Real Food Challenge - Day 2

First off, I got hungry last night.  So instead of ice cream or cookies (sigh) I had some mixed nuts and water.
Second off, I realized that our bread has some iffy ingredients at the end of the list.  Lame!  I looked at the beginning of the list for whole grains and no corn syrup, but the end has a little meh. I really dislike when ingredient lists contain something "as a preservative."  Ick.

So I went and bought some local bread that was marked down to the SAME PRICE as this bread, with a much more beautiful ingredient list:

Booyah.
On to today.

Breakfast:
-Old fashioned oats with blueberries frozen from the summer
-Coffee with Coffeemate Natural Bliss Vanilla creamer

Lunch: 
-Leftover honey chicken stir fry
-Mozarella cheese stick
-Water
-blueberries
-red pepper bread

Snacks:
I was at my parents' washing diapers and I MAY have had some real food cookies and fudge.  What?  I know the ingredients in those: sugar, flour, salt, butter, sugar, cocoa, sugar, sugar, sugar

Dinner:
-Spinach macaroni and cheese made with sharp cheddar and goat cheeses, organic spinach, and whole wheat noodles
-Skim milk
-Red pepper bread

Other participants

the pajama mama

cooking off the beaten path

the kavanaugh report
the naptime organizer
inside her eyes

Clean Food Challenge - Day 1

I am participating in a one week real food challenge that started today.  Here's the link.  The rule is basically that you can't eat anything with ingredients you don't recognize.  So those long chemical looking names in ingredient lists?  Nope! I generally try to do this in everyday life anyway, but I decided that this official challenge would force me to examine how well I'm doing.  Often, I will feed the babies all real, healthy food and I'll eat something quick and easy (dangerous).

So here's my first day in detail -

Breakfast:

-Realized my prenatal vitamins have three different dyes in them.  Ick.  My next multivitamin will have to be from the co-op, I guess.

-A couple bites of wheat toast with butter and organic apricot spread (before Callum stole the rest)

-A piece and a half of cranberry/walnut sourdough bread (from bakery) with cream cheese,  peach juice, coffee with new coffeemate natural bliss vanilla creamer

Morning snack (quiet, you):

-More coffee

-A grapefruit (minus some bites that other child stole) with a tiny bit of sugar on top

Lunch:

-Sandwich: red pepper bread from bakery with sun dried tomato deli turkey, shredded “fiesta blend” cheese, green bell pepper, organic spinach, all toasted.

-Bearitos organic tortilla chips

-Glass of skim milk

FAIL: Without thinking at all, I ate a Thanks-a-lot girl scout cookie!  Definitely not real food.  I didn’t even make it a full day!  L

Afternoon:

-Calming herbal tea

Dinner:
-Brown rice
-Palak paneer (from packages, but ok!)
-Patra (which is apparently an Indian snack/side dish - my friend Megan sent Brian home with a bunch of Indian food a couple weeks ago)
-Garlic naan (this one is pretty much a fail too but I'm pretending it's not because I LOVE naan and I will not NOT eat it.)  See?

Dessert: 
-Snow ice cream (1 c. milk, 1 tsp vanilla, about 1/3 c. sugar, 4 c. fresh snow)

The other participating mamas:

the pajama mama

cooking off the beaten path

the kavanaugh report
the naptown organizer

H is for

Photo 52: ABCs - A, B, C, D, E, F, G

SNOW DAY!

Lame-o that I am though, I keep my daycare open even when school closes, so we had a full, busy day with two extra little munchkins running around.  Oh well, extra money.  :)  At least Daddy got to come home at noon and help Everett build a fort/igloo.

The extras

The neighbor girls helped out in the afternoon

Limiting Screen Time

Recently, I got very annoyed at the amount of screen time Everett has been having and the amount of whining that went along with it.  It seemed like a constant every day that he would be begging for a show on t.v. or his iPod or my phone, and it was a whiny begging to boot.  I would try to tell him, "not right now," or "wait until the babies are sleeping" and nothing seemed to help.  He would whine so much that I would eventually give in for the sake of my sanity and then he'd zone out for 30-60 minutes.  I hate the way I could tell that his brain absolutely shut OFF while watching a show.  It was the exact same look I remember seeing on Brian when we were in high school and you could tell his ADHD kicked in.  I fear that Everett will have ADHD too and I know that screen time would contribute to that, so I was really upset that he was watching so much.  Plus I felt like a terrible mom because I should be teaching him during those times that he's bored.
Well, this week, we implemented a "no screen time during daycare hours" rule.  He's questioned it a few times and asked for a show or tried to nab his iPod, but he is doing amazingly well.  I think having such a clear rule that he knows (if there is an extra baby in the house, there's no tv or iPod) helps him to cut down on the whining too.  I'm not going to say "not right now" or "maybe later;" it's just going to be a "no.  Not until daycare is over for the day."  It is absolutely amazing the immediate turn-around in behavior/boredom in just one and a half days.  He's playing independently; he made us pretend egg salad and soup this morning and has a whole city of cars hiding behind the couch in his secret hiding space.  He's more willing to sit and read a book or color or work on learning letters.  He's playing with the babies and helping me.  I love it!  This is just further support that cancelling cable would be good for us.  I think I'd like to keep the basic channels but just getting rid of the constant availability of kid's shows on Nick Jr and Sprout might be nice.
Anyway.  Everett's decided that naps are for babies and he wants to play his Diego board game with me, so I'm off to be a good mama!