My kids the food snobs

I am heating up my soup when one of the floor mates asks me how my weekend was and if I had done anything fun. I told her that the family went to Dig In Indiana on Sunday. She looked at me as if I slapped her in the face while I was driving over her children in a tank.

Her “Why would you waste your money ,kids don’t eat that way.”

Me “Mine do, they like to try new things.”

Her “You are one of those people that turn their kids into food snobs where normal food isn’t good enough for them.” She said eating her Ramen out of the Styrofoam container, because that is normal food for a 30+ woman!

So what is normal food for a kid? Was she referring to the typical peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese and chicken nugget diet that most of us feed our kids regularly because we don’t think they will like anything else?

We give kids too little credit when it comes to food. I myself have done that with my children. We think they won’t eat certain things so we don’t even bother to see if they will try them. Then they are out somewhere and they try it and they like it and we are shocked.

I had a conversation with my gym buddy who couldn’t believe all the things the kids tried at Dig In and also ate in general. Her son is young and she wants him to be a well rounded eater like my little food snobs. So she asked for a few tips. Every child is different but this is what I shared:

The first step to getting a kid to expand past the typical kid safe meals is exposure. The more you let your kids explore food options the more likely they are to try new things. They may not like them but at least they gave it a try. I took my kids to the market and told them to pick out something they had never had before. Kailey brought us asparagus so we tried it as a family that night. We don’t eat it every night but we have had it a few times since then, a small victory for mom!

The second thing that I found helpful was involving the kids in meal planning and preparation. When a child has a say and a part in meals they will also try new things. They girls said they wanted to try ratatouille. So we made it together. It wasn’t our favorite thing but there were elements that they liked. They liked the squash so we took some of that the next night and coated it with cornmeal then pan fried it, they all liked it.

On that same note find certain food types that kids like and play off that. If you have pasta eater try new things with pasta each week. In our house it was spaghetti or lasagna every other week. Then we tried a few different dishes and the family loved them! One was as simple as tossing some cheese tortellini with a jar of sundried tomatoes. Takes less than 15 minutes to prepare and costs less than $6 for the meal and the family loves it.

Next don’t give up. Just because kids don’t like something the first time they try it doesn’t mean they won’t love it the next time. Kids’ tastes come and go just like ours do, even their favorite meals may not appeal to them all the time.

And finally don’t over whelm them with too many new things at once. Easing new things into kids diets work much better then stating “We are never going through the drive through again so eat these beats and bean sprouts”. Nothing will start rebellion quicker than too many changes at once.

Am I am expert? Hell no, I am still learning as I go. And I am using my kids to help me learn, some days I listen better than others. I just can’t get over that one kid not liking broccoli, how can she not like broccoli? But for the most part I am listening!

And for the big question: Are my kids food snobs? No, they like those kid staples just like the other kids but they happen to like to try new things too. But I will never feed them Ramen from a Styrofoam cup!

When the former co-worker calls

So there you are eating your lunch catching up on emails that came through while you were watching Maury on the elliptical at the gym when the phone rings. You answer and the voice on the other end makes you drop your fork in your lap, your eyes widen and you mouth the words “Oh Shit, not again”.

No it isn’t a call from your kids’ school, it’s your former co-worker. You know the one you tried to get along with because you liked her as a person but the work her was Satan’s mistress so you cut all ties, yeah her. She called to tell you she had a new job and needed your help. You, trying to forgive every shitty thing she did to you, decide in a weak moment to help her. So you put your lunch aside and look up the information she asked for. She thanks you in her overly sticky sweet fashion and you think she is going to say good bye so you can go back to your now cold lunch when this comes out of her mouth:

“So are you still doing less then what I did when I had you job?”

A cold chill washes over you, you feel your face pinch like you just ate a bug and murdery thoughts fill you mind.

Yep that was me, when SHE called.

For ten years I have dealt with HER. SHE had my job many many years ago when position was just the Office Manager/Receptionist. When I started SHE was part time and SHE had no trouble telling me every day she worked that I didn’t do as much as SHE did when she had that job. Since SHE had been there longer then me I didn’t think I had the right to tell HER that SHE was right, I didn’t do as much as she did, I did twice of what SHE did because she couldn’t multi-task.

SHE left our company and for a short time I was able to live without HER evil gloom over my head and then it happened, they hired her back in a position that I had to work with everyday!  To make it worse we were each other’s backups. So every day I had to hear how I didn’t do her job or my job correctly.

Why do you ask did I take her crap? Because I didn’t feel arguing with a person with such a skewed sense of reality would help matters. If you argued with her things just got worse. Yes I miserable but I knew that one day I would be free of her and all this would be placed in that “things that made me stronger or could be used in my insanity defense” file buried deep in my brain. Besides I was able to do my job and I knew I did well even if SHE didn’t think so.

Well then the day came when she had herself one heck of a breakdown. I did feel bad for her because she could be very nice and caring when she wasn’t back stabbing you, throwing salt in the wound then covering it with an acid coated band-aid. I tried to be supportive but she was beyond that point and finally quit a month after another co-worker quit and there I was doing my job, the other co-worker’s job and HER job.

That was three years ago. No replacement for any of those folks had been hired. I have a one day a week assistant but I still do all three jobs. At times it is maddening and I have had a few breakdowns of my own but I manage because I like what I do. I like not having a person telling me I am not doing it right just people who help me make what I do better. As crazy as it sounds, it made the first seven years worth it because I am where I am supposed to be, doing what I am supposed to do. And not even a phone call from the sharp tongued poison spitting HER can change that.

If you were wondering what my response was to HER question:  

“Hey thanks for letting me help you with what you needed and ending it on such a high note. With all the work I have to do now, I won’t have time to help you if you call again. Nice talking to you.”  

The Bucket List

Before the BIG birthday this year I played around with writing down my bucket list. We all know the road to hell is paved in good intentions, so that along with one hundred other things I said I would do never happened.

First of all, this morning, I really did choke on a burrito. And as pathetic as it sounds it was one of the most terrifying things that has happened to me in a long time. I watched the world spin around me as twelve people stood watching. I think my anger is what saved me. I thought I had to get this piece of egg out of my throat so I can yell at these stupid people for letting someone nearly choke to death. So I threw myself over a chair back and screamed a few profanities before rushing out the door and crying in my car.

Now I have no choice to make a bucket list because I am getting older and I love breakfast burritos eventually age or the burritos will get me! I won’t bore anyone with the entire list just a few highlights.

Get a book published and enjoyed by many. Yes I am working on getting a book published but that doesn’t mean that people will like it!

Write for a sitcom. I like to write. I have crazy ass family and friends to draw material from. Why am I not doing this now? Probably because I am not as humorous as I sometimes think I am. BUT that won’t stop me!

Do a triathlon. I heard once you put that in writing you actually have to do it. I should probably get better at the swimming thing then! I am used to being in a pool on a float with an adult beverage in hand yelling at the kids not to splash me. Been a long time since I swam with the Navy divers! And there is that running thing! And I haven’t ridden a bike in fifteen years. But damn it I am going to do this!

Kick my son in the diaphragm.  Yes you read that right. When I was nine months pregnant with the little man he kicked me so hard that it actually tore my muscle and flesh causing a mild hernia, I still have a scar! I swore the day he was born that when his wife was about to give birth to his child, I’d kick him. I am sure this one will be taken off my list eventually for legal reasons.

Get the 1990 cast of Grease back together. I think it would kick ass to do the show again or have a great party since the 25^th anniversary of our production is less than three years away.

Lay naked across Ryan Reynolds star on the Hollywood walk of fame. Mr. Reynolds doesn’t currently have a star on the walk. If they gave them out for his ass or abs he would have had one after Blade Trinity. I am not unaware that his acting abilities are limited, I love him for his sarcasm and the physical attributes I mentioned. If he doesn’t ever get a star, I will find Ryan Gosling and tell him the Notebook sucked. Because that is on my list twice to do anyway.

The list goes on and on! I better get started!  

How Jen Got Married

So there you are in a $5000 wedding gown which took six months to pick out and a another six months to fit into walking down the aisle with your sweaty handed father. While you are hoping you don’t fall down and embarrass yourself in front of your 250 guests in whom you only actually know 40 people, your father is hoping that this one day doesn’t cost him his retirement fund. Damn it he just wanted to golf and drink mojitos in Miami not pay for a wedding planner called “Shine” who loves taffeta and glitter!

At the end you see your fiancé who looks more than uncomfortable in his rented tuxedo while his groomsmen are completely hung over from the bachelor party the night before. You were just informed that there may or may not be a new tattoo somewhere on you fiancé and part of your wedding gift is to find it. If it weren’t for the fact that your bridesmaids would look stupid in their overly pink gowns walking up the aisle alone, you would kill the groomsmen.

You say your “I dos” and everyone eats rubber chicken while the groomsmen drink out the bar and your maid of honor cries about always being a bridesmaid and she’ll be in the sequel of “16 Dresses” only her co-star will be Zach Galifianakis, not James Marsden. Come on who doesn’t love Zach?

Your dream day the one you spent your entire adolescence planning in your little binder with your magazine pictures and color swatches. When it is all said and done you spent $35,000 for four hours for a piece of paper and twenty toasters. Sixteen years later will you remember all the details that went into that day?

I never had this dream. I never wanted to a big wedding. Maybe because in my family not one single wedding I had gone to had a marriage that lasted more than a few years. Or may it was because I lived vicariously through Princess Di when she married Prince Charles and that was enough of a party for me who knows.

My dream wedding was honestly just finding the one guy I could wake up every day with and get a piece of paper that said we were hitched then have a nice little party with people I actually knew and liked.

So the Navy kind of changed my plans slightly. I never expected to meet my husband while serving my country. We both managed to get orders to Sicily, Italy , I left in March, he would get there in November, where we had planned to have a simple wedding on a little island near Greece, it was like Vegas in the Med. Well Uncle Sam pulled hubs orders just after I arrived in Sicily. Did I mention I was pregnant? Yep, we had decided we wanted to have a baby with our family’s blessing. So I was pregnant and hubs wasn’t going to be stationed with me unless we got married.

We looked at ways that we could get married before the baby was due in November, 1996. My window of opportunity was closing that I would still be able to travel. Hubs sent me some paperwork for a wedding license and it was assumed I would fly home for a quick four day state side jaunt.

There I was Saturday, June 15^th just coming back to the barracks from my “Mommy and Me” work out when I was told by my supervisor I had a phone call:

Hubs “Hey J you ready to get married?”

Me: “What?”

Hubs “Yeah, this judge said we could get married by proxy today on the phone. I talked to our command you your supervisor said he would be your witness.”

HOLY SHIT I AM GETTING MARRIED – Me in my head

Me: “Well okay.”

Ten minutes later I was Mrs. Hunter Nickels. The judge said he had never done a wedding over the phone before; pretty sure it mostly happens in prison situations but I wasn’t about to mention that! But I was married! And it didn’t take a $5000 Vera Wang (I wore a No Fear T-shirt and gym shorts) to get me there. Our wedding costs included a long distance phone call and the wedding license. And a box of tissues that my supervisor went through because he was so happy he was my witness; he was the best maid of honor any girl could ask for. He even straightened my sweaty workout clothes as if my fiancé could see me over the phone!

And these crazy Navy people who I worked with? They decorated my barracks room as the “honeymoon suite”. There were gifts, cards, cake and champagne. They were all waiting next door until I came back and joined me for a lovely evening. Hubs spent the evening with his family and called me the next day. Not your typical honeymoon but what about this day was typical?

So next Friday, I celebrate sixteen years of marriage. I do remember every detail of the day I was married like it was yesterday. So you can keep your fancy dresses, wedding pictures, and gift registries. I will keep the long distance phone call that changed my life in my heart for the rest of my days.

My daughters interview me

The girls decided that they wanted to write this week’s blog and it should be an interview, I am their subject. Please forgive the insanity.

Kai: Oh hey hi this is Kai Bug, I am nine and me and my sister Choo are going to interview our mom, Jennifer, who goes my JJ or mom or Jen, but never Jenny unless you are her direct family or she likes you. She is pretty picky about liking people.

Choo: Are you going to talk the whole time?

Kai: No but it was my idea! Okay. So mom you just had your birthday do you feel old?

Me: Not right now I have coffee.

Choo: Do you think you drink more coffee or alcohol.

Kai: Choo that isn’t an appropriate interview question.

Choo: It’s a good question. She should answer it.

Me: I guess it depends.

Choo: Who is better Justin Beiber or Nick Jonas.

Me: Nick Jonas only because I don’t like JB.

Kai: I thought we took that question out.

Choo: No we said we would take the clown question out.

Kai: I am putting it back in. Mom why do you hate clowns?

Me: They are evil.

Kai: What did they ever do to you?

Me: They exist and they shouldn’t.

Kai: So what are your thoughts on mimes then? Who doesn’t like a mime?

Me: Normal people don’t like mimes.

Choo: I have to agree with mom. Why would you pretend to be in a box?

Kai: Imagination Choo!

Choo: I can think of better ways to spend my time. Mom what did you want to be when you grew up?

Me: A writer.

Choo: You kind of write but you are no Dr. Suess.

Me: Nope I am not. He rhymes much better.

Choo: You make better grocery lists.

Me: Thanks

Choo: If you could be any animal what would you be?

Me: A Sea Gull. I’d like to hang out on the beach all day.

Kai: I think you just want to poop on people.

Choo: I think so too. I would.

Me: I wouldn’t poop on people, maybe their cars.

Kai: Are you really in love with Ryan Reynolds?

Me: I do love to look at him.

Kai: Ew he’s younger then you!

Choo: Everyone is younger than her now.

Me: Thanks you two. And he isn’t that much younger than me.

Kai: But he is still younger. What is your best memory?

Me: I have a lot of them. I would say when we are all laughing together at the dinner table.

Choo: Like when we talked about the Albanian foot worm?

Me: I don’t recall laughing about the foot worms.

Kai: It was a good conversation.

Me: It was not appropriate for the table.

Kai: Are we ever going to go to Disney?

Me: Is that an interview question?

Kai: Just want to know.

Me: Ask your father.

Kai: Can I have a rat?

Me: I think this interview is over.

Kai: In closing. My mom drinks too much coffee, hates clowns and Justin Beiber, wants to be a bird who write and won’t buy me a rat. Thank you.

Choo: You forgot to put Ryan Reynolds in there.

Kai: She is too old for him and she’s married.

Choo: Yeah dad might not like that.

The End

My tale of the cart boy, an Ode to Ray

I made a wager with my friend Ray to write a diddy about “What Ray doesn’t know about women”. The truth is Ray knows quite a great deal about women and is a prince among his sex. The irony was the day this wager was made I had a run in with a cart boy that made me realize some men really don’t know a damn thing about women at all.

There I was at Meijers picking up some items needed for the evening. I pushed my cart to my car and began to load my items into the trunk when I felt someone beside me. He was a young man maybe early 20’s based on the bar stamps on his hands with Justin Bieber hair, acne and oh so attractive safety orange vest. It wasn’t until that moment when pointed at my mouth and gave me a devious little smile that I realized I had been holding my key fob between my lips as I loaded the car. As I removed the key the cart boy began to speak:

“You shouldn’t put things like that in a mouth like yours. I could give you a few lessons of what you could do with that mouth. You might like them better.”

I don’t shock easily but this took me by surprise. There I am looking into the face of a boy I could have mothered and he said something like that to me while in his work uniform in the parking lot of a grocery store at 5 PM in the evening.

At this point my mind is spinning. I could hit him I was justified. I could go in and tell his boss and get his ass fired. I could just drive away. But no, being me I spoke without really thinking at all.

“What the F***. Do you know what I would do to your mouth little man? Wash it out with soap. Take your damn cart and get out of here.” I pushed the cart towards his crotch and then there was more use of the F word as I got into my car and forced myself not to run him over as I left.

I wonder if men every really think about what comes out of their mouths when they speak to women. What would make you think it was okay to tell a woman what you were going to do with her mouth before you actually knew if she was into that sort of thing. And really, what the hell would you want with a woman who actually liked that sort of thing when you first meet?

This whole experience took me back to when I was in college and this horrible cheesy asshole used to hit on every woman in the bar hoping someone was stupid enough to fall for his lines. When it was my turn he came up to me and said:

“You know I am studying life guarding right now. I could show you my mouth to mouth skills”  

Call me old fashion but I would like to be told I have a nice smile rather then I have a mouth for porn. Gents choose your words carefully not everything that sounds clever in your head should escape your tongue. If you don’t want a cart in the crotch, you may want to watch your mouth.

Motherhood, no assembly required

As a mother the first time you hold your baby there is a sense of aw that cannot be rivaled. It doesn’t matter if you carried the child in your womb or adopted, that moment is the same. This is your child and you are from this day forward responsible for everything that happens to them. In that moment you are equipped with your mommy armor(which FYI, is not vomit, urine or poop proof) , that unseen super hero cape, the ability to see from behind your head, hear things that no other being on earth can hear, and the love of noodle art, from the macaroni mosaics to the penne pasta necklaces. Thus your journey into motherhood begins.

Motherhood. It is the something you are never truly prepared for no matter how many books you read, or how much advice every woman who came before you tries to give you. The only sound advice I ever heard and held true is: Go in with an open heart and open mind and you will be just fine.

But I was suckered into reading some of those parenting books while I was pregnant. Nowhere in any of those books do they prepare you for your two hour old infant peeing your hair. Your three year old cutting off her hair and all the hair of her dolls as her dad sleeps. Your toddler daughter corn on the cob and beef ribs off the bone, when she has no teeth.

Nor did they tell you how to cope when one of your children was broken and you weren’t able to fix her with a smile or a hug. Or how it felt when you saw her hear certain sounds for the first time in her life. It was almost like that feeling of aw when I first held her, words just can’t describe it.

As mothers we cry, we laugh, we tease, we taunt, we post awkward things on Facebook, and humiliate on Twitter. We yell, we scream, we are terrified when we aren’t certain of things, but we love. And we love with every ounce of our being no matter what our children do. It is the blessing and the curse that we take on without any hesitation to no fault of our own.

There is no manual to real motherhood. No istructions on how to assemble the perfect kids. We live each day knowing we are doing good things for them and occasionally they will tell us. When they are not calling us giant poopy heads and refusing to eat dinner. You won't find a chapter in that in many books either! 

Best wishes to all the moms out there.