Category Archives: Parenting

Pizza Two Ways

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What is it about kids and their eating habits?   Is it some sort of law that if you have a child that ONLY wants sausage pizza, you will also have a child that ONLY likes cheese pizza.   I know I can’t be the only one.

I tried taking pizza turns.  If we had cheese this time we would have sausage next time.  It’s not like the sausage kid would not each cheese, he just wanted sausage.  But I learned that didn’t go the other way around.   I tried cooking sausage pizza and just pick off the sausage for the cheese kid.

Come on, you’ve done that right?

“Mommy, why does my pizza taste funny, I don’t like it.  Can I have chicken nuggets instead?”

Grooooooaaaaaaaaaann.

Then one day it hit me to do this:

 

I take the frozen whole pizzas, use a butcher knife to cut them in half and then put half of each together back into their boxes.

You want cheese?  You want sausage?  Done.

 

 

 

 

I’m Mom Dating

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My older son is in 4th grade.  This has given me plenty of time to work out the mom dynamics with his group.  There are moms I talk with, moms I don’t.  Or maybe I should clarify that as moms who put up with me and moms who don’t.

Anyways.

My younger son started kindergarten this year.  I figured since I’ve already been at this school for 5 years it was going to be easy the 2nd time around.

Let’s go ahead and mark that “Wrong, Jen.”

My older son has had no problems playing with boys or girls right from the beginning.  That gave me a whole field advantage when hunting.

My younger son tends to play with just boys.  I’m no math genius, but that cuts the field by at least 1/3.

So there I am at drop off and pick up with other parents and I just want one of them to say “ME!  I’m your new friend!”

Weird?  Yes.  Effective?  Also yes.

Instead I stand there.  Hoping conversation can naturally start in some way.

Oh, and you want to hear pathetic?  Yesterday Pinterest came up and I threw out there that Martha Stewart followed me on Pinterest.

If that wasn’t a sad attempt at being relevant, I don’t know what is.

And you know what?  These relationships matter.

My kid will be in school with many of them for years to come.

His best friend could be in this group.

Hell, MY best friend could be in this group.

Maybe there’s a book on this sort of thing.

Like Mom Dating 101

Steps:

1)      Make sure your kids get along

2)      Set up play date at your house

3)      Have fabulous snacks and activities for them to do at play date

4)      Make their kid fall in love with you

5)      Make their mom wonder why they like going to your house so much

6)      Make their mom wonder so much that she asks you to go on coffee date

7)      Take shower

8)      Put on your best game face and be as funny as possible at coffee date.

9)      Send her home with a handcrafted best friends forever frame decoupaged in heart craft paper.

10)    Never hear from her again.

 

If I’m being completely honest, I suck at this.

But my son?  He’s like the captain of the social chair.   Three days into the year and he invited himself to a play date.  Thank god she let him go but maybe I shouldn’t have let him go?

Now is he known as “that kid who invites himself to play dates all the time and the mom didn’t even stop him?”

Being labeled as “that kid” or “that mom” this early in the game is not good.

So back to the play book I go.

 

 

 

From Crunchy to Corn Dogs

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Being a blogger has offered me many opportunities.

I get a chance to waste a ton of time online writing, pinning, instagramming, twittering, and facebooking.

It’s a very glamorous no paid hobby.

Once in a while I will get offers to review something, or give something away.  Look around.  Yeah.  I just don’t have a whole lot of time to fit those in while I’m pinning more mason jar salad ideas.

I remember getting this email about being interviewed on my families eating healthy eating habits.

::Looks in Pantry at Cheetos::

Yeah.

I sort of ignored it for a few days and planned on writing back that I didn’t think it was a good fit for me.

One evening I was watching TV and this commercial came on.  It was for sitter service through Care.com.

Wait a second.  That sounds familiar.  I went to my email and noticed that the email was from Care.com.

I took that as a sign that instead of passing on it, I should do it.

I know it’s not a topic that I’m “known” for, but if you’re interested on how I manage an Organic and Corn Dog lifestyle, please read my interview.

Why Mostly Healthy Works for Us.

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This is not a sponsored post, and I wasn’t paid or anything.  I just don’t want to be the one post over there that gets no views.  You know what I mean.