Eating Healthy on Any Budget

I’m not going to lie, eating healthy isn’t cheap.  But it’s not as expensive as most people think it is either.

If you look at the change to healthy as just substituting, you know, buying the gluten-free or organic version of the same thing you already buy, the cost can be scary.  The key is to change the WAY you eat, finding alternatives.

“Convenience” is one of the most expensive things to happen to our society.  Processed and take-out food is quite costly when you you consider the cost of the actual ingredients in them.   Many of those ingredients being things you wouldn’t find in your own kitchen (or anyone else’s!) And that’s not even considering the health costs in our future caused by it...treating high blood pressure, diabetes, even cancer. 

On a busy day, when there is school and work and tutoring and baseball practice, we may get fast food.  One trip through the Chick-Fil-A drive-through for a petite woman and her 11 year old son, getting only a couple of sandwiches and sides, not even drinks, easily comes to $15.  I can make a completely organic dinner consisting of a meat, grain, and vegetable for that same woman and child, AND the woman’s husband, for less than that.

1.      Cut out the processed and fast food, and you’ll be amazed how much money you have to spend on fresh vegetables.  Vegetables that can be bought at a very good price at farmer’s markets and produce stands.  Personally, I have a weekly home delivery of organic fresh fruits and vegetables from a local company...and I couldn’t buy the amount of non-organic produce at the regular grocery store for the same price.

2.       Make your own food.  Cooking can be fun.  You can be creative.  You’ll discover new things.  It takes me about 30 minutes of my time to make a meal (yes, you may have to roast a chicken for an hour and a half, but you don’t have to stand there watching it!), the same amount of time it’s going to take me to drive to a fast food restaurant, wait in line, and drive back home.  If you have older kids, you can even make them do the cleanup afterwards!  And you CAN cook things ahead of time (or make twice as much as you need for the current meal) and freeze them for busy days - that is actually my next goal!

3.       Research.  Find where you can buy things the cheapest.  For a certain organic product, I can go to a small “health food” store about a mile from my house and pay $7.  Or I can drive another 2 blocks to the regular grocery store and get it for about $6.  Or, I can drive across town to Whole Foods, and get it for $4.  I drive across town every week or two to stock up....less convenient, but much cheaper.  I drive across town for work and for my son’s baseball league, why not for my and my family’s health?  I also buy our gluten free bread at a local bakery, and it’s much cheaper and more importantly, much tastier than the frozen stuff in the grocery store.

4.       Find alternatives.  We limit gluten in our diet, but I don’t have a pantry full of gluten-free labeled foods.  Some of the substitutes, like gluten free pasta is, in my opinion, icky.  My son doesn’t like pasta anyways and that’s who we limit the gluten for.  We eat rice instead.  I don’t buy the organic versions of frozen meals, we eat fresh food and cook it.  I bake cookies, make my own salad dressing and sauces, just flat out don’t eat certain things.

5.      Start small.  Pick one thing you want to change, and do it.  Cut out artificial sweeteners, or white flour, or high fructose syrup, or one less fast food meal a week.  When it becomes routine, move on to the next.

Just don’t cut out the wine. ;)

 

What's in a Word?

When my son was in Pre-K, one of his classmate’s parents got some free tickets to a zoo event.  They invited us and another family from Pre-K to go along.  Us moms were talking, and one said “Someone in class taught my son to say ‘sucks!’”  I was afraid to tell her it was probably the little blonde boy standing next to her son at the elephant exhibit.

I find the concept of “bad” words to be kind of funny.  They are just words.  A string of letters and sounds.  Letters and sounds that have the same meaning as other words that we find acceptable.  Who decided what words weren’t?

Funny thing is, I don’t really cuss.  Yes, I’ve said the words, usually in extreme pain or anger, but I don’t use them in regular conversation.  I understand the “power” society has given certain words, and I’d like to say that I don’t use them because of some intellectual reason, but actually they just don’t come naturally to me.

They don’t come naturally to me because I didn’t really hear my parents cuss.  Yes, the occassional slip, but it wasn’t regular conversation.  They used other words....”stupid,” “crap,” “darn,” ” freaking,” “pissed,” “sucks,”or, in the case of my grandfather, “dangnabit.”  And as kids, we were allowed to use them too.  All those words most parents today forbid.  And that is what became natural.

I’ve never told my child any words were forbidden.  I’ve told him some words aren’t allowed at school, but I’ve never forbidden any at home.  I’ve never heard him cuss.  He’s 11.  He has, apparantly, learned elsewhere that words are bad, because about 6 months ago, when I got really mad about something, I said “damn it!” and he started crying.  Really crying.  I asked him why and he said that something must be really bad because I “said a bad word.”

Ironically, most kids his age I’ve heard cuss regularly, their parent’s don’t think they even say “stupid.”  I think sometimes as a society we really go overboard and forget that forbidding something makes it more desirable.  Especially if they are words they hear their parents use on a regular basis.

Being the typical hypocritical parent, I did tell my son I’d delete posts from friends on his Facebook page that have cuss words.  I really do understand the power society has given those words, and don’t want them associated with him at his age.  He was happy about my decision.  He even tells his friends not to use cuss words in private messages and texts.  He doesn’t feel comfortable with them.  He  turns the radio down if he knows a cuss word is coming in a song. Like for me, to him they are not “natural” words.  But when he tells me “This stupid game sucks!” I just nod and ask him why he feels that way, knowing those in earshot are giving me dirty looks.

Funny, how certain words are given such authority and clout.  A simple group of sounds. 

I wonder how people would speak if we had no concept of “bad words.”

Pondering too much today.  And that’s why they have wine.

 

 

It's All In The Game

Just returned from Aiden’s baseball game.  It was not pretty.

Our team is an 11 and 12 year old team.  Most of our team is 11.  Most of our 12 year olds are fairly new to playing baseball.  The boys started out in good spirits, up to bat first, and scored as many runs in their first inning as they usually average in a whole game. 

Then came the opposing team.  They are supposedly 11 and 12 too, and there can be a big size difference between those two ages, but I’m pretty sure some of them had to shave before they went to the field.  One mom pointed out, it took two of our kids to equal the size of most of their kids, so we were actually playing with half the players.  Several hit the ball over the fence.  It was like the monsters versus the midgets, and the midgets started losing hope.  By the end of the second inning, the score was a little to a WHOLE lot.

It is disheartening to see your child’s team behind by so much, and even more so to see how it is affecting them.  They are discouraged, and because they are kids, it’s hard for them to shake off the negative thoughts.  They blame themselves, look down on themselves, focus only on their mistakes.

Which is why I find it appalling that so many adults are so insensitive. 

When your child has a great hit and it doesn’t get caught, you tell them what a great job they did, you don’t yell out “I told you he wouldn’t catch it” loud enough for the kid who missed the ball to hear.

We all sigh or mumble under our breath when an error is made that hurt our child’s team, but announcing to the whole field that “Billy Bob* hasn’t caught one single ball this season” to the whole field doesn’t help anyone.

I already cringe when I hear parent’s berating their own child’s performance.  Putting down other children is way over the line.  I have told someone, “If you are going to talk about my child, please do it where I cannot hear you.”  That is something should never ever have to be said by anyone in children’s baseball.  These boys are rough enough on themselves, especially when their team is so far behind.

It’s called a GAME for a reason.  It’s supposed to be fun.  Find a way to encourage them.  Keep it light.  Talk about imaginary Zebra’s. (Well, you might not be able to talk about the Zebra, he apparantly followed us home and is in the closet.  Aiden did get a base hit for him so I guess he’s not too bad of a guy to have around. And he supposedly gives away money.)

Unfortunately we can’t control the behavior of others.  That’s why they have wine.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.  Except Aiden’s, I’m pretty sure he’s guilty of something.

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On the Rise, or Just Now Noticed?

A lot of discussion goes on regarding the increase in diagnoses of disorders such as ADHD, Autism, Aspergers, and even about whether or not they really are real.  Theories range from food sensitivities and allergies, poisoning from vaccines, vitamin deficiencies, problems during pregnancy and birth, to heredity, to doctors just liking to write prescriptions and parents wanting to “drug” their children so they don’t have to parent, and even to conspiracy theories of the government wanting to control children with medication.

Personally, I believe these disorders are real.  I know my son has ADHD and Sensory Processing issues and could have told you that before they were diagnosed.  I don’t know why they exist.  I tend towards the heredity and problems during pregnancy and birth theories because I know my child’s history, but I really don’t know the cause. 

I did, however, read a very interesting article the other day though that makes a lot of sense to me about why many more children are diagnosed with these disorders than ever before:  it’s not that they didn’t exist before, it’s because changes in our education system have made it harder for these children to succeed academically, and so more parents approach their physicians with concerns.

I always knew that my son had some “issues.”  I honestly never put too much thought into many of them because I have Sensory Processing issues also.  I completely understand why he can’t stand wearing denim or long pants...it’s the same reason I can’t stand to wear turtlenecks or tops that button too high.  The same sounds that freak him out freak me out.  We both dislike talking on the phone.  Sympathy and similar feelings can be hard for us, not because we don’t care, but we can have a hard time interpreting people’s feelings and how they expect us to react to them unless they are directly told to us.  I made it this far in life with those issues, and while I do have my eccentricities, I’ve made it this far OK, and so I’ve never really worried too much about the same issues in my son.  While I did express concerns to our pediatrician when Aiden was a toddler, and to his kindergarten teacher when he was having trouble holding pencils and crayons, when I was told he didn’t meet the criteria for testing, I let it go.

Until he started failing school.

At that point, I pushed.   We had testing.  He is being treated with medication for ADHD and is finally at the top of the waiting list for Occupational Therapy and will begin that soon.  There are obvious changes and improvements in all aspects of his life.  But he still really struggles in some aspects of school.

According to the article, education has become much more focused on social skills.  There are many group projects.  Reading comprehension tests ask the reader to not only comprehend what happened in the story, but to comprehend the motivations and feelings of the characters when those aspects are not explicitly defined in the story.  Even lower-grade math sheets may ask to count the happy people in the picture, which requires a child to be able to read the non-verbal queues.  We are not testing reading and math, we are testing social abilities.    

The article is right. Aiden has group projects at least weekly, and I’ve seen his homework and tests.  Makes perfect sense to me now why my child can read way above grade level, enjoy the book, and tell me about it, even have passages memorized, but yet be failing reading.  It also explains why he prefers non-fiction (as do I!). When Aiden asks me for help with his homework, I often can’t figure out the answer either....and guess what?  They are usually the “Why did Jimmy not want to eat the noodles?” kind of question.  In our life experience, people don’t want to eat noodles because they feel funny in your mouth, but that is not one of the possible answers.  By integrating the social aspects of life into educational assignments, we are assuming we all have the same social abilities and life experiences.  We don’t.  And just because Susie isn’t sure if the stick figure on the far right is displaying a happy face or not does not mean she can’t count, but if she chose the “wrong” answer because she determines it is not, it’s assumed that it’s her math skills that are at fault.

So her parents seek evaluations they may otherwise have not.  And the incidence of disorders appears to be increasing.  And the number of bright children falling through the cracks gets scarier.

Perhaps it is a good idea to teach some aspects of social skills in schools, but do we need to hide them in the other lessons?

And that’s why they have wine.  And why Aiden has an appointment tomorrow regarding admission to a private school for children with his sort of disablities.

Lessons From The Beach

Everything you do is an opportunity to learn, and vacation is no exception.

Some of the things I learned while at the beach the last few days:

1.        The best things in life REALLY can be free.

Aiden had a shark tooth necklace we bought on another trip to the beach, but the tooth was sharp and he didn’t like wearing it.  I went into one of the gifts shops and spent time finding him a new one that wasn’t sharp, and also got him a “Moon Ball,” a small ball with unpredictable bounces, which was somthing I thought would be right up his alley.  When I went to pay, the clerk asked me how old my child was and I told her he was 11.  She said they had a batch of faulty mood rings, and that she hated to just throw them all away and she gave me a handful for him.  While he likes the necklace and ball, guess what was the most used thing on vacation?  And not just by Aiden!  We are all now experts in what mood ring colors mean.

2.        Don’t ever trust the weather predictions a week in advance.

Ok, so I already knew that one.  Especially in Florida.  But I was particularly perturbed this time as a week ago the prediction was temperature in the 80’s and sunny.  Yesterday never got out of the 60’s and was rainy and dreary.

3.       Males are crazy.

Ok, so I already knew this one too.  As I said, yesterday never got out of the 60’s and was rainy and dreary.  Aiden and Bryant still went swimming in the Gulf!

4.       Circle K “cappucino” tastes really good when you are cold.

I went and got hot coffee, wearing my hoodie, while the guys were swimming.

5.       You will never use the amenities you look for when booking a room.

We had a full kitchen:  we used the refrigerator to put drinks in and reheated some leftovers from our takeout lunch in the microwave.  I couldn’t tell you if the stove or oven even worked.  We had a heated pool:  see lesson #3.  There was a DVD library for rainy days:  Aiden insisted on checking out a movie as soon as the office opened on Tuesday morning.  We never watched it.  And last but not least, we had a 1 bedroom cottage:  there was a queen bed in the main room and a full bed in the bedroom.  No one used the bedroom.  Aiden insisted on sleeping on the futon in the main room!

6.       Sometimes you can teach an old dog new tricks, if they are a younger old dog.

This is the same beach we were married at and stayed for a few days at a year ago.  There is a Creperie that I and my friend Lynn wanted to eat at, but never got around to it.  Very French menu, not traditional American meals.  Well, I got the guys to eat there for brunch today.  The guys that both have their “go-to” item at every restaurant we ever go to and rarely vary.  While Bryant found it “OK”, much to his surprise, after asking me 50 times what a crepe was on the way there, Aiden really liked it.  He had the “French Breakfast,” two crepes filled with strawberry filling, a croissant, and bacon.  He wants to go back sometime for a chocolate crepe.  I think we will, and we’re going to take Lynn!

7.       Sometimes old dogs don’t like new tricks.

I learned to type on an ancient 50-lb typewriter.  I like keyboards.  I took my new tablet with me on vacation, and wrote a blog on it while I was there.  I do not like typing that much on the virtual keyboard.  I’m typing this one on my laptop.

8.       Last but not least, I need to live at the beach.

I have a lot of allergies....particularly to pollens, orange blossoms, pollutants, various chemicals like pesticides, various grasses and plants...you know, things they don’t have at the beach.  While I woke up Monday morning sneezing my head off, an hour after arriving at the beach, my body forgot what allergies were.  It remembered again as we got about 15 minutes away from our house on the drive home.  It’s for my health, we need to do it!  I am insisting!

Unfortunately, now we are back home and I’m doing laundry.  Yep, that’s why they have wine.  Perhaps that is why my husband just came back from the grocery store with some...

               

 

 

When You Have Crappy Weather at the Beach

We're on vacation. At a beach, in Florida. It's rainy and 69 degrees.

I'm watching some crime show on TV. Bryant is Ebaying for sunglasses. Aiden is off in his own world, headphones on, playing baseball on his PS Vita. He did yell out asking me if going for the cycle meant single, double, triple, and homerun, otherwise you wouldn't know he was here.

The pool is heated, but can't get Aiden to brave it. Almost talked him into walking on the beach, but that wind is not exactly friendly! We did all go to lunch, at a place that is supposedly haunted in the upstairs dining room. Using the ghost radar app on the phone, the ghost told Aiden his name is Jimmy. That, and the fact that I got a call from All Children's Hospital this morning informing me Aiden's yearlong wait on the waiting list for OT has actually resulted in his turn, has been the highlight of the day.
Rain, rain, go away and take the rest of this crappy weather with you!

And that's why they have wine. Too bad the wine bar is about a quarter mile walk away in this weather!

Yes, I give my child medication

I give my child medicine for ADHD. 

Yep, I’m one of those terrible parents.  I get calls from the school daily, I pay no attention to what he is doing, I let him eat nothing but sugar daily, I have no idea how to discipline, and if I do I’m too lazy to do it, I encourage him to play video games 24/7 and never play outside, I just need to let him run around, I don’t understand what normal boy behavior is, I am some kind of sucker of the government who I’m letting experiment on my child.

Or so most of you would tell me.

In reality, I have a little boy who told his neurologist yesterday he thinks he might need more medicine because he is “having trouble in my head.”  One who is more brilliant than a lot of people realize, but is failing school.  One who was OK with me asking for a referral to a psychologist so he could have someone to talk to about “not feeling normal.”  One who will suddenly yell at me or throw things at me or even destroy stuff, and then minutes later be crying and apologizing.

Yes, most of you will never see that in him.  Why?  Because he fights HARD all day to get through his feelings.  The feelings that he unleashes at his mom because that is who he feels most comfortable with.  Recently, he had a huge meltdown while at his father’s house.  A meltdown usually held back there.  A meltdown his dad had to call me about to even know how to deal with it.  But it was a meltdown that FINALLY made his dad understand.  And a meltdown that actually made me happy that he finally, after 11 years of life, is OK with doing in front of his father.

Kids with ADHD, they are expecting punishment, not understanding.  The ones that hold it together in school or social situations, well, when they get home it is much worse than those who just express those frustrations all the time.  They KNOW what they are doing they should not be, they lack impulse control, and they STRUGGLE to keep it together.  When they feel safe to “let go”, well, they do!  And lucky you, you don’t see it. 

I give my child medication because it helps him focus.  Helps him sleep a normal sleep pattern.  Makes him feel  more like a regular kid.  Helps him to concentrate in school.  Helps him to “reset”, as we call it, when he gets caught up in arguing or feeling down or can’t shake off the negative thoughts.

And for you thinking I drug my kid, do you drink coffee or caffienated sodas? 

Caffiene, it helps my child focus, calm down, and sleep.  The same way the “dangerous stimulant” meds do.  The same way it helps you wake up in the morning..  OK for you....

I give my child medication for ADHD.  And tomorrow, we’re starting a higher dosage at my son’s request to his doctor. 

That’s the way it is.  Get over it.  I’d tell you , that’s why there is wine, but....if you can’t accept that, nothing I can do.

Pictures in Your Head

Aiden got his mid-quarter progress report from school today.  For him, it was good….an F (but a high one!) in Science, a D in Math, a C in Language Arts, and B’s in Reading, Computers, and History.  When I say good, I mean exceptional.  With the exception of PE, in which he got an A+, his highest grade last quarter was a 71. 

So why am I having a hard time being happy?  I, of course, told him how proud I am he brought up his grades, but I have to admit that the sentiment really isn’t there.  I know he is a smart kid, and his grades just frustrate me.

A big part of it is that our education system just really isn’t a good fit for “outside the box” kids.  Granted, when there is one teacher and 25 kids, you can’t cater to different learning styles, so you use the one that fits the majority.  Unfortunately, that leaves a lot of bright kids at a disadvantage.  Despite my frustration with my son’s performance, I understand.  I have the same learning style as he does.  I got scholarships to high school and college based on entrance exam scores, but I certainly did not have good grades nor did I do much homework.  Heck, in college, I went to class the first day to get the syllabus, showed up on test days, and spent the rest of the time at the pool!  Bless my mother for having more patience with me than I do with my child.

 I’m not an audio learner, and neither is he.  Over the years, I’ve developed my own strategies to overcome that, I connect “facts” to things.  I am a visual learner, so I have to make a picture in my head, and I remember the picture.  When I recall, I actually go through a process in my head of connecting the dots, a very strange process in which I recall.  “I had just watched a movie that really made me sad and I was sitting in that chair and you were wearing that blue shirt….and you said the key is in the desk drawer.”  A strange side effect of this compensation is that I can tell you what I was wearing on just about any day in my life because it’s part of my picture!

I’m trying to get Aiden to create the picture, but at this point in time I think he thinks I’m just strange.  And well, how do you convince a kid that creating a picture about an Algebra equation is something you want to spend your time on?  History test tomorrow, pictures for that is easier….and he already does some of that himself for that subject, thus the reason it is the only class he has had passing grades in all year.

Off to enforce study time.  And then it will be time for wine.