8 months old (and some other stuff)

I rarely post pictures of myself, but here I am with Anne-Pan. She looked at me tonight and said "Mama, I am your special friend" and then later "I am your best friend!" Interesting how it wasn't "YOU are MY best friend," oh no. She has other friends, apparently, but I only have her. :)
On Friday I pulled out the seldom-used trick of buying Anne a Kid Cuisine frozen dinner. She had to eat all of her chicken in order to get the fruit snacks that came with it. Anne loves fruit snacks and they are the highest form of currency in her world. Anyway, she is a terrible eater and was not going to eat the chicken. I asked her about it at one point and she said "That food is for my bunny." I went to the table and saw this:
She is very convincing!

On to Sam Roman! He is 8 months old now and (usually) a very fun person to be around. I managed to take his picture on the actual "monthday." Here's how he's looking now:

This is his only attempt at movement, the sit-and-reach.
Showing his new figure. He is rounding out a little bit. He loves his food--tonight he ate more macaroni and peas than Annie did (and oddly, Anne had to be spoon-fed while he fed himself!)
My happy boy. He takes after his dad--happy and easy to please. I'm a lucky girl to have them both.

Watch your mouth!

We have had to increase the power on our internal censors lately, as Anne repeats everything we say. She has told both Sam and me to "Shut up" (and received subsequent time-outs). She's learning, though, as illustrated in the following conversations:

Sam (after an opposing player hit a homerun in the Twins game): Oh crap.
Anne (whispering): Don't say that word.
Sam: You're right, I'm sorry

Anne: We don't say "pee". That's a bad word. We say "wet" or "potty."

Me: Anne, you are being a crab.
Anne: That's a naughty word.
Me: No, that's not what I said...nevermind.

Yet another Anne quote

Me: Anne-Pan, I love you.

Anne: Yeah, you do. I'm a great girl.

He's ALL boy

Ah, raising a son. So very different from raising a daughter....

First of all, this kid is messy! He is constantly drooling and/or spitting up. If you click on these pictures to enlarge them you will see the front of his shirt is completely saturated. In the third picture he is covered in runny-nose mess and has bits of dinner stuck to his face.

As a result of this constant dampness and stickiness, he is often kind of smelly. Like sour milk.

Second, he laughs when I wipe his "extra appendage" while changing his diaper. Every time. Just this deep chuckle, like it is the funniest thing ever. What a boy. He was also inspecting himself quite closely in the bathtub tonight. I just handed him over to Sam and said "Yeah, you deal with that."

Third, his favorite toy is an extra TV remote that Sam brought home from work. And if he's sitting with you on the couch, he will twist and turn and lunge to get the remote from you. Again, just like a man.

UPDATE: He also eats grass and playground rocks.

Imagination!

Anne keeps doing this thing where she cups her hands together and tells us she's holding a baby animal of some kind. Yesterday I mentioned she pretended to hold a puppy. Sometimes it is a bird or a kitten. Last night, though, it was a baby jaguar! And its name was Kendra! She just cracks me up sometimes....

Fun Annie Quotes

She's a talker!

Sam (singing): If you're happy and you know it, then your hands will surely show it...
Anne: No, (garbled nonsense)
Me: She wants you to sing it the right way.
Sam (singing): If you're happy and you know it, then your FACE will surely show it...
Anne: There you go, Daddy!

Anne: That's Grandma Joye
Me: No, Grandma Joye lives far away.
Anne: Grandma Joye is Oma's grandma
Me: No, she's Oma's mommy
Anne: That's great, Mommy (pats my hand for emphasis)

(After time-out and hug/apology)
Anne: I feel better. I'm a good girl.

Anne (cupping her hands together): I have a little puppy!
Me: What's its name?
Anne: Winnie-the-Pooh.
Me: Oh...what color is it?
Anne: Black. He has a tail.

Anne: We can see Mikey?
Me: No, we can't.
Anne: He's a good guy.

Anne: I hurt my body!

Anne: I need some mess-in-in (medicine). I need to feel better.

Anne: That makes me upset. (Or yesterday, when her crying made Sam Roman cry: "I made Sambo upset!")

Anne: We goin' to the ice cream store?
Me: Which store is the ice cream store?
Anne: The ice. Cream. Store. (severe emphasis on each word)
Sam: Yeah, Mom. Duh.

Seven-Month Comparison

A side-by-side look at the kids, each at 7.5 months old. I think they look sibling-y. Round heads, sparse hair, big mouthy smile. Annie did have 2 teeth by this point, and Sam Roman appears to think teeth are optional (and unnecessary).

April so far

When I taught Media Arts, I had my students do a project called "Altered Viewpoint." They would take a picture of an object close-up, so that it was very abstract, then step back from the object and photograph the entire thing. It was a way to learn about textures and shapes, etc. Anyway, I did my own version last week. Here, in the close-up shot, you see a delicious steak Caesar salad. Mmmmm, right? Bet you'd like to eat a bit of that.But pan back to see this! You have to eat it standing up in the kitchen! Ha ha! You must also feed the baby Cheerios and take Anne to the bathroom at least once during your meal. See? Context is so important.
My sleeping Sams. Apparently they both shake their fists angrily in their dreams.

I seriously did not pose the baby.
A cheerful moment on Saturday afternoon. Annie said "Mommy, take our picture!" So I obliged. Look at the cheeseball grin on my son.
Those are some cute kids, if I do say so myself.

Bite me, Jamie Oliver

As I'm sure you've seen on ABC, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is setting out to "revolutionize" how Americans eat. This ticks me off for many reasons, but let's focus on just one, shall we?

In the first episode of "Food Revolution", Oliver visits an elementary school and proceeds to dissect the students' school-provided lunch. Of course, to him it is disgusting and unhealthy, and blah, blah, blah...his intent is to make anyone watching feel like a terrible parent for allowing their children to eat lunch from the school cafeteria.

It seems to me that chef Oliver is out to ruin the career of "lunchlady." These people are already work very hard and are usually under-appreciated, so why is he on a mission to make them feel even worse?

Public schools in America participate in a government-funded school lunch program. This means schools are provided with certain food items and are reimbursed for meals that they provide. But of course, since it is a government program, there are regulations! It is not a free-for-all when creating menus. Below is the info from the USDA website regarding nutritional requirements for school lunches:

School lunches must meet the applicable recommendations of the 1995 Dietary Guidelines
for Americans, which recommend that no more than 30 percent of an individual's calories
come from fat, and less than 10 percent from saturated fat. Regulations also establish a
standard for school lunches to provide one‐third of the Recommended Dietary Allowances
of protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, iron, calcium, and calories.
School lunches must meet Federal nutrition requirements, but decisions about what specific
foods to serve and how they are prepared are made by local school food authorities.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/aboutlunch/NSLPFactSheet.pdf

So every week/month/year, it is the job of the humble lunchladies to create menus that meet these nutritional requirements, are cost-effective, easy to cook in large amounts (and cooked with food provided from the government), and appealing to children ages 5-18. Could you do that? I didn't think so.

A group in Minnesota called "LUNCHPOWER" also set out to "revolutionize" school lunches. After much thought and consideration, they came up with these guidelines. Look familiar?

Their goal was to come up with a monthly school lunch menu that would average no more than 30 percent of calories from fat. They began by establishing criteria for maximum levels of fat and sodium. And, to make sure meals would provide adequate amounts of energy, they also established calorie requirements.

For the pilot test, they set a goal of having lunches average--over a 1-month period--no more than 22 grams of fat and 1,000 milligrams of sodium per day. The calorie goal was 550-800 calories per lunch.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1098/is_n3-4_v22/ai_14526578/

Wow, super good job, LUNCHPOWER. You copied the USDA guidelines. The important piece to grab from that quote is that each lunch should have 1/3 of a child's daily calorie requirements, which comes out to 550-800 calories.

Again, I would like anyone in my readership to create a lunch menu using the following guidelines:
-between 550 and 800 calories
-no more than 30% of calories from fat (that's an average of 22 grams of fat)
-1/3 of daily value of protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, and calcium
-appeals to children in grades K-12
-can be prepared in large batches and served quickly

Hmmm...something tells me you might end up with a slice of pizza (carbs, veggie, protein), a cup of orange slices (vitamin C, fiber), green beans (vitamin A, fiber), and a carton of milk (protein, calcium). All of these things can be prepared easily and in large amounts and can be served easily to students with a 15-minute lunch period.


So don't knock it until you've had to it! I'm tired of viewers/commenters saying things like "Oh, I'm never going to let my kid eat school lunch" and "I can't believe that! Don't they know anything about nutrition?" Yeah, they do, but they also have to get paid by Uncle Sam, so they do it in the most efficient way possible. We'd all love to see an organic salad bar or make-your-own stir fry, but it just isn't logical for a school setting. (And that's not even considering sanitation issues or the dreaded food-allergy police!)

To summarize, if you actually investigate the school lunch in YOUR child's school and find it unacceptable, then send them a PB&J. I lived on brownbag lunches for the majority of my childhood and that's just fine. But don't get all high-and-mighty over your school's lunch ladies. They're working hard--the women I work with are making lunch for 600 kids in about 3 hours, working at an hourly wage. You wanna trade places with them? I don't.

Two other important points I could not seem to weave into my "essay" above:

1. There are many kids eating school breakfast and lunch who do not get a meal anywhere else. They go hungry on weekends and in the evenings. To me, it is just important that these kids EAT, and less important how sustainably grown the food is

2. Chef Oliver had a segment on his show where students were quizzed on the names of vegetables. Obviously, they didn't know many or he wouldn't have put it on TV. News flash, parents: If your kid is 9 years old and doesn't know what a tomato is, it is not the fault of their school! Try parenting! It was another illustration of "how American education fails students" and it ticked me off. Teachers do enough parenting in a school day--do your part at home and throw some cauliflower on their plate, okay? And if you are such a helicopter parent that you are obsessing over what the school is serving, perhaps public school is not for you.

Easter and a Sammy update

Here are the kids before church on Sunday, all pastel and pretty. Sambo received many compliments on his ensemble. Thanks for the hand-me-downs, Bennet! (Now that I think about it, Sam's wearing hand-me-downs and Christmas-gift shoes; Anne is wearing a $7 dress and Easter-gift shoes. I guess I paid $2.50 for some new hair bows. Still, Easter outfits for under $10. Score!)
Sambo is here, just hanging out, being 7.5 months old. He's very attached to mama and he can charm me like no one else. I just melt for him! I remember being so strict and scheduled with Anne--I was determined to teach her self-reliance and independence. With Sam, I let him sleep with me and I feed him when I know he really just needs to snuggle...I don't know if it is a 2nd child thing, a personality thing, or a boy vs. girl thing, but I do feel I'm much more relaxed and lenient with him!
How can you deny this child anything?!?!

He's showing little to no interest in crawling (sound familiar?), but he did start to sign "more" over the weekend, and that was quite exciting. He lives for solid food, as I've said before, and can put down an alarming number of Cheerios in a short amount of time.

School is out in just over 2 months, and I'm looking forward to a summer of fun with Anne and Sam (and Papa Sam, too!)