You Can't Manage Your Kids Like Your Work

Although we do our best to control what our kids eat, the reality is that as soon as they’re about 4 years old, we start to lose that control. My daughter in Pre-K has lunch at school once a week, and my kindergartener weekly. My girls eat what is offered since bringing a lunch from home is not an option at their school. The school tries to offer healthy alternatives and is continually working to make improvements, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are some things that are offered that I would only rarely let my kids eat, if at all. For example, if given the choice, I’d eliminate processed meats from my children’s school because I know they’re not good for you.

What I didn’t know until recently is, how bad for you processed meats really are. The World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute for Cancer Research’s “Second Expert Report” concludes that “processed meat is a convincing cause of colorectal cancer.”

The National School Lunch program, a federally funded program that often provides the best meal a child may get in a day, currently distributes and subsidizes processed meats like hot dogs to 30+ million children. Given the link between cancer and processed meats, it’s time to eliminate these meats from the National School Lunch program.

As a concerned parent who wants to make a difference, I’ve signed the petition to the Secretary of Agriculture requesting that the government halt the distribution and subsidization of processed meats like hot dogs through the National School Lunch program. Whether you have children or not, if you’re reading this blog you’re concerned about nutrition and health, please take a moment and click on the following link to sign the petition too. Thank you.
http://support.cancerproject.org/site/PageServer?pagename=usda_national_school_lunch_program_petition

Parents at my children’s school want to see the nutrition of snacks and lunches improved: hormone-free milk, no nitrates in the lunch meats, no deep fried food, no white bread or empty calories. No one would disagree with these goals as my husband and I work hard to teach our children to eat a variety of foods and make healthy choices. But teaching children to eat healthfully and providing them with healthy choices is only a small piece of a much larger puzzle that is important not to lose sight of.

We not only need to provide our children with healthy choices, but we need to teach them how and why we combine these healthy choices. Yet, the puzzle is still larger.

I believe we also need to teach our children to appreciate the wonderful choices that they have and the importance of not wasting food since it is a precious gift. When I was a child, my mom used to tell us that children were starving in Ethiopia and that we needed to finish the food that we had taken. As a child I don’t think I fully understood the implications of what she was saying, but it clearly made an impact on me since I recall her words 30 years later.

I am torn on this issue because I have been asked to participate in a group of concerned parents who want to improve the nutrition at my kids’ school. I would love to see my children have healthier choices with no fast or fried food. And yet spending my limited free time to help my children’s school is like tutoring a child who scored 90% on a test so that they can get 100% the next time. There are so many children who need much more help since they’ve only scored a 30%.

The National School Lunch Program provides $2.57 per lunch for over 30.5 million children, and for many of those children, that’s the best meal that they get. If I am to help my children’s school improve its nutrition, then at least I can make sure that my children learn that there are others less fortunate than themselves and that we all need to make an effort to help others less fortunate than ourselves in any way we can.

Is there such a thing as a sick day if you’re a mom? Oh, and why don’t you add to that, entrepreneur. I know there is such a thing as a “sick daze” – I’ve been in once since Saturday. Guess trick or treating was too much for me this year.

As a mom, your kids cannot just give you the day off. Even if your husband or helper has agreed to let you rest so that you can take care of yourself to get better – did you tell your kids that this was the plan? When they’re little, they just don’t get it. If you’re in the middle of a nap and you hear the stampede of feet followed by “mommmmyyyyyy” – so much for the nap.

Not to mention, in my house I’m the grand coordinator of everyone’s schedules and plans. Because I wasn’t feeling great, my husband took the kids when they woke up Sunday morning to have brunch with friends and then to the playground. By the time they got back it was well past noon. Since my head was feeling fuzzy, I didn’t even realize until dinner-time that one of my daughters missed a birthday party.

As for work, as a business owner, there really are no sick days either, just somewhat less productive ones. There’s only so much you can get done when your head feels like it’s filled with custard. And, if you decide to work from home because you don’t want to infect the rest of your team, your kids are thrilled. You then have the challenge of telling them that they need to let you work even though you should be in bed resting to get better. Now if that doesn’t send a confusing message! So… it’s now 4:45pm and I have not seen my kids since 1:30pm. Guess they got it after all.

Not really sure how that makes me feel, but it does let me get my work done. Now all I need to do is feel better so that I can get back to work and to my family!

Just getting ready to finish up my work to head home for Halloween! For the last two weeks, my girls both told me that they wanted to be fairies - all the rage with Pre-K and Kindergarteners. Last night as my older daughter was getting ready to go to bed, she told me that she had changed her mind and she really had to be a cat. Hmmm… She had a halloween parade at school first thing the next morning. Nothing like changing her mind at the last minute!

Although I still had some work to get done and was exhausted, I brainstormed with my husband the best way to make a cat’s tail (try taping some crumpled up newspaper around a coat hanger and covering it with a piece of material or play scarf ) and some kitty ears (cutout from a cardboard cereal box with colored construction paper glued on and attached to a headband) given the late hour. I interspersed my late night art project with finishing up some work (easy to do while the glue was drying) and this morning - my daughter was thrilled.

Entirely worth it despite the last minute effort. Now it’s time to get ready to go trick or treating. And later tonight I expect a visit from the Halloween Fairy who I hear, will be leaving the next series of Rainbow Magic Fairy books by Daisy Meadows. Does she write anything about cats?

For more on the Halloween Fairy, see http://www.zoefoods.com/blog/hello-halloween-fairy/

As I was putting my youngest daughter to bed last night she said to me, “Mommy, you’re not going to go away again?” I asked her what she meant and she explained “Like when you and Daddy went to the wedding and Grammy and Grandpa had to stay with us.”

I explained that although we don’t have anymore weddings coming up, I do have to travel for my work and would be away this coming week for one night. How do you get your children to understand that even when you’re away, your heart will always be with them?

I’ve taken a week long hiatus from writing my blog; I didn’t intend to. Last weekend my family gathered from across the country to spend four days together. It was fun and certainly wonderful to see my parents, sisters, their families, and my cousins. However, the word “relaxing” doesn’t come to mind.

Whenever we have this time together in Maine, it involves a 5+ hour drive from where we live outside of Boston. 5 hours is a long time to sit in the car, and certainly long for my 4 and 5 year old girls. We let them watch one movie, so that leaves about 225 minutes of being strapped into a car seat. The rest of the time we made up stories, read books, played I Spy, and for the first time, played 20 Questions.

I couldn’t believe how quickly our girls caught on. When it was my youngest daughter’s turn to think of something we had to guess, she’d very quickly announce “Okay, I’m all done thinking!”. She never once tried to stump us with a Disney princess (phew - they really do think about other things)! When it was my 5-year old’s turn, she blew us away with what she came up with. Through our questioning, we learned that it was a thing, it was alive, and it was real (not make-believe). Hmmm…

Can you guess it? We finally did. It was the planet Earth.

I’ve learned that my children and employees (not to infer that they’re childish in any way) do have similar qualities. When given a goal, they can surprise you with their initiative and the solutions they can create if you would only get out of their way. Hmmm, maybe I should take more time off. Thank you to the Zoe Foods team!

Before I started to get ready to go to work the other day, my youngest daughter, age 4, came into my room and wanted to play a quick game of Connect 4. Before we started playing, she looked me directly in the eye and with a very serious expression (which is unusual for this giggle monster), said “Mommy, if I win, you have to have another baby. And, I want a baby brother!”

How did my four-year old learn how to make a bet on the outcome of a game? It certainly isn’t the standard practice in our household.

I hesitated for a moment in my reply, “How about if Ozzie [our 85lb. dog] is your baby brother?” Weak answer, I know. How do you tell your child that your work is essentially one of your babies? I guess when she’s old enough to read, she’ll find this blog archived somewhere and by then, hopefully, she’ll understand.

I got back from my business trip from the production run of our new granola and my girls were asleep. From their perspective, I was gone for three “sleeps” – not the two days I had promised. It seems to be tougher on my younger daughter, age 4, when I travel for work. My 5 ½ year old seems to take it in stride and accepts that this is what her mommy has to do.

The next morning (yesterday) I was excited to have my girls eat Zoe’s new crunchy granolas for breakfast. I figured that if two picky eaters liked Zoe’s Granolas, then we’d really have a shot at growing the company after eight hard years of just surviving. My 4-year old was all over it. She tried it, ate it, and went back for seconds and thirds! It was a hit, and a relief for me.

My older daughter was a little tougher on me. She told me that she doesn’t like granola but would try it. How could I have a child who doesn’t like granola when that’s what I spent my working hours thinking about?  Ugh! She tried it anyway, smiled, told me she didn’t like it, and walked away. I couldn’t believe it. Okay, I don’t need everyone to like my company’s products, I’ll settle for 50% (as if my children of two make a statistically significant sample).

A couple of minutes later I heard my youngest daughter screaming, “Mommy, she keeps stealing my granola.” Hmmm, at the young age of 5 my daughter has learned how to push my hot buttons. As long as she likes Zoe’s Granola, she can push that hot button anytime! I think Zoe Foods is finally off to the races, and after  8 years in training, I am really excited. As far as my older daughter goes, I think that my husband and I had better brace ourselves for her teenage years.

I was about to write “because of the nature of my work” when I realized that wasn’t even being close to honest. What I really mean is, because of my nature, my work and personal time are intertwined. Yesterday, when my marketing intern, Kim, told me that she wanted to finish some work at home and that she would email it to me when she was done, I asked her to please give me a quick call to let me know that the email was sent. I gave her my home phone number without a second thought.

It’s 8:15pm and the phone at home rings. I am indisposed for several minutes and I ask my five and a half year old to please answer the telephone. She is thrilled to have such an opportunity! She answers the phone and says hello. I tell my daughter to ask who it is and then tell them that I will call them back soon. The next thing I know is that my daughter is telling Kim that I am in the bathroom and cannot come to the phone. Too much information. I can hear Kim trying to get my daughter to repeat the message she wants her to give to me, but I can’t hear what she is saying. My daughter hangs up the phone, “Kim says to emah your blah.”

That would be five year old for “email your blog”. Luckily, the mixing of work and home doesn’t seem to phase her or me. After she goes to bed, I email my blog to Kim.

Since we just moved to a new house, we received a terrific house-warming gift (not including the very delicious homemade cupcakes from a neighbor, and my husband thought no one does that anymore) – but a deck of cards of questions appropriate for the whole family called Table Topics. To follow on to my blog from the other day about getting your kids to eat what is in front of them, the best way to achieve this is to not talk about what they’re eating!

Forget reverse psychology or any other tricks of the parent trade. Just get your kids involved and thinking about something else and having a real dialog. Even my four and five year old girls can participate in the questions posed by Table Topics. The best part about it – dinner has not only become relaxing, but entertaining! I can’t begin to tell you how much fun it is to have a lively dialog with your pre-schoolers and spouse.

Table Topic: What do kids know more about than their parents? It’s not just princesses and groovy girls, it’s what any good manager, psychologist, or believer in the “The Secret” would tell you – believe in your children and treat them in the way that you would like them to behave and those dinner-time woes may just fall by the wayside.

Originally published on http://zoefoodsblog.blogspot.com/.

Am I the only mom that hears the same thing over, night after night at the dinner table? And by the way, it’s not, “mmm, this is delicious.” How about the litany of complaints ranging from: “It’s too spicy. “I won’t eat the tops of the broccoli, mommy, just the stem.” “Will you count how many more bites I have to eat to get dessert?”

Ugh – dinner used to be relaxing. After a long day at work, my husband and I need dinner to be more relaxing, but even more importantly, we want our girls to learn to eat a variety of foods and to enjoy eating healthfully. As hard as this can be, we persevere. With the increasing rates of childhood obesity and diabetes, and the number of girls that have eating disorders, we realize how important it is that we teach our kids to try new foods and to know when they are hungry and when they are full.

Once the girls had some teeth, my husband and I decided that our family would all eat the same thing for dinner – i.e. no specially made meals, no chicken fingers (“mommy, I didn’t know chickens had fingers!”), and no noodles with butter. Although dinner isn’t as relaxing as we might like, our girls are learning. They eat chicken, fish (I didn’t even eat fish until college!), red meat, pork, and pasta of course, along with a variety of vegetables, fruits, and the requisite daily treat.

So hang in there, teach your child to enjoy lots of different foods, tastes, and textures, always include at least one thing in their meal that you know they will enjoy that’s good for them, and pass the ketchup on your way out by leaving it in the fridge.

Originally posted on http://zoefoodsblog.blogspot.com/.

I had forgotten this story until just now… in November I was with my husband and our two girls, and some friends of ours and their two children. Tina gave all four children a penny to throw in the fountain so that they could make a wish. My youngest daughter, 3 years old at the time, started to cry after she threw her penny in the fountain. Through her tears she explained to me that she wished she had a unicorn, but after the penny went into the pool, no unicorn appeared.

I tried to explain to her that when we make a wish, it doesn’t always happen immediately, and that sometimes we need to keep wishing in order to make it come true. Luckily for her, Christmas was around the corner and Santa Clause must have gotten wind of her wish because she received a unicorn in her stocking

Why did I suddenly recall this story from this past December – because I realized that today, I was having a “no unicorn day.” My wish and dream to grow Zoe Foods has had its challenges, and today feels like a day with few “wins.” Like my daughter, I too will keep wishing and working hard to make my dream to have Zoe’s Granolas and Zoe’s Bars available in retail stores throughout the country. Please share your dreams and wishes with me – I’d love to hear from you.