What Teaching Taught Me About Raising Children

Actually, being a high school teacher for almost a decade taught me how NOT to raise my children.

Baby J is now 6 months old. Everyone told me (still tells me daily) how quickly the time would pass but WOW! There is no way to adequately prepare for just how fast it goes. That being said, I've found myself wondering what kind of person J will become; what kind of person would I like her to be? What should I be doing to get her to that place? 

I guess it's no coincidence that these thoughts come as I find myself swamped with college recommendation letters. Although I am no longer teaching, my inbox has been inundated with high school seniors (most I had as juniors, some I taught as freshmen, and some that I taught in both ninth and eleventh grade) asking me to write their letters. For the most part, those who have asked are amazing kids whose parents should be proud of them. I am all too happy to write glowing letters of recommendation for them. 

And then, there are some who email me saying, "my guidance counselor says I need one math and one English teacher so can you write mine since I had you in ninth and eleventh grade?" If I were still employed, I'd probably have to say yes to all requests in order to spare myself the oh-so-pleasant phone calls from irate parents who can't possibly understand how someone could not love their child as much as they do. Luckily for me, I no longer work there so they can't call me. And I can say no. 

This is where I start to really think. Aside from the fact that they're time consuming, why wouldn't I want to write a letter of recommendation for a child trying to get into college?

What if, one day, someone cringes at the thought of writing a letter for Baby J? How can I, as her mother, prevent that from ever happening? As far as I'm concerned, I can keep in mind the following list of things I've learned from being a high school teacher:

1. My daughter is NOT perfect (even though she literally is). 

See? No matter how perfect I think she is, she will not come off that way to everyone. She will forget to do her homework, and maybe even lie about it - twice! Once to tell me that she didn't have any homework to complete and again to her teacher saying that the new puppy chewed it up - and then try to cover up her lie. 

She will curse when she thinks no one important is near enough to hear her. She will try to push boundaries and break rules in hopes of getting away with it. 

In short, she will mess up because she's human. As her parent, it is my responsibility to hold her accountable for her actions. I will not be doing her any favors by calling her teacher and screaming like a banshee about how it's his/her fault that J did not complete her assignments (yes, this has happened to me on more than one occasion). 

2. My actions are a reflection on Baby J. 

Refusing to acknowledge that my child will do wrong; calling and screaming at her teachers because J hasn't been doing her homework; shifting the blame from J to someone anyone else, WILL affect the way people perceive her. 

Countless parents have gone straight to the school psychologist, guidance counselors or coaches to have their child switched out of a class because "the teacher just doesn't like him/her".

To those parents, I'm sorry (#sorrynotsorry) that I didn't mark your child as present when he/she was cutting class and they ended up with detention. Attendance is a legal issue so no, I was not willing to put my career on the line so your kid could sneak off campus and head to Starbucks. 

Once, a group of girls showed me some tweets another student had posted. They were mean, awful, and hurtful tweets directed at another student. I spoke privately to the offender about the power of words and bullying on social media. There was no yelling and there were no punishments doled out by me. Still, this girl started crying and left my classroom.

Within the hour her mother called me. Her mother was not at all concerned about the fact that her daughter was slandering others on social media, but rather who was it who "ratted her out". Seriously? This is how these kids are being raised. And it's disturbing. 

3. Helicopter parenting is just....so.....ridiculous. 

As a parent, I feel that it is my responsibility to raise a child who is responsible and accountable. 

I once had a parent ask that I post a picture of the homework board on the parent portal so that she could see exactly what her son sees and ensure that he completes everything. 

Another parent asked to be notified each time her daughter was late to class.

One mom left work and drove almost two hours because her husband forgot to double-space the kid's research paper - why, exactly, was your husband responsible for this? - and she needed to drop off the corrected version so that her college bound daughter did not lose ten points for spacing. 

Fun stories, right? There are a million more like them. And it's not just me - I've watched too many of my colleagues deal with the same nonsense. For so many of today's kids (especially the privileged), there is zero accountability.

I just don't want to ever be that parent. Because no matter how parents may justify their actions (I have to be my child's advocate and blah blah blah) they will be a reflection on their children. And those are the kids for whom I can't be bothered writing a letter. 

Imagining my dream kitchen.

When I got married, one of the "warnings" I received from my mother-in-law was that my new husband was a notoriously picky eater. He didn't really stray from chicken cutlets or meatloaf. When I thought about it, I realized, Wow! He really did always order the same things when we went out to eat - chicken parmesan and caesar salad. How had I never noticed this? I responded by saying that  he'll either eat what I make or fend for himself. That first year of marriage, my husband ate a lot of Wendy's for dinner.

It wasn't because I was a bad cook. Actually, I'm pretty good at it. I happen to love cooking. I enjoy trying new recipes or altering others to make them my own. And when I get a new kitchen gadget or baking sheet, forget about it. I'm cooking up a storm. My husband just had an aversion to trying new things (one that he has since overcome).

As someone who loves cooking, one of the things I am most looking forward to in the next 1-2 years is building our new home. I cannot WAIT to build my dream kitchen. I already know that I don't want to go the traditional granite/stainless steel route, which is being phased out anyway. One of my friends just started her own interior design business and I have already given her the task of helping me design my new kitchen around this gorgeous jewel toned appliance from BlueStar. I mean, seriously, just LOOK at this stove! You can build yours here.

 From the BlueStar Jewel Tones Collection in Topaz

While searching for elements for my dream kitchen, I came across BlueStar's All Star Chefs and some of their favorite recipes. I decided to teach Baby J how to bake her daddy's favorite snack: Ryan Scott's chocolate chip cookies (actually, they're his mom's chocolate chip cookies). Yes, she's only 6 months old but why not? 

I want my daughter to be both adventurous and healthy in her eating habits, which is why I want to involve her in cooking at an early age. I believe that allowing her to be involved in the preparation of meals will encourage her to try new things and appreciate the work that goes into putting her meals on the table.

One of the last things I want her to be is a picky eater like her dad used to be. I have known so many picky eaters and I just can't imagine what a nightmare they must be to live with.

Ideally, I'd love to avoid the stereotypical kid food: pasta with butter, mac & cheese, chicken nuggets, pizza, PB&J, hot dogs, etc. Most of it is just gross (seriously, cheese should not come in powder form OR be neon orange. And what, exactly, goes into hot dogs?). And, as I said in an earlier post, I'd rather her eat home cooked meals and snacks as opposed to store bought which are LOADED with artificial ingredients. So we're starting early.

Even at 6 months, she was really into baking these cookies!

Baby J with some of her baking essentials

Chef J mixing her cookie dough

Here is the recipe:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup room temperature butter
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I upped this to a full teaspoon just because I love the extra flavor)
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips (I use milk chocolate as opposed to semi-sweet)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 (I'm already pretending that I have my BlueStar Jewel Tone Stove)
2. Blend butter, sugars, egg and vanilla until creamy (this is why the butter must be at room temperature).
3. Add baking soda, salt, and flour, and blend (I add the flour mixture about 1/2 cup at a time and blend after each addition. I prefer to mix by hand so adding a little at a time makes it much easier to blend).
4. Add chocolate chips and blend by hand.
5. Scoop cookie dough onto baking sheet (I always bake on stoneware since it cooks so evenly).
6. Bake for 15 minutes and cool completely on a cooling rack.

And there you have it. An amazing batch of cookies from Ryan Scott; an All Star Chef with BlueStar. As J gets older, of course I'll have her do some more of the hands on work.

But for now, she was great company, helped mash some dough and nommed on the finished product. 

Nothing Tastes As Good As Skinny Feels

A few years back, Kate Moss took some heat for claiming to live by the motto "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels".  I really do love certain foods - especially dessert and wine - too much to forgo them so on some level I have to disagree with her. However, I do know that I have never felt as good as I did when I was thin. I was happy and I was confident. 

In college, I was 5'7 and 130 pounds. I remember thinking how fat I had gotten when I went to the doctor and weighed in at 135. I started running and was back to being my happy, skinny self. 

After I got married, I guess I became too comfortable and I packed on the pounds - a whopping 35 of them. I wasn't running because I no longer lived in a runner friendly neighborhood, and although I joined a gym, I'm just not a gym person. Stepping on a treadmill or an elliptical machine makes me feel like a hamster on a wheel. I started cycling which gave me killer legs but did absolutely nothing for my gut or my butt. Then I got really into yoga and was starting to get back to a happy place in terms of my weight. This stopped when all but one of my favorite yoga teachers left the studio. The owner started emphasizing teacher training and the whole dynamic of the place changed. I tried finding another studio but couldn't find one that I liked enough to join. 

I was still overweight when I got pregnant. Great. I was going to be the S.S. (insert last name here). 

Thankfully, I didn't get the insatiable appetite that accompanied my friends' pregnancies. My cravings were cereal with milk, cream of wheat, fruit (OMG did I LOVE fruit!), and red meat. Occasionally I wanted a little chocolate, but it wasn't the norm. Actually, anything too sweet made me a little queasy for the first trimester. I knew I was eating healthily, but I still didn't want to see the numbers on the scale. 

At each doctor's appointment, I made it a point to tell the nurses NOT to say my weight out loud - that I had no interest in knowing it. I told the doctor to just tell me if I wasn't gaining enough or if I was gaining too much. My weight gain was always "perfect" according to the doctor. So to this day, I have no idea how much I actually gained with my pregnancy. What I do know, however, is that I was sick of yoga pants being my only option. 

Moving could not have come at a better time. We now live in a super suburban neighborhood complete with sidewalks and a neighborhood watch. I have been able to start running again. My current route is about two miles. I haven't yet built up the endurance to run the whole time, so I walk a block, run a block. I try to get out every other morning around 7am before my husband goes off to work. Sometimes it's hard if Baby J is up multiple times during the night, and impossible if my husband is away on a business trip (which was the case all of last week and half of the week before that). I got back out yesterday. It's funny that I loathe the gym and love running. I think because the gym is stagnant. You get on the same machine and stare at the same wall or tv. But when I run, I can change my route, see different things, pass different people, and I don't feel like people are watching and judging me. Seriously, I sound like a herd of elephants on the treadmill and I feel like everyone can hear that I am running on it. Not so on pavement.

Despite having to get out so early, I actually love my morning run. It's the one time during the day where I get to be completely alone and just worry about me. I'm alone with my thoughts and my music, and it is just glorious. If I'm out extra early I'll even take a different route to tack on some time. When I get home I'm a sweaty mess and have to make a mad dash to shower and get dressed before Baby J gets too cranky, but after that I feel amazing. It also makes me chug a ton of water which is super important and brings me to my next point. 

I know that working out is important, but diet is even more so. The problem with dieting is that I lack discipline. I just won't weigh or measure food. I joined weight watchers once upon a time, but figuring and counting points was too much of a PIA. I believe that cutting out carbs is a quick fix, but not a permanent, long term solution. Also, I like carbs. And I simply don't buy into the gimmicky fad programs or diets (although, if I were one of the cool kids, I'd develop a "gluten allergy"). Before my wedding I survived on Campbell's chicken noodle soup and oatmeal. I lost a ton of weight really fast, but again, it was just a short term, emergency solution. I need something easy and idiot proof when it comes to dieting. 

One of my oldest and closest friends became a Beachbody coach a couple of years ago. For years, she has been trying to talk me into doing one of her programs. I always said no because a lot of it seemed to center around the Shakeology meal replacement, and I just won't do shakes. P90X is also in there, but my husband had done that program and all of the intense up and down made me nauseous. I have to give her credit for being persistent, because last month she pitched another program to me - the 21 day challenge. This one can be done with OR without Shakeology and is perfect for someone like me who refuses to measure, weigh or replace food. For $60, I would get a book, food containers and some workout DVDs (I could either choose to do their workout program or continue running on my own). This program seemed perfect for me - the lazy woman's route to a beach body. She had me. I ordered.

At first, I was mildly disappointed that this is what $60 bought me

I knew that I wouldn't use their workout program because I'm not good at doing workouts on my own (other than running or cycling). So when I saw this book and these plastic containers, my first thought was "what a waste of money". But, since I had spent $60 on it, I figured I might as well give it a shot. Here's how it works:

The book tells you how to calculate what your daily caloric intake should be. Instead of a solid number, it gives you a range. Then it tells you what type of food goes in each container (pages of examples and recipes) and how many of that color you should be eating every day.

 

Purple = Fruit

Green = Veggies

Red = Protein

Yellow = Carbs

Blue = Cheeses and some other things

Orange = Things like salad dressing

Teaspoon (doesn't come with the kit) = Nut butters, seed oils

So every day I should have 4 green, 3 purple, 4 red, 3 yellow, 1 blue, 1 orange, and 4 teaspoons. And you can really pack out the containers. When I started to measure it out, I realized that it's a lot of food. 

My husband was hesitant about it at first. According to him, you shouldn't have to restrict your vegetable intake. However, I think the key thing to this program is learning portion control and how to make healthy choices. 

I have to admit that I'm not strict about following it. A friend of mine came to visit and healthy eating was out the window. My husband was away on a business trip and I had pizza for dinner and the leftovers for lunch. Twice. But this program makes it easy to get back on track - especially because my coach is amazing. She is SO enthusiastic about the Beachbody program and aiming to do it full-time starting in January. Despite being thousands of miles apart, she set up a private Facebook group where she posts inspirational and motivational quotes and pictures, recipes, and checks in daily. As it turns out, this is the easiest "diet" program EVER because:

1. There is no weighing or measuring (I don't consider shoving food in containers to be measuring)

2. No point system

3. I can eat all of the foods I enjoy - even desserts!

4. I have someone pushing/coaching me through it

5. I have a Facebook support system specifically for this

6. I've already lost 7 pounds despite the fact that I haven't been 100% consistent with eating or running

7. I am finally able to wear my pre-pregnancy pants! No more yoga pants unless I want to wear them.

I am definitely going to keep up with this. When the third week is over (after this week) I'm just going to start it up again. 

I suck at taking pictures of food, but just to give an idea of what/how much I can eat on this plan, here is a breakfast and a lunch (Lunch is the hardest meal for me unless I'm eating out. I literally just throw together whatever I have in my fridge!).

Eggs with cheddar cheese and topped with some salsa and one pear

One veggie burger, refried beans, some cucumber, and celery topped with almond butter

Overall, I really recommend this program. It's the EASIEST thing I've ever done and I've already seen results. 

You can sign up for it here, and be sure to take before and after pictures. You will be amazed at the results!

www.teambeachbody.com/coachnikkizee

Carrots

Homemade Carrots

Ingredients:

Carrots (I used Parisian carrots because I liked the size of them. so I figured, why not? Any carrots will work.)

Water

How to Make:

1) I boiled these carrots until they were fork tender. 

2) Just like I did with the green beans, I first added some water to the Vitamix and then added the carrots. 

3) Turn Vitamix on Variable. Start at 1 and quickly turn up to 10. Let blend about 1-2 minutes until the carrots are pureed.

Green Beans

Homemade Green Beans

Ingredients: 

Green Beans

Water

*I don't really measure things out. I just dumped in some beans and used about 3/4 cup of water. I probably could have used a bit less, but they still came out great!

**If you're not using fresh fruits or veggies, it is better to use frozen than canned. Frozen fruits and veggies hold more of their nutrients than their canned counterparts. 

To make: 

1. Steam the green beans until they are no longer crunchy.

2. For green beans I use my amazing Vitamix. Pour water into the Vitamix and then add beans. Turn on (variable setting) and quickly work up to 10 (the highest setting). Just let it blend for a few minutes and voila! Green beans for dinner!

Pears

Homemade Pears

Ingredients:

Organic Pear

1. Peel pear, remove core and seeds, and chop up.

2. Using my [favorite] immersion blender again,  just mash up the pear. When pears are ripe they will mush up easily. 

That's it! Pears are really simple and another favorite of Baby J!

Mangoes

Homemade mango for breakfast

In my Clean Eating post I said that I would start putting recipes and pictures for all of Baby J's food. This morning she had mango for breakfast and this is super easy to make! 

Ingredients:

1 ripe mango

To make:

1. Peel the mango and chop it up 

    **I find mangoes to be a pain to chop because of their weird pit. So it may not look pretty, but as long as you just cut the fleshy part it's fine.

2. I use my cuisinart immersion blender for SO many things - seriously it's one of my favorite kitchen gadgets - and find that it's perfect for soft fruits like mangoes and pears. Blend until smooth.

And that's it! Baby J LOVES mango so we go through quite a bit of it. I haven't tried freezing any of her food but you probably could. Pinterest suggests freezing portions in ice cube trays. It's definitely worth trying!

Becoming a stay-at-home mom: Expectations vs. Reality

I poo pooed moms who whined about how hard it is to be a stay-at-home mom. I mean, how freaking hard is it to stay home and snuggle with a sleeping cherub all day every day? Being a stay-at-home mom was my dream job. I imagined my days as follows:

Wake up, feed baby, cook a delicious and healthy breakfast for me and my husband and then give him a kiss as I hand him his homemade lunch and send him off to work. The afternoon consists of walks in the park, playing and lots of cuddling. Then around 5pm the baby will be playing or sleeping happily while I get dinner ready and on the table just as hubs walks in the door after a long day at the office. Then we put the baby down together and relax with our wine and some tv before heading to bed for a good night's rest. I would be the BEST stay-at-home mom/wife EVER!

That all lasted about three weeks.

Being a stay-at-home mom is hard. Especially when you are taking care of a floppy, demanding little person whose lack of patience rivals your own. Seriously - this kid makes me look like a saint. When she wants something you had better hustle because it's only a matter of time before the volcano erupts.

Baby J is now five months old and every time I think I've got a good routine going, she switches it up on me.

So our days now look something like this:
Wake up, feed baby, scrounge up some breakfast for myself (hubs is a big boy - he can fend for himself), and sneak in a kiss goodbye while we both hope that there's no spit up or baby food getting in the middle of our oh-so-romantic peck that we hope lands on the other's lips and not the cheek or chin. Hopefully Baby is still happily playing on her mat. If so, it becomes a mad dash to get as much done as I can before her good mood expires and it's time to get her down for her morning nap. This morning nap lasts, if I'm lucky, about two full hours. Just enough time to shower, get dressed and put on just enough makeup so that I look like an actual functioning member of society as opposed to some prehistoric cave dweller.

When she wakes up, our afternoons consist mainly of errands and playtime. On Tuesdays we go to Mommy and Me where I get to interact with other adults, and on Fridays we hit up story time at the library. If I have a healthy meal ready - even almost ready - by the time my husband gets home, it was an extraordinarily productive day. While he eats, I bathe Baby J, get her into her jammies, hand her off to Daddy for a bedtime story and then nurse her to sleep before cleaning up from dinner. By the time all is said and done, somehow it's 9:00. And I'm beat. By 9:30 my husband and I are both in bed. By 10:00, we're out cold.

Is it easy? No. Glamorous? Absolutely not. Would I rather put Baby J in daycare and go back to work as a teacher? Nope. Because despite the fact that my days are a whirlwind of....stuff, and my tiny little boss doesn't always allow lunch breaks, I wouldn't trade being home with my daughter for the world. Watching her change, grow, develop and discover is truly worth it.

Clean Eating

What is wrong with this picture?

I know that the "in" thing right now is baby led weaning. Everyone is doing it, right? Letting baby decide when she's ready for solids and skipping cereal altogether. It sounds like a great idea, but not for us. 

For starters, Baby J decided that after months of sleeping through the night, she was going to regress. We were up 2-3 times a night. She would nurse and be back in bed within 15 minutes. I, on the other hand, was not so lucky. Once I'm up, I'm up. So I figured that maybe she just wasn't satisfied from breast milk alone. 

I bought Gerber's organic brown rice cereal, mixed it with breast milk, and started her on it at four months. It was an experience for sure. She LOVED her cereal and I loved having that experience with her. 

Then I read the ingredients and WOW! There are a lot of them! It was then that I decided I would make all of Baby J's food. I mean, I'm not going to work every day so I have no reason NOT to make sure she eats as healthily as she can. 

I'm not going to lie - making baby food isn't always convenient. It's much easier to just grab a few jars or pouches of organic baby food from Whole Foods, but it's worth it [to me] to know exactly what is going into her little tummy. 

Check out the picture above. It's Gerber's organic bananas. Look at ALL OF THOSE ingredients! Tuna oil!?!?! I find that to be pretty gross. Then there's gelatin and a few other things that I cannot identify. Convenient? Absolutely. Healthy? I think it's like formula. I just cannot understand how feeding a baby artificial stuff is healthy. 

Yeah, I get that millions of people feed their babies formula and prepackaged baby food. But millions of people also eat McDonald's, White Castle and the like. 

So it has been some trial and error when making Baby J's food. I have to remember to take pictures of the process and then upload them here. 

So far we have made                                 Ingredients                  

Bananas                                                       Bananas

Mangoes                                                      Mangoes

Green beans                                                Green beans, water

Peas                                                             Peas

Sweet potatoes                                            Sweet potatoes, breast milk

Also, think about the shelf life of store-bought baby food. That can stay on the shelf for months. Hell, some of it is probably older than Baby J!!! Gross!!!

I really love knowing exactly what is in the food she is eating. I also use organic fruits and vegetables - so I still can't understand why there are so many ingredients in Gerber's organic bananas. It's just crazy!

The Calm After the Storm

I had every intention of getting this blog off the ground...and then life happened.

I wanted more than anything to be a stay-at-home mom, but living in New York would have made that almost impossible. Why? Well, imagine this: 

• Owning and living in a 1,700 sq. ft. condo (you do not own any of the property that is "your yard". 
• Paying $360 a month (plus an additional $140 a month during June, July and August) in maintenance fees (and special assessment fees) which basically covered lawn care, snow removal, and the concrete hole in the ground otherwise known as the pool. 
• Paying almost $8,000 a year in property taxes. Again, the only thing you own is the inside of your tiny condo. 
• Childcare was going to run about $2,000 a month. We checked out daycare facilities and a private nanny - the cost was going to be about the same.  
• Extras like Mommy & Me? These could run you an additional $200+ a month. IF you could find a place that tailored its hours around working moms. 

So, would it have been possible to stay home and live in New York? Probably. I certainly wouldn't have been the first to make it work. Would it have been ideal? Absolutely not. It would have been extraordinarily difficult. But, we were prepared to make it work one way or another. Then God stepped in. 

After years of hardships, God finally decided that it was time to make our new life a little easier. My husband, the amazing man and father that he has grown to be, was willing to make his work life even crazier than it already was by going to work in Manhattan. The hours would be longer, the commute would be torturous, but the money would be better and I could stay home with our daughter. In May, he had started interviewing and was seemingly about to be handed a position when this other opportunity landed in his lap. This new opportunity was for a position that he hoped to attain in the next 5-10 years of his career. 

Not only would this job put my husband exactly where he wanted to be professionally, but it would also relocate our family to Florida - a place with a much lower cost of living, real suburban communities, and, best of all, no more harsh winters - and allow us to live much more comfortably on one salary than if we were to stay in New York. 

At first, the answer seemed easy - let's go! We were excited and optimistic about the idea of moving. My husband submitted his resume and waited to hear back. And waited....and waited....and waited. 

I had practically forgotten about the job, and my husband hadn't actually expected to get it (according to him, he was too young and lacked the experience that was necessary). So you can imagine our surprise when he got a phone call in June from the head of the company asking him to fly down to Florida the following week for an interview. The rest happened with lightening speed.

I won't bore you with all of the details, but long story short we are now living down in sunny Florida! Moving from New York to Florida with an infant actually wasn't as bad as it may seem, and despite a little touch of homesickness, we have been transitioning pretty well. 

Truth be told, Florida is not AS cheap as I thought it would be, but we are definitely better off than we would have been up in New York. If we were in New York, I would be at work right now instead of writing this blog and our daughter would be somewhere doing God knows what. Her dad would probably be leaving for work before she woke up in the morning and getting home after she was already in bed asleep. 

I've only been here about a month and a half, so it still gets a bit lonely at times. But this new life is good, and I have faith that everything will fall into place just as it should.