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Kids/Parenting: It’s fine, everything is fine.

13536384041101

Posts

  • PhistiPhisti Registered User regular
    With regards to parents not being down with particular foods (fish for me) we still cook it,and as an example to the kids I don't complain about it and eat a small portion. Demonstrates what we are trying to get them to do - eat stuff you don't necessarily like but is good for you! I have found half of parenting is modelling the behaviour you want in them.

  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    Shadowfire wrote: »
    tbloxham wrote: »
    Corvus wrote: »
    You can hard boil a ton of eggs quickly in the Instant Pot, for those who have one.

    I find the instant pot effective for this because you get fewer broken shells than in a pan. You want your hard boiled eggs to have intact shells so they keep, and so you don't have to clean egg whites off the others before storage.

    Hard boiled eggs are amazing little things if you can get your darn kids to eat them (only 1 of mine likes eggs). Bulk eggs at Costco are dirt cheap, they travel well, they taste great (ie, you can also use them as an adult snack!), they come in their own biodegradable packaging and slightly older kids can help you make them. You can also (unlike nuts, which are also great) bring them to school in today's allergy environment. My other son loves nuts of all kinds and flavors, but he can't bring them to school.

    Other great things about hard boiled eggs for kids is that you can use them as mealtime foods, or in sandwiches.

    Oh, my other trick with younger kids was roasting veggies and fruit together in a sheet pan so as to have stuff for mealtimes on busy days. Veggies won't last two weeks, but, if you roast sweet potatoes, carrots and apples with olive oil, salt and pepper they will. Then you can freeze them and grab them out at mealtimes if ever you are running behind and don't want to serve your kids takeout again. Roasted veggies and one of the aforementioned boiled eggs, problem solved!

    Maybe I'm too enthusiastic about eggs.

    I'm allergic to eggs and it makes me incredibly angry.

    Egg allergy is probably the allergy I’d find most challenging in the kitchen. Gluten is harder to deal with from a cleaning perspective (because gluten allergy responds to a ridiculously low level of gluten) but eggs are such a critical ingredient in terms of covering mistakes and going from “I have no food for dinner” to “look at this vaguely healthy feast!” In 15 minutes.

    Nuts are delicious, but, they are bit players at the table. Milk is useful, but there are half decent alternatives. Shellfish and fish are again, delicious, but you don’t need them in many recipes, but eggs are tough because they pop up in so many recipes both for flavor and for their binding and thickening properties.

    One of my friends kids is allergic to eggs, nuts, shellfish, fish, and dairy. It does at least give me a good excuse to improve my vegetable recipes when they come to visit (came to visit? I’ve not had anyone in the house for 14 months)

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • m!ttensm!ttens he/himRegistered User regular
    Corvus wrote: »
    Curious what other people did with starting their kids on solids. We've never done commercial baby foods, we've done the baby led weaning approach, and the babies have pretty much always eaten the same stuff as the grown ups.

    Our 7 month old is very happy to suck on a strip of roast beef. :D

    It is interesting how kids likes change. Our 5 year old used to love huge amounts of cinnamon on oatmeal or yogurt, but now doesn't like it at all.

    Around 6 months or so we started with finely ground oatmeal mush mixed with breastmilk/formula, then moved to homemade purees and mashes (roasted sweet potato and avocado were I think the first 2 foods), and once she started understanding how to swallow food (maybe 1-2 months in?) we just switched straight to giving her whatever we were eating, just minced into tiny bits for safety and ease of eating. We lived by the "food before one is just for fun" mantra and offered her to try whatever but the vast majority of her nutrition was coming from formula at that point.

  • urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    Yeah we used a baby bullet. Blended a bunch of veggies and fruits.

  • CarpyCarpy Registered User regular
    We'd prep a batch of puree on Sunday and then freeze it into ice cubes. Real easy and cheap plus it gave us way more control over what mixes we were feeding the kiddo. We'd normally end up with 2-3 various mixes floating around the freezer since it was so easy to do a big batch each weekend.

  • CorvusCorvus . VancouverRegistered User regular
    Interesting, I wasn't sure how many people still did the whole puree thing. My baby is eating chunks of meat, cheese, etc, at 7 months. Also, the kid loves liver pate for some reason.

    :so_raven:
  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    Corvus wrote: »
    Interesting, I wasn't sure how many people still did the whole puree thing. My baby is eating chunks of meat, cheese, etc, at 7 months. Also, the kid loves liver pate for some reason.

    My kids liked chewing on lumps of stuff, but sometimes you just need them to eat and be finished in less than 45 minutes. Purees let you set the pace a bit more

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • CarpyCarpy Registered User regular
    edited May 2021
    Baby number #3 cements it, I'm real bad at swaddling with the hospital blankets. #1 was too long ago for me to really remember, although my vague impressions of my performance lean good, but #2 was recent enough that when you combine it with #3 I'm just plain bad.

    Can't wait to get out of here so we can get #3 into real clothes.

    Edit: the bright side is that my more recent attempts stand up to #3's machinations about as well as the worst nurse swaddle we've had. Most of the nurses are leagues better but I'm on par with some.

    Carpy on
  • Jebus314Jebus314 Registered User regular
    tbloxham wrote: »
    Corvus wrote: »
    You can hard boil a ton of eggs quickly in the Instant Pot, for those who have one.

    I find the instant pot effective for this because you get fewer broken shells than in a pan. You want your hard boiled eggs to have intact shells so they keep, and so you don't have to clean egg whites off the others before storage.

    Hard boiled eggs are amazing little things if you can get your darn kids to eat them (only 1 of mine likes eggs). Bulk eggs at Costco are dirt cheap, they travel well, they taste great (ie, you can also use them as an adult snack!), they come in their own biodegradable packaging and slightly older kids can help you make them. You can also (unlike nuts, which are also great) bring them to school in today's allergy environment. My other son loves nuts of all kinds and flavors, but he can't bring them to school.

    Other great things about hard boiled eggs for kids is that you can use them as mealtime foods, or in sandwiches.

    Oh, my other trick with younger kids was roasting veggies and fruit together in a sheet pan so as to have stuff for mealtimes on busy days. Veggies won't last two weeks, but, if you roast sweet potatoes, carrots and apples with olive oil, salt and pepper they will. Then you can freeze them and grab them out at mealtimes if ever you are running behind and don't want to serve your kids takeout again. Roasted veggies and one of the aforementioned boiled eggs, problem solved!

    Maybe I'm too enthusiastic about eggs.

    What do you do for reheating the frozen veggies? It feels like microwaved frozen, previously baked veggies are going to just be super soggy and possibly a weird texture.

    We buy some bags of frozen veggies, that you can steam the veggies in the bag in the microwave, and it works ok, but they are so bland I can't believe the little one actually eats them, but baking them to reheat them means you are waiting like 30 minutes for the oven to preheat and the veggies to thaw and then cook.

    We make a lot of oat/peanut butter/cherries/other thing bars though, and those freeze well and microwave great. It's our go to for breakfast when running late.

    "The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it" - Dr Horrible
  • CarpyCarpy Registered User regular
    With frozen veggies I find that if you stay in the carrot/pea/corn/edamame/green bean Venn diagram than they reheat fine. Anything outside of that is just mush

  • Phoenix-DPhoenix-D Registered User regular
    My SO has a stovetop steamer thing with a lid for veggies. Works pretty good, works fast.

  • MNC DoverMNC Dover Full-time Voice Actor Kirkland, WARegistered User regular
    Rough morning today. Son woke me up at 5:30, then we stayed up until I dropped them off at preschool at 8:30. An hour and a half later, I get a call saying that my daughter is coughing and, you guessed it, we gotta get another COVID test and keep the kids out until Monday.

    And of course, she hasn't coughed once since I picked her up. Sigh...

    Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
    Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
    Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
    Steam ID
    Twitch Page
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Carpy wrote: »
    Baby number #3 cements it, I'm real bad at swaddling with the hospital blankets. #1 was too long ago for me to really remember, although my vague impressions of my performance lean good, but #2 was recent enough that when you combine it with #3 I'm just plain bad.

    Can't wait to get out of here so we can get #3 into real clothes.

    Edit: the bright side is that my more recent attempts stand up to #3's machinations about as well as the worst nurse swaddle we've had. Most of the nurses are leagues better but I'm on par with some.

    We bought the swaddlers with the velcro. This was a must, as baby #1 was possibly the reincarnation of Harry Houdini. We got the smug look from the hospital nurse when we told her he was getting out of the swaddles quickly, so "the professional" swaddler did it for us. As you may guess, this was not much later followed by, "Huh, he is really good at getting out of swaddles. (Also, swaddle/swaddlers is a really weird word and now I've thought about it too much.) This was the kid I mentioned earlier was later diagnosed with ADHD. The swaddle escaping was just yet another datapoint.

    But with the velcro swaddlers, we managed to keep him wrapped up for a decent amount of time. I think we stopped after a month or two. This was the baby that took us 30 minutes to get to go down for a nap, including vigorous swinging in a car seat (totally unrelated to me having surgery on both shoulders a few years later, I'm sure). And then once he was down, he'd almost never sleep for more than 30 minutes. That first three months were the only time when he had regular hour+ naps. Another datapoint...

    The second baby was super easy to swaddle, and napped just fine. She would even do nap play, where she'd bring a pillow and blanket into the living room and pretend to nap. This was unheard of, as our first convinced us napping was torture.

  • GilgaronGilgaron Registered User regular
    Carpy wrote: »
    With frozen veggies I find that if you stay in the carrot/pea/corn/edamame/green bean Venn diagram than they reheat fine. Anything outside of that is just mush

    It is better if you vacuum seal them. Stuff like sweet potato fries freezes very well and kids love them.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited May 2021
    Corvus wrote: »
    Curious what other people did with starting their kids on solids. We've never done commercial baby foods, we've done the baby led weaning approach, and the babies have pretty much always eaten the same stuff as the grown ups.

    My wife breast fed baby #1 almost exclusively for a year, with the transitioning in the last month or two. We started out with trying to do purees and such, but then we discovered baby led weaning and it just made so much more sense. And it was the lazier approach, which I'm sure helped. With #2, we just started with the baby led weaning and it worked like a charm.
    It is interesting how kids likes change. Our 5 year old used to love huge amounts of cinnamon on oatmeal or yogurt, but now doesn't like it at all.

    I'm not sure I categorize it as "interesting". My term for it is "gaslighting."

    Edit: Though there was stuff I'd make especially for my kids. Stuff I didn't really like. The first one was huge on yams. Not sweetened or anything. Just roasted and mashed and he was in heaven. Then one day about 2 or 3 years old I gave them to him and he said I must be mad.

    dennis on
  • CarpyCarpy Registered User regular
    edited May 2021
    dennis wrote: »
    Carpy wrote: »
    Baby number #3 cements it, I'm real bad at swaddling with the hospital blankets. #1 was too long ago for me to really remember, although my vague impressions of my performance lean good, but #2 was recent enough that when you combine it with #3 I'm just plain bad.

    Can't wait to get out of here so we can get #3 into real clothes.

    Edit: the bright side is that my more recent attempts stand up to #3's machinations about as well as the worst nurse swaddle we've had. Most of the nurses are leagues better but I'm on par with some.

    We bought the swaddlers with the velcro. This was a must, as baby #1 was possibly the reincarnation of Harry Houdini. We got the smug look from the hospital nurse when we told her he was getting out of the swaddles quickly, so "the professional" swaddler did it for us. As you may guess, this was not much later followed by, "Huh, he is really good at getting out of swaddles. (Also, swaddle/swaddlers is a really weird word and now I've thought about it too much.) This was the kid I mentioned earlier was later diagnosed with ADHD. The swaddle escaping was just yet another datapoint.

    But with the velcro swaddlers, we managed to keep him wrapped up for a decent amount of time. I think we stopped after a month or two. This was the baby that took us 30 minutes to get to go down for a nap, including vigorous swinging in a car seat (totally unrelated to me having surgery on both shoulders a few years later, I'm sure). And then once he was down, he'd almost never sleep for more than 30 minutes. That first three months were the only time when he had regular hour+ naps. Another datapoint...

    The second baby was super easy to swaddle, and napped just fine. She would even do nap play, where she'd bring a pillow and blanket into the living room and pretend to nap. This was unheard of, as our first convinced us napping was torture.

    Yeah, we've got some Halo Sleep Sacks waiting at home from #2. They're basically a sleep sack vest with velcro wings that you use to swaddle over their arms. They're expensive but they give you more freedom on where they cross baby's body. The other velcro swaddle blankets we tried crossed too high on #2's torso for our comfort.

    Carpy on
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Carpy wrote: »
    dennis wrote: »
    Carpy wrote: »
    Baby number #3 cements it, I'm real bad at swaddling with the hospital blankets. #1 was too long ago for me to really remember, although my vague impressions of my performance lean good, but #2 was recent enough that when you combine it with #3 I'm just plain bad.

    Can't wait to get out of here so we can get #3 into real clothes.

    Edit: the bright side is that my more recent attempts stand up to #3's machinations about as well as the worst nurse swaddle we've had. Most of the nurses are leagues better but I'm on par with some.

    We bought the swaddlers with the velcro. This was a must, as baby #1 was possibly the reincarnation of Harry Houdini. We got the smug look from the hospital nurse when we told her he was getting out of the swaddles quickly, so "the professional" swaddler did it for us. As you may guess, this was not much later followed by, "Huh, he is really good at getting out of swaddles. (Also, swaddle/swaddlers is a really weird word and now I've thought about it too much.) This was the kid I mentioned earlier was later diagnosed with ADHD. The swaddle escaping was just yet another datapoint.

    But with the velcro swaddlers, we managed to keep him wrapped up for a decent amount of time. I think we stopped after a month or two. This was the baby that took us 30 minutes to get to go down for a nap, including vigorous swinging in a car seat (totally unrelated to me having surgery on both shoulders a few years later, I'm sure). And then once he was down, he'd almost never sleep for more than 30 minutes. That first three months were the only time when he had regular hour+ naps. Another datapoint...

    The second baby was super easy to swaddle, and napped just fine. She would even do nap play, where she'd bring a pillow and blanket into the living room and pretend to nap. This was unheard of, as our first convinced us napping was torture.

    Yeah, we've got some Halo Sleep Sacks waiting at home from #2. They're basically a sleep sack vest with velcro wings that you use to swaddle over their arms. They're expensive but they give you more freedom on where they cross baby's body. The other velcro swaddle blankets we tried crossed too high on #2's torso for our comfort.

    Yep, those are the exact ones we had. I was going to say "exact brand", but if I remember they had some (I think from previous years - we always bought stuff used) that were a different style. Some of the styles really suck.

  • CroakerBCCroakerBC TorontoRegistered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    Carpy wrote: »
    dennis wrote: »
    Carpy wrote: »
    Baby number #3 cements it, I'm real bad at swaddling with the hospital blankets. #1 was too long ago for me to really remember, although my vague impressions of my performance lean good, but #2 was recent enough that when you combine it with #3 I'm just plain bad.

    Can't wait to get out of here so we can get #3 into real clothes.

    Edit: the bright side is that my more recent attempts stand up to #3's machinations about as well as the worst nurse swaddle we've had. Most of the nurses are leagues better but I'm on par with some.

    We bought the swaddlers with the velcro. This was a must, as baby #1 was possibly the reincarnation of Harry Houdini. We got the smug look from the hospital nurse when we told her he was getting out of the swaddles quickly, so "the professional" swaddler did it for us. As you may guess, this was not much later followed by, "Huh, he is really good at getting out of swaddles. (Also, swaddle/swaddlers is a really weird word and now I've thought about it too much.) This was the kid I mentioned earlier was later diagnosed with ADHD. The swaddle escaping was just yet another datapoint.

    But with the velcro swaddlers, we managed to keep him wrapped up for a decent amount of time. I think we stopped after a month or two. This was the baby that took us 30 minutes to get to go down for a nap, including vigorous swinging in a car seat (totally unrelated to me having surgery on both shoulders a few years later, I'm sure). And then once he was down, he'd almost never sleep for more than 30 minutes. That first three months were the only time when he had regular hour+ naps. Another datapoint...

    The second baby was super easy to swaddle, and napped just fine. She would even do nap play, where she'd bring a pillow and blanket into the living room and pretend to nap. This was unheard of, as our first convinced us napping was torture.

    Yeah, we've got some Halo Sleep Sacks waiting at home from #2. They're basically a sleep sack vest with velcro wings that you use to swaddle over their arms. They're expensive but they give you more freedom on where they cross baby's body. The other velcro swaddle blankets we tried crossed too high on #2's torso for our comfort.

    Yep, those are the exact ones we had. I was going to say "exact brand", but if I remember they had some (I think from previous years - we always bought stuff used) that were a different style. Some of the styles really suck.

    Thirding these. We used the Velcro ones for three months or so. Then switched to the sleeveless sack style as an additional layer, once the boy was flailing less. He is, in fact, asleep while wearing one right now.

    We swaddled him for two days, then gave it up as a bad, stupid job for exhausted people to try and do; he went in the Halo in under 30 seconds, and couldn’t get out. I recommend the Halo swaddles to everyone.

  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    Jebus314 wrote: »
    tbloxham wrote: »
    Corvus wrote: »
    You can hard boil a ton of eggs quickly in the Instant Pot, for those who have one.

    I find the instant pot effective for this because you get fewer broken shells than in a pan. You want your hard boiled eggs to have intact shells so they keep, and so you don't have to clean egg whites off the others before storage.

    Hard boiled eggs are amazing little things if you can get your darn kids to eat them (only 1 of mine likes eggs). Bulk eggs at Costco are dirt cheap, they travel well, they taste great (ie, you can also use them as an adult snack!), they come in their own biodegradable packaging and slightly older kids can help you make them. You can also (unlike nuts, which are also great) bring them to school in today's allergy environment. My other son loves nuts of all kinds and flavors, but he can't bring them to school.

    Other great things about hard boiled eggs for kids is that you can use them as mealtime foods, or in sandwiches.

    Oh, my other trick with younger kids was roasting veggies and fruit together in a sheet pan so as to have stuff for mealtimes on busy days. Veggies won't last two weeks, but, if you roast sweet potatoes, carrots and apples with olive oil, salt and pepper they will. Then you can freeze them and grab them out at mealtimes if ever you are running behind and don't want to serve your kids takeout again. Roasted veggies and one of the aforementioned boiled eggs, problem solved!

    Maybe I'm too enthusiastic about eggs.

    What do you do for reheating the frozen veggies? It feels like microwaved frozen, previously baked veggies are going to just be super soggy and possibly a weird texture.

    We buy some bags of frozen veggies, that you can steam the veggies in the bag in the microwave, and it works ok, but they are so bland I can't believe the little one actually eats them, but baking them to reheat them means you are waiting like 30 minutes for the oven to preheat and the veggies to thaw and then cook.

    We make a lot of oat/peanut butter/cherries/other thing bars though, and those freeze well and microwave great. It's our go to for breakfast when running late.

    Let them defrost in their little packs during the day, and then (if you want to be super fancy) 5 minutes in the oven and two minutes under the broiler when its time to serve. You can get a bit of crispy texture back on them that way.

    You can also get them done in a toaster oven in a few minutes with a quick stir. Or just zap them in the microwave. They'll be fine. They lose a bit of texture, but, they'll still be distinct veggie chunks. Honestly for older kids I just keep the veggies in the fridge and serve them over the next couple of days. The little packs work, but we mainly used them for little kids where you want an extra thing that isn't necessarily what you are going to eat.

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • Jebus314Jebus314 Registered User regular
    tbloxham wrote: »
    Jebus314 wrote: »
    tbloxham wrote: »
    Corvus wrote: »
    You can hard boil a ton of eggs quickly in the Instant Pot, for those who have one.

    I find the instant pot effective for this because you get fewer broken shells than in a pan. You want your hard boiled eggs to have intact shells so they keep, and so you don't have to clean egg whites off the others before storage.

    Hard boiled eggs are amazing little things if you can get your darn kids to eat them (only 1 of mine likes eggs). Bulk eggs at Costco are dirt cheap, they travel well, they taste great (ie, you can also use them as an adult snack!), they come in their own biodegradable packaging and slightly older kids can help you make them. You can also (unlike nuts, which are also great) bring them to school in today's allergy environment. My other son loves nuts of all kinds and flavors, but he can't bring them to school.

    Other great things about hard boiled eggs for kids is that you can use them as mealtime foods, or in sandwiches.

    Oh, my other trick with younger kids was roasting veggies and fruit together in a sheet pan so as to have stuff for mealtimes on busy days. Veggies won't last two weeks, but, if you roast sweet potatoes, carrots and apples with olive oil, salt and pepper they will. Then you can freeze them and grab them out at mealtimes if ever you are running behind and don't want to serve your kids takeout again. Roasted veggies and one of the aforementioned boiled eggs, problem solved!

    Maybe I'm too enthusiastic about eggs.

    What do you do for reheating the frozen veggies? It feels like microwaved frozen, previously baked veggies are going to just be super soggy and possibly a weird texture.

    We buy some bags of frozen veggies, that you can steam the veggies in the bag in the microwave, and it works ok, but they are so bland I can't believe the little one actually eats them, but baking them to reheat them means you are waiting like 30 minutes for the oven to preheat and the veggies to thaw and then cook.

    We make a lot of oat/peanut butter/cherries/other thing bars though, and those freeze well and microwave great. It's our go to for breakfast when running late.

    Let them defrost in their little packs during the day, and then (if you want to be super fancy) 5 minutes in the oven and two minutes under the broiler when its time to serve. You can get a bit of crispy texture back on them that way.

    You can also get them done in a toaster oven in a few minutes with a quick stir. Or just zap them in the microwave. They'll be fine. They lose a bit of texture, but, they'll still be distinct veggie chunks. Honestly for older kids I just keep the veggies in the fridge and serve them over the next couple of days. The little packs work, but we mainly used them for little kids where you want an extra thing that isn't necessarily what you are going to eat.

    What do you mean packs? Like Tupperware? Ziplock bags?

    "The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it" - Dr Horrible
  • HydropoloHydropolo Registered User regular
    Taramoor wrote: »
    Oldest made STREAM program.

    >99th percentile in math, >98th in not-math.

    I’m terrified, because She’s brilliant, but she’s going to get eaten alive by an unstructured learning environment.

    Counterpoint, she may thrive if the material is actually challenging her. I was in a similar boat and really struggled with regular school (except testing, I really liked testing), unless it was subject matter I absolutely loved. Even just being bothered to do homework was tough. The more advanced but open structure worked fine, mostly because I stopped being bored.

  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    Jebus314 wrote: »
    tbloxham wrote: »
    Jebus314 wrote: »
    tbloxham wrote: »
    Corvus wrote: »
    You can hard boil a ton of eggs quickly in the Instant Pot, for those who have one.

    I find the instant pot effective for this because you get fewer broken shells than in a pan. You want your hard boiled eggs to have intact shells so they keep, and so you don't have to clean egg whites off the others before storage.

    Hard boiled eggs are amazing little things if you can get your darn kids to eat them (only 1 of mine likes eggs). Bulk eggs at Costco are dirt cheap, they travel well, they taste great (ie, you can also use them as an adult snack!), they come in their own biodegradable packaging and slightly older kids can help you make them. You can also (unlike nuts, which are also great) bring them to school in today's allergy environment. My other son loves nuts of all kinds and flavors, but he can't bring them to school.

    Other great things about hard boiled eggs for kids is that you can use them as mealtime foods, or in sandwiches.

    Oh, my other trick with younger kids was roasting veggies and fruit together in a sheet pan so as to have stuff for mealtimes on busy days. Veggies won't last two weeks, but, if you roast sweet potatoes, carrots and apples with olive oil, salt and pepper they will. Then you can freeze them and grab them out at mealtimes if ever you are running behind and don't want to serve your kids takeout again. Roasted veggies and one of the aforementioned boiled eggs, problem solved!

    Maybe I'm too enthusiastic about eggs.

    What do you do for reheating the frozen veggies? It feels like microwaved frozen, previously baked veggies are going to just be super soggy and possibly a weird texture.

    We buy some bags of frozen veggies, that you can steam the veggies in the bag in the microwave, and it works ok, but they are so bland I can't believe the little one actually eats them, but baking them to reheat them means you are waiting like 30 minutes for the oven to preheat and the veggies to thaw and then cook.

    We make a lot of oat/peanut butter/cherries/other thing bars though, and those freeze well and microwave great. It's our go to for breakfast when running late.

    Let them defrost in their little packs during the day, and then (if you want to be super fancy) 5 minutes in the oven and two minutes under the broiler when its time to serve. You can get a bit of crispy texture back on them that way.

    You can also get them done in a toaster oven in a few minutes with a quick stir. Or just zap them in the microwave. They'll be fine. They lose a bit of texture, but, they'll still be distinct veggie chunks. Honestly for older kids I just keep the veggies in the fridge and serve them over the next couple of days. The little packs work, but we mainly used them for little kids where you want an extra thing that isn't necessarily what you are going to eat.

    What do you mean packs? Like Tupperware? Ziplock bags?

    When the kids were little we put them individual servings in the snack size (4 oz?) Tupperware’s in the freezer.

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    My son won't go outside anymore because yesterday an ant was crawling on his leg while he was in the van picking up lunch.

    I just watched him go outside and literally stare at the ground looking for them. Ugh kids really do know how to push buttons.

  • quovadis13quovadis13 Registered User regular
    edited May 2021
    urahonky wrote: »
    My son won't go outside anymore because yesterday an ant was crawling on his leg while he was in the van picking up lunch.

    I just watched him go outside and literally stare at the ground looking for them. Ugh kids really do know how to push buttons.

    My middle one (who is 4) has a whole bin of these large-ish toy bugs that he carries around most of the time. Talks about them alot, knows their names. So of course when he goes outside and sees a fly, he freaks out about it for like 5 minutes and refuses to continue to play where he was.

    quovadis13 on
  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    urahonky wrote: »
    My son won't go outside anymore because yesterday an ant was crawling on his leg while he was in the van picking up lunch.

    I just watched him go outside and literally stare at the ground looking for them. Ugh kids really do know how to push buttons.

    Whereas Sapling goes outside, finds an ant, and proceeds to tell it her life story.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    urahonky wrote: »
    My son won't go outside anymore because yesterday an ant was crawling on his leg while he was in the van picking up lunch.

    I just watched him go outside and literally stare at the ground looking for them. Ugh kids really do know how to push buttons.

    Was this the 6 year old who you had suspicions might be on the spectrum?

    Not the bang the drum, but this sounds a lot like my spectrum/ADHD kid. There was a period where he would not go outside during the late spring/summer/early fall at all, because of bugs. Bugs terrified him and he was obsessed with where they were at all times. We didn't exactly mark the time, but one year we suddenly noticed "he's not worried about bugs all the time anymore!" And it had a start point, which we also didn't mark. But it did pass, praise jeebus. And yeah, it was highly irritating. But eventually we came to piece with it when we realized he's not doing it to bother us, or to be a difficult child. He's doing it because his brain is sending him signals saying that it's a very important thing for him to worry about.

  • GilgaronGilgaron Registered User regular
    I think the bug fear is an innate personality trait, as my eldest is like me and enjoys observing insects, is likely to 'rescue' a spider and toss it outside, etc. My youngest is like my wife and finds merely watching people pick up worms or arthropods gross and reacts with revulsion.

  • urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    urahonky wrote: »
    My son won't go outside anymore because yesterday an ant was crawling on his leg while he was in the van picking up lunch.

    I just watched him go outside and literally stare at the ground looking for them. Ugh kids really do know how to push buttons.

    Was this the 6 year old who you had suspicions might be on the spectrum?

    Not the bang the drum, but this sounds a lot like my spectrum/ADHD kid. There was a period where he would not go outside during the late spring/summer/early fall at all, because of bugs. Bugs terrified him and he was obsessed with where they were at all times. We didn't exactly mark the time, but one year we suddenly noticed "he's not worried about bugs all the time anymore!" And it had a start point, which we also didn't mark. But it did pass, praise jeebus. And yeah, it was highly irritating. But eventually we came to piece with it when we realized he's not doing it to bother us, or to be a difficult child. He's doing it because his brain is sending him signals saying that it's a very important thing for him to worry about.

    Yeah that's him. I think he's outside now so I think he was just trying to come up with an excuse not to go out. Even if ants were on his mind at the time.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited May 2021
    Gilgaron wrote: »
    I think the bug fear is an innate personality trait, as my eldest is like me and enjoys observing insects, is likely to 'rescue' a spider and toss it outside, etc. My youngest is like my wife and finds merely watching people pick up worms or arthropods gross and reacts with revulsion.

    For some, possibly. But as I said, he didn't have bug fear, then he did, then he didn't.

    And now he'd prefer rescuing bugs to us squashing them.

    dennis on
  • ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    Brody wrote: »
    urahonky wrote: »
    My son won't go outside anymore because yesterday an ant was crawling on his leg while he was in the van picking up lunch.

    I just watched him go outside and literally stare at the ground looking for them. Ugh kids really do know how to push buttons.

    Whereas Sapling goes outside, finds an ant, and proceeds to tell it her life story.

    Last spring Jaina found a worm on the ground and tried to help it by picking it up and putting it on a tree stump so it could see better. Cue not even a minute later a robin lands on the stump and eats it. She was very upset.

    The robin wasn't though.

    WiiU: Windrunner ; Guild Wars 2: Shadowfire.3940 ; PSN: Bradcopter
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    We went on a neighborhood walk a while back, just after it had rained. My wife helped a worm or two she saw out of the puddles (to become robin food, no doubt). As this was a family walk, I said I wasn't going to ask her not to do it, but I didn't want to stop the whole walk every time there was a wet worm. My daughter saw another one and having noticed her mom's actions, said she needed to help it. I kept walking.

    My wife soon regretted setting the precedent, as there were approximate 1,000 soggy worms on the walk.

  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    You were doubly executing those worms, because worms can breathe underwater and only come to the surface after a rain because it is a good time to try and wriggle long distances to find new territories.

    https://blog.nature.org/science/2019/04/15/the-real-reason-you-see-earthworms-after-rain/

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    I save worms, too - after things have started drying up and they’re caught in the middle of the sidewalk in danger of being desiccated.

  • ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    tbloxham wrote: »
    You were doubly executing those worms, because worms can breathe underwater and only come to the surface after a rain because it is a good time to try and wriggle long distances to find new territories.

    https://blog.nature.org/science/2019/04/15/the-real-reason-you-see-earthworms-after-rain/

    I did no such thing. I merely wished that someone would rid me of this meddlesome worm.

    WiiU: Windrunner ; Guild Wars 2: Shadowfire.3940 ; PSN: Bradcopter
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    I feel like eating Cheerios with water instead of milk is an aggressive act.

  • HappylilElfHappylilElf Registered User regular
    My roommates give their 3 year old cereal in water instead of milk and it's very hard not to make scowly face because what the fuck

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    My 2.5 year old eats my cereal dry.
    But then they mostly pick the dried fruit out of it and leave the bran so

  • CorvusCorvus . VancouverRegistered User regular
    My five year old ate a hardboiled egg like an apple today, eating the egg white and leaving the yolk.

    :so_raven:
  • Kane Red RobeKane Red Robe Master of Magic ArcanusRegistered User regular
    What's everyone's experience with first words and talking? Lorelei just turned 17 months and according to my wife by 18 months kids are supposed to know 10-50 words and so far Lore is still in the babbling and gesturing stage of communication.

    I figure it's not a huge deal, she can clearly hear fine and she does communicate, there just aren't any recognizable words. She understands certain words, just not a talker I guess.

  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    What's everyone's experience with first words and talking? Lorelei just turned 17 months and according to my wife by 18 months kids are supposed to know 10-50 words and so far Lore is still in the babbling and gesturing stage of communication.

    I figure it's not a huge deal, she can clearly hear fine and she does communicate, there just aren't any recognizable words. She understands certain words, just not a talker I guess.

    There's huge variation. Nending is eighteen months old and is at maybe one word ("no"). It's not worth worrying about for another six months

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
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