winning the vegetable war

Milo had to be about Liam's age when he categorically refused to eat anything of color. We call it the "White Menu Phase." Turkey, chicken, rice, mashed potatoes, pears and apples were about the only things he would eat.

Liam has had his own phases. One included only eating round things - peas, blueberries, KIX cereal and cheese balls. But recently, Liam has begun to expel certain foods. He puts them in his mouth, chews them, then spits them into his hand and hands the whole mess to you. He'll then put more of the item in his mouth and repeat the process. You have to admire his optimism that the next bite may be better than the previous twelve. 

We had a bit of an advantage with Milo because he was talking (and very well I might add) which meant we could negotiate. "Eat two carrots and after dinner you can have ice cream," (vanilla of course). Slowly and painfully, his pallete expanded. But since Liam isn't as advanced verbally, we had to resort to more creative methods.

We had a big break through after discovering Jerry Seinfeld's wife's cookbook, "Deceptively Delicious." Her whole system of blending vegetables into foods kids eat is a bit too elaborate for me (seriously, who wants to spend a day each week pureeing egg plant and squash). So I took the basic principles of it and modified them. For starters, I decided to skip the blending and pureeing and freezing steps, and went for the frozen equivalents in the grocer's freezer isle. For initial test, I thought I'd try frozen, pureed squash and chopped spinach. 

To see if this whole approach was worth it, I decided to make Sneaky Mac & Cheese. And even without pureeing my own fresh squash, it was a giant success. My oldest noticed a difference but said it wasn't bad. And to be honest, I hate squash but found when blended in, it's not so bad.  

To make Mac N Cheese Supree (that's French for surprise), the first thing to do is, buy a different brand of Mac & Cheese. Jerry's wife says to leave the box visible when serving it so if there's a noticeable difference in taste it will be attributed to the new brand. Next, cut a frozen 12 oz package of squash in half or thirds (a good serrated knife works fine). Make Mac & Cheese as instructed. Nuke the frozen squash for a min or two 'til mostly thawed while pasta boils. Add the squash when you add the milk, butter and cheese powder. Viola'!

Spinach has a few more options. I add half a frozen package to spaghetti and lasagna. And I slice a half inch off the frozen block and sprinkle on frozen pizzas or breakfast items like omelets and messes. A mess is much like a skillet breakfast but its recipe varies depending on what leftovers you have in the fridge that can plausibly pass for breakfast ingredients. Basically scrambled eggs, potatoes, said spinach, salami (MmmMmm salami), cheese and whatever else you feel like.

These few recipes have eliminated a lot of stress (and mess) from our family meal time. Hope they help with your picky eaters.

Making Tiger Woods

When it comes to baseball, Milo has some mad skills. He's textbook perfect when fielding grounders and fly balls. Makes the across the body catches look easy. He bats left for power and right for average. And he's not even 8 years old.

The moment that fueled this passion for America's game - The Minnesota Twins '06 season. He was approaching his 5th birthday and our home town 9 were way back in the pennant race. Like so far back they were pretty much written out of the postseason half way through the regular season. Despite all odds, they made a monumental comeback and won the Central Division that year.

But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves... So it's nearing the end of the regular season. The Twins have come back from like 12.5 games back and are contending for the division title. I'm totally riveted to the drama. Memories of the '87 and '91 World Series flashed in my head.

Milo had no idea any this was going on. All he wanted was my attention. We'd color or do puzzles or play dinosaurs but always within sight of the game. In the middle of said play, there would be some spectacular play and I'd cheer. Uhm, that's a bit of an understatement. Yeah, I cheered the kind of cheer that would make you say you didn't know me.

Anyway, I have this theory that in order to get my attentionhe decided he was going to have to be a professional baseball player. My theory stems from my own experience with my father.

My father's passion for golf is what inspired me to go into advertising. When he wasn't on the course, he was watching it on TV. Watching golf is not like watching baseball. It's more of a quiet sport, so even watching it is more quiet. Dad was in the zone when he was watching golf. The only signs of life came during commercials. He'd laugh at a beer commercial. I'm no psychologist but I'm pretty sure I made a career choice from a desire to make dad laugh.

When I asked Milo what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said not surprisingly, he wanted to be a Minnesota Twin. For his 6th birthday, I got him a glove. A nice, soft Wilson A200. Every night after dinner, weather permitting, he and I would play catch in the backyard til the sun went down. He loves to catch pop flies so I would tell him, "I'll throw sky-high pop flies all night after you catch 10 (insert catch here. ex. cross-over catches)." Obviously, it worked.

I don't know if this adds more validity to my theory, only time will tell, but when Milo and I were playing catch, baby Liam would be inside pounding on the sliding glass door vying for my attention. Not that unusual I suppose, but here's where even Rod Serling would be a little freaked out. Liam's first word was "ball."

do do do do, do do do do, do do do do, do do do do ( <--that's Twilight Zone theme music)

Like father like son.

I'm four years old or so and having a serious conversation with my parents. Dad is visibly upset. The subject matter seems eerily familiar.

Mom asks, "Where do we draw?"

I'm dumbfounded. "Wow, if she doesn't know the answer, my future is in serious jeopardy."

Thankfully, she answers her own question, "On paper."

I nod in agreement. "Oh yeah.. paper," I think to myself.

We had had this conversation before, but ususally it occurred in front of a wall. Naturally, I was a bit confused. I mean, technically I hadn't been drawing. I was carving. Tic Tac Toe in my dad's dresser. And despite my best efforts, all the games ended in a tie.

I was too young to be punished. But I remember feeling bad. Or maybe it was that the whole ordeal was told over and over to everyone. Grandmas, aunts and uncles all heard what I had done. I heard mom tell every detail over the phone.

Years later, had to be somewhere in my early teens, I had committed another offense of some sort. This time dad was there to discipline. To be honest, I forget what I actually did, but I remember his words vividly. Probably because he was laughing.

He had tears in his eyes from laughing so hard. Totally not the typical reaction to an obvious infraction.

"One day, you'll have kids" he said, "and they will put you through so much more than you're putting me through right now."

A few decades later, those words would ring all too true.

It's Halloween night. As usual, we're hosting a small gathering. My wife has to work late so dinner, the kids and all the decorations are my responsibility. My first born is old enough to carve his first pumpkin. We draw a simple design on the gourd of his choice. To keep the markers away from the baby, I tuck the markers in my back pocket.

There's a lot to do, so for dinner, I decide to have pizza from a take 'n bake. My youngest, discouraged that he can't carve his own jacko-lantern wanders into the living room and throws a fit. My oldest is progressing nicely with his carving and then we hear a loud crash.

The baby had managed to pull the stereo off the shelf. I don't know how he did it but thanfully, he managed to not get hurt. While I'm putting the stereo back on the shelf, the oven timer goes off. I've got stereo parts in each hand and dinner is about to burn to a crisp. I get the stereo back on the shelf, rush to the oven, pull the pie out and cut it immediately.

That's when I realize the quiet. It's the loudest quiet I've ever heard. You have to be a parent to understand this quiet. It's an ominous quiet. Like you're in dream. Or like in movies where there's some heavy handed foreshadowing.

I walk out to the living room and there's my baby, next to my wife's favorite chair. Seems innocent enough, then it hits me like a meteor. He is drawing on my wife's favorite chair!

In the time it took me to remove a pizza from the oven and cut it, he had managed to tag every visible surface of the chair. But where'd he get a permanent marker? We're normally so careful about keeping them locked up... I reach into my back pocket and realize I had been pick pocketed by an 18 month old! It must have happened while I was putting the stereo back together.

I should be mad, but I'm not. I'm laughing the deepest, belly laugh -the kind of laugh that brings a smile across your face, warms your heart and makes you cry.

That day, dad's words rang too true not to laugh.

We still have the chair prominently displayed in our living room. And my youngest points at his contributions to the chair now and again, smiling proudly. I smile right back at him all the while knowing one day, when he has kids of his own, Karma will likely have him in histarics.

Outdoor indoor

When I was a kid we spent all day outside. That's where all the kids were. We'd all ride our bikes around or find something to do. But these days, it seems the kids are too happy to be indoors. Or maybe it's their parents' fear of child predators... or maybe it's the TV, computer and video game system.

Milo, my 7 year old feels like I'm grounding him when I say he should play outside. He's so much happier to go outside if mom or dad are going to play with him. But since the birth of his baby brother, we just can't play like that all the time.

So one day, I was especially frustrated with his excuse after excuse for not going outside. I grabbed a pen, some paper and told the wife Milo and I were going out and we wouldn't be back for a while.

You see, I figured what he was missing was neighborhood friends and, gosh darnit, I was about to make some for him.

Milo and I went to every house in the neighborhood (well the ones that showed signs of having kids anyway) talking to parents. I explained that I was putting together a phone list of all the kids in the neighborhood who would like to be called for pickup games of baseball, tag, kick the can etc etc. It took the better part of the day, but when we were all done we had 60 kids on the list.

I typed it up that night and distributed it via email. I only listed the child's name, age, street name and phone number. To maintain privacy, no house numbers or last names were included on the list. I organized the list alphabetically by street name so there could be what I called Street Captains. If Milo wanted to get a game of baseball going, he could call one kid on each street and say "You're the street captain. You need to call the rest of the kids on your street and see who can play." Then the kids would walk/bike to and from the park together in groups created on their streets.

Every parent I met told me what a great idea it was. With that kind of affirmation, I was sure Milo would be playing outside every day from now on. A couple weeks went by and nothing happened. After some thought, I figured they're not calling each other because they don't know each other.

To solve this I, with the help of two neighborhood parents, called everyone on the list inviting them to the baseball field that Friday night for a game of kickball followed by a showing of "The Sandlot" projected on the backstop.

The night of the big event, one of those parents was able to borrow a projector from their work and the other brought all the white bed sheets and clothespins she had. 18 kids showed up for kickball, half of which didn't know how to play the game, but everyone had fun. At least I know I had fun. I was running around playing game master, instructing play, keeping score and whatnot. I hadn't intended to be that involved. I assumed kids plus ball plus field would run itself til the sun went down.

Thank goodness for those 2 parents who helped call everyone. While I was playing game master, they hung the bed sheets on the backstop and ran an extension cord to the projector. I was able to quickly rig a sound system with some home stereo equipment before it got too dark.

The event was a huge success. I can't tell you how many parents said something to the effect of let's do this every week. Unfortunately, I had plans for the rest of the summer but I vowed to do it earlier and more regularly next summer.

This winter, I emailed everyone on the list stating I was creating an hockey rink on the pond. I explained I would need help flooding it. I received dozens of responses but only two concerned the rink initiative. The others commented on the movie and wanted to know when the next neighborhood movie night might be.

So it seems in my attempt to get kids outdoors and away from watching a screen, I only achieved by creating a screen outdoors. How funny is that?

Shuffle up and deal

To maintain your sanity, you need to hang out with other adults. Baby talk and cartoons can drive you bonkers if you don't mix in some adult comradery.

Times are tough but we can still have fun. And when I say fun, I mean the manly kind of fun. Time to play Texas Clip'em, otherwise known as Texas Hold'em stay at home dad style.

Tell your other stay-at-home-parent friends to start clipping grocery coupons. $50.00 in coupons is a very easy goal to reach especially if you download and print em from sites like couponcabin.com. One tip; clip coupons you think the other players might want. Your $3.00 off diaper coupon might be worth $5 to the right player. For instance, I'd gladly agree that a $3 off jerky coupon meets my $10 off baby formula bet because I love jerky and no longer need formula.

If you don't know how to play Texas Hold'em, take a minute to look up the rules and print or write the most valuable hands in their ranking order. For what it's worth, you can play any kind of poker with coupons. The nice thing about hold'em is you can have lots of players in one game with a single deck of cards. And it's a hugely popular game right now.

Anyway, you can play this game almost any time. You could even play while the kids watch "Wall-E" or "Nemo" or whatever they're into these days. You don't have to play until there's a single winner - but you can. Just make sure at the end of the game to ask if anyone wants to trade coupons. That way everyone can walk away a winner.

What to do when you can't go outside

In Minnesota, some days you just can't go out with the kids. Back to back 20 below zero days with even lower windchills just make it too dangerous to go out. So when you're stuck inside, make the best of it.

The best days for baking are cold days. Baking is a great opportunity to do some science and math with your kids as well as keep your house warm and smelling good. My oldest is getting a grasp of fractions because of cooking with dad. 1 1/2 cups is easier to understand when you can visualize it as 1 cup plus a half cup. The point is there are lots of avenues to take math out of the classroom and make it applicable to everyday activities. And having a heat-and-serve casserole or two on hand is so nice on days you don't have time to cook.

Baking is only going to hold their attention for the mixing of ingredients portion. So what I do while things are cooking in the oven is make couch cushion forts. Anyone can make arts & crafts or play board games, but it takes a big strapping dad to rearrange the living room. So once all the furniture is out of the way, pull the cushions off and stand them on their sides to form walls. Grab a bed sheet or a comforter and throw it over the walls to make a roof. The kids will have fun going in and out, filling it with their pillows and stuffed toys then wrecking it and rebuilding it. Oh, a little heads up, they also tend to jump on the furniture with the missing cushions as if they're trampolines. Anyway, the fort frees you up to tend to baked goods in the oven.

Before you put the room back together, you might want to try what I call Cirque De Dad. It's a great work out for me and I'm sure the kids get a workout just from laughing so hard. This is where you give your kids airplane rides and carefully let them land on the cushions. Lay on your back and have your kids get your feet and do leg presses. Or hold them in your hands and do bench presses. Just make sure if they happen to lean too far that they fall onto a soft cushion. Flip on your stomach and have the kids sit on your shoulders while you do push ups. Get creative but always be cautious. The physical activity is fun but can easily lead to a bruise or worse. Which can be a great opportunity to have the "rub some spit (or dirt) on it," "scars add character," "chicks dig scars" or my personal favorite talk, "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger."

Make your wife AND kids happy: tackle the honey-do list. Get out the tool box and have your kids re-organize it. Undoubtedly, they'll have questions about what a tool is called or what it's for. And if you're anything like me, you've got something on your honey-do list that's just the perfect place to demonstrate what that tool is for and why it's called what it is. Try and have your kids do as much as safely possible. And make sure the tools get put away when the project is finished.

Ok by now you're probably needing to do some less active things. Like I said earlier, anyone can do arts & crafts or play board games but it takes a dad to teach his kid(s) poker. I taught my oldest how to play poker when he was 5. He learned suits and card values from other games so it wasn't all that hard to teach poker. I still have to make a list of what hands beat what hands but he understands that hands beat hands because of odds. Five card draw is his game of choice. Anyway, we started out betting potato chips and M&Ms. Now he likes to toss in the occasionaly family chore. "I'll see your green M&Ms and raise you doin the dishes for a week." I gotta say, he's learned to bet only what he's willing to lose. And I'm proud of him for honoring his bets. A word of caution here, after teaching my son poker, I am a firm believer in beginner's luck. Straight, flush, royal flush and four of a kind... he's had 'em all and one time, all in one game.

Last thing I can suggest for something only dad can do with his kids. Do something mom wouldn't. I was 4 when the movie Star Wars came out and my parents took me to see it. They warned me it might be scary, and if it was too scary we could leave the theater at any time. When my son was 5, I thought time for the boy to learn about the force, but the wife had a different opinion. "...too much fighting, and Darth will give him nightmares." Well, he didn't get nightmares nor did any of the kids at his school. We seemed to have watched it at just the right time. Seems some animated version of Clone Wars was becoming popular. All the kids were talking about and my son was happy to be able to chime in.

Enjoy being a stay at home dad. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

A guide for stay at home dads

In my 36 years of life, I have never met a guy that wanted to be a stay at home dad. It's understandable, our role models have always been hunter gatherer types. But with the economy what it is, more and more of us guys are realizing it's best to be at home. This blog chain is aimed to help guys make the transition.

To establish some street cred, I have to let you all know I'm a father of two boys ( 7 and almost 2). Both times my wife and I conceived I was gainfully employed, and for each birth I was very unemployed (both of my children were born in economic downturns). But what that means for you the reader is, this isn't my first rodeo if ya know what I mean.

My first piece of advice for you new to the position - get out as soon as you can. Take your kid(s) to a park. Go to the library. Immerse yourself in society. And try to do it before lunch, and if you can, again after lunch. There are a couple reasons why this is my first point. First of all, staying cooped up leads to massive emotional drama later in the day from both you and your little one(s). Second reason for getting out is you meet others like yourself. These other stay at home parents represent potential play dates, car pools, and my favorite - stimulating grown-up conversation.

Second piece of advice; don't break the routine. Kids find comfort in routine. Now that doesn't mean you have to do the exact same thing every day at the exact same time. The key is to have or create clear indicators that signify the next part of the routine. For instance, my mornings start with the Today Show. While I'm staying in touch with world issues and local weather, my sons are doing their morning routines. While I'm preparing lunch, I turn on the radio to the oldies station. After lunch, the radio is turned off and I read two books to my son which is his que to nap. And for dinner, I turn the radio to classical. These ques help my kids tell time, even if the time isn't exact from day to day and it makes my day so much more enjoyable.

Third piece of advice; hold your head up. Stay at home dad is an honorable position. You may not be bringing in the bacon like you used to, but you are providing a level of service that you can't put a price on. If you find yourself at a party and someone asks what you do, you may want to say something like "I used to be... and now I'm a stay at home dad." Or even, "I'm a stay at home dad while I look for a career in..." Both avenues allow you to discuss your experience in both corporate life and home life.

Which leads me to my fourth piece of advice; realize your title as stay at home dad is only a short term gig. Your kids will go to school. They will leave the house. Be sure you're not left with out-of-date skills, contacts and other relevant money making skills.

Fifth piece of advice; be a great spouse. When your wife comes home, meet her with a kiss and a smile. Have dinner ready and the house in reasonable order. Doing these simple things will create time for you and her to be together. That being said, I've been giving this blog some of the attention I should have been giving to my wife.

Add your thoughts and insights. I'd love to hear how a dad with girl(s) might agree or disagree compared to me with my 2 boys.