What snacks do you buy or make that are easy, nutritious, and inexpensive? I’ll start us off by sharing a few of my favorites:

• Bananas — Every last one of my kids (and me!) loves them. Peel and eat!
• Grapes — These are not always inexpensive, but when they go on sale, you can buy a bunch and freeze them. Frozen grapes — yum!
• Boiled eggs — I boil these up by the dozen and then store them in a (clearly marked!) carton in the fridge. Not all of my kids are fans, but for the ones who are, eggs are a quick and easy source of protein. Even if you don’t have laying hens, eggs are an inexpensive option.
• Apple slices with peanut butter — A winner with kids every time, and nutritious too. My favorite is green apples with Smuckers natural peanut butter.

How about you?

I give up. I keep spending more and more money on food, but my family just keeps eating the stuff. Between higher food prices and the expense of gas to drive 40 minutes to the larger stores where I know there are (slightly) lower prices, I feel like I can’t win.

Are you feeling the pinch this summer? What kinds of things are you doing to feed your family or drive for less?

Technorati Tags: food prices, grocery shopping, frugal meals

In the comments on my Can Kicking post some of you mentioned that even the “fake” sweetness of diet sodas can increase cravings for sweets and “bad carbs” and wondered if I might notice a difference in my other eating habits as a result of giving up the soda.

I may not be the best test case for this particular study because I cut way back on my bad sugar habits long before giving up diet Coke. I used to live my life from one sugar high to the next. Something about being pregnant many times, though, wakes a person’s body up to these kinds of sugar abuses.

When I was newly pregnant with Raphael and (typically) sick as a dog, I discovered the wonderful power of protein. In proper doses, it could settle my stomach, at least for a bit. It kept me from feeling hungry and held off that awful low blood sugar shakiness and nausea that plagued me when I tried getting by with cookies for breakfast. Lean meats, eggs, nuts, and dairy became my go-to foods. And, when I was feeling better, I added whole grains too.

My diet these days is not perfect (note the Doritos mention above), but it’s a lot closer to normal than it has been in past years. I find that when I make the first move to keep my sugar intake under control, it winds up keeping itself under control. I don’t crave the stuff if I don’t ingest large quantities of it in the first place.

I’d love for us to have some discussions about diet and nutrition. Do you have particular nutrition struggles, thoughts, or questions? Share them here and maybe I can follow up with discussion posts on some of the topics that are brought up.

A while back you did a “your turn” for quick recipes. There were a lot of good recipes that came from that, and I’m wondering if you would consider hosting a “your turn” for recipes to cook on those sultry hot summer days when you can’t stand to stand over a hot stove, and can’t bear the thought of firing up a grill and enduring 100 degree heat outside while standing next to a 500 degree BBQ. After this heat snap, I’ve about exhausted my own supply of quick fix summer dishes that don’t really require heating up the kitchen, and I’d love to see what other families do.

Here’s mine: On a day when you know it is going to be crazy-hot, marinate chicken breasts in your favorite salad dressing for at least an hour — really any salad dressing will do. Then, in the morning, grill the chicken, let cool, and store in the refrigerator. At dinnertime, slice chicken in strips, and serve with raw vegetables (baby carrots, cut peppers, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes) and dip. If someone insists upon having a grain, put the cold chicken between slices of bread and make it a sandwich.

On a day where I fail to plan ahead, fruit, yogurt, and deli meat sandwiches also make a popular, no-cook dinner. What about you? What do you “cook” when it gets hot?

***UPDATED to add the link to the original “easy meals” post.

Technorati Tags: summer cooking, no-cook dinners, meal planning

I first started drinking Diet Coke in college. It was an “acquired taste” one of my girlfriends told me, and I aimed to acquire it. That didn’t take long. Soon I was drinking several cans a day. I decided to give it up for Lent that first year and was rewarded with the biggest Ash Wednesday headache I have ever had the occasion to “offer up.”

I have also given up Diet Coke when pregnant. Each time I get away from it for a while, I am amazed by the fact that the first sip of the stuff I take after months of being “clean” tastes like … a horrifying mouthful of chemicals. And yet back I go.

I’m not worried about caffeine. In reasonable doses, caffeine is my friend, and you will not convince me otherwise. I will continue to drink caffeine in coffee, but I plan to give up the Diet Coke.

I am mostly concerned about the other stuff in Diet Coke — heroine, maybe? — that keeps me coming back to it. Something about the stuff convinces me that I need it. And not Diet Pepsi or that horrible store-brand cola stuff, I need Diet Coke. That’s just not a good thing.

I don’t like to feel like decisions about what I put into my body are being made by anyone other than me. Besides, there are plenty of people out there who will tell me the health risks of drinking diet soda and even thoughtfully reflect on the reasons why diet drinks are an abuse of your body and an unhealthy approach to physical fitness.

So I figure there’s no time like the summer for kicking the can and drinking water instead. We have an unlimited supply of water from our artesian well and it flows freely from the tap.

So. Here goes.

Technorati Tags: diet coke, diet soda, aspartame, healthy drinking

Since you have so many wonderfully smart and creative readers, I have a question that perhaps they can help me with. We are expecting baby #5 in the fall and will need to re-arrange where the existing children will be sleeping in order to accommodate the new baby.

We currently have four boys who, when the baby arrives, will be 9,7,4 and 18 months. We have decided to pair up each older child with a younger child so the 9 year old will share with the 4 year old and the 7 year old with the 18 month old. With that said, I am trying to find inexpensive ways to perhaps give the older boys a little bit of “privacy” within their room sharing situation. Perhaps some sort of room divider or curtain near their beds to create their own little nook where they can feel like they have a little of their own space. Any suggestions?

Also, I don’t dare let my kids Google, even with a filtered search. Can anyone recommend a “clean” and kid-focused search engine or collection of links?

UPDATE: shutting down comments while I’m away

Technorati Tags: kids online, filtered internet, safe surfing

Something’s got to work here. Duct tape? Hypnosis? What?

Technorati Tags: babies, toddlers, diapering, parenting dilemma

Summer is quickly approaching and kids are getting out of school in a few weeks. I, once again, have all these high hopes of organized days with lots of reading, family prayer time, field trips, pool time etc. each and every day. That led me to routines….that led me to “I wonder how Danielle does it …” So, how do you do it? Do you have a set routine in the summer?

Well we certainly do relax things around here in the summertime, but we do wind up falling into a routine of sorts too. I am one of those spoiled wives whose husband has summers off. As a family, we tend to stay up later at night and get up later in the morning. School is limited to reading practice for those who need it, handwriting practice only when I am feeling really mean, and read alouds for their sheer entertainment value.

Prayer times will remain the same, but the chore schedule I posted a few weeks back is going to go out the window. In its place, I’ll come up with one that better suits our family’s needs when we are spending more time outdoors and less time on schoolwork, but I will hold the kids accountable for regular household contributions with laundry, meals, and housekeeping.

Some summers we’ve been terrifically organized with planned schedules for morning sports activities and afternoon trips to the lake. But more recently I have found that we don’t need to plan everything out in great detail in order for us to fall into a regular routine around here.

This year, my oldest girls will be taking part in a summer day camp nearby. Kateri will work at the barn and we may or may not participate in town swim lessons at the lake. Dan will take various kids fishing, to the tennis courts, and to the basketball courts several times a week. And we live near enough to beautiful lakes so that I tend to make regular trips there in the evening after dinner so that the kids can swim a bit and cool off before bed. I also have great ambitions of hosting a “drama camp” here at the house and putting on a play with some other homeschooling families we know, but the details have not yet been worked out. We’ll definitely plan some day trips to the ocean and maybe a few other places as well, but we have no wild plans to drive dozens of hours for an extended time away this year.

If you are worried about activities and routines, it might be a good idea to sit down as a family and plan your summer schedule together, so that everyone’s preferences and expectations are taken into consideration. Just be careful not to fill every day of the week with activities and obligations. A little organization is nice, but too much of it takes away from the lazy loveliness of summer, I think. Leave yourself room for impromptu picnics and give your family space to enjoy some down time. Maybe it’s because I have the perspective of a New Hampshire resident, but I think summer’s way too short to fill with obligations. It really is okay sometimes to let your kids just hang out, dig holes in the yard, and listen to the insects buzz. Enjoy the change of pace. It’ll be back to school before you know it!

Anyone else? What kind of summer routines do you follow? What are your family’s plans?

In a recent Coffee Talk, someone asked me to share some of my birth stories, and while it’s not at all my style to blog intimate details about labor and delivery, this does offer me an opportunity to share about this popular topic. And I feel I can speak to the “dad being there/dad not being there” topic because I have experienced both.

Dan totally missed Daniel’s birth.

In the week before Daniel was born, our whole family suffered some kind of horrible virus. We think it was a coxsackie virus. And while “coxsackie” is a gross sounding name, I don’t think it does justice to the horribleness of this virus. It gave me a wretched eye infection, but I was feeling loads better by the time I went into labor.

Dan wasn’t. He was in my hospital room bent over in pain and positively miserable with a fever and body aches. His throat was so sore that he couldn’t speak. He was whispering things at me like “This is not normal” and “I have never before in my life felt this awful!”

The nurses took pity on him. They set up a cot for him in the corner and told him to get some rest. But he was in too much pain to rest.

I don’t know about you, but when I am in labor I have precious little tolerance for other people’s aches and complaints — however legitimate they might be. We were an hour from home and the kids were with my parents. I told my husband to go get a hotel room. And he did.

I told one of the nurses to call Dan whenever I got close to delivering and she promised she would. And I labored alone. For real. I had a call button to use if I needed anything, but I was alone. And I felt it acutely. Even if all Dan ever did at my previous deliveries was stand awkwardly at my bedside, I was lonely for him. I didn’t need him to do anything else but be there. But I had sent him away.

After a couple of hours, Dan called to check on me. I was woozy with pain and don’t remember much of the conversation. Dan said he had taken some medicine and thought he could handle coming back. I said okay, we hung up, and Daniel was born 10 minutes later. Dan showed up about 15 minutes after that — totally bewildered.

Throughout labor, I always feel like I am holding off a panicky fear. I fear the pain. I fear a C-section. I fear something going terribly wrong with the baby. And labor is stressful for Dan for all those same reasons. I can’t imagine how horrifying it would be to watch someone you love suffer enormous pain while you stand by helplessly. And to feel pressured to “coach” them through the experience to boot? Insane!

At previous deliveries, I counted on Dan not so much to coach me, but to be my advocate and protector during a very vulnerable time on my life. He has always taken this role quite seriously. So seriously, in fact, that his outrage with a lying, incompetent doctor led the nursing staff to call security on him at Ambrose’s birth. But that’s a whole different blog post.

The fact that I missed Dan during my labor with Daniel made me realize what I need him there for. Not for participating, but for supporting. Not for coaching, but for protecting.

But the fact that I didn’t care a bit about him missing Daniel’s birth after the fact, tells me something else. Whether he’s present at the birth or not, the most important kind of support a man can be to his wife and children is being there for the real labor — and that’s the lifetime of work that begins after delivery.