent goes to 2nd grade.

Open House at the intermediate school should be almost as much fun, but at least there are two kids and two adults to split the time. I’ll just have to get a sitter for the younger three.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Parent Meeting Nights and Open House nights are designed for only children — certainly not large families.