Archive for September, 2010

Hot Lunches Without the Headache

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

For a long time, my kids would have nothing to do with sandwiches.  Me, I love a good sandwich — nice sourdough, some garlic sauce, lots of onions — but there’s no telling what your kids will like or dislike.  And mine didn’t like sandwiches.  So we had to come up with something else to put in their school lunches.  If only, we thought, there were some way they could have a nice hot lunch every day at school without us having to show up at lunchtime to cook it for them.  Luckily, we found such a way.

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Homemade Egg McMuffins and Other Turbo Breakfasts

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

It’s no secret: Mornings are not my strong suit.  As the family cook, I’m responsible for meals, including breakfast, which means, if it were solely up to me, breakfast would be relegated to special occasions only in favor of a few minutes’ more sleep.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, for the kids), I am not the chief executive and am under orders to provide the kids with a reasonably healthy breakfast each morning before school.  So here are some of the ways I get food into my kids in the morning when we’re in a hurry.

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The Changing Face of Childhood Riddles

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

Let’s face it — children love riddles.  No matter how corny or silly — in fact, perhaps, the sillier, the better — they can’t seem to get enough.  And they don’t have to be new, either.  Consider these classics:

A plane crashes exactly on the border of the United States and Canada.  In which country would the survivors be buried?

A man sees an acquaintance standing on a corner with a dog.  He asks the friend if his dog bites; the friend says no but when the man tries to pet the dog, he gets bitten.  Still, the acquaintance told the truth — how is that possible?

A boy and his father were involved in a terrible automobile accident.  The father was killed instantly and the boy was rushed to the hospital and brought into the operating room where the head surgeon was waiting.  The doctor took one look at the child and declared “I cannot operate on this boy for he is my son!”  How can that be?

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High School Won’t Let Teen Be King

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

While high school is not supposed to be a popularity contest, it’s got to make a parent proud to have their child chosen, by the other students, to be homecoming king.  Similarly, it would be absolutely devastating and infuriating to have the school step in and take that title away.  That’s what happened to Oakleigh Reed, a senior at Mona Shores High School in Muskegon, Michigan.  The teen is happy about the support from the other students, but notes that “sometimes it’s nice to have something tangible.”

Mind you, Reed is no troublemaker that drew votes via threats of violence.  Nor was he disqualified for having flunked out of school or being on suspension — the child is an honor student, even.  And there was no evidence of misconduct in regards to the vote — “I knew I had a lot of votes,” Reed said, “because people were telling me in the hallway, ‘Hey, I voted for you, I voted for you.'”  So why did the school take away Reed’s crown and title?

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Things Parents Say

Sunday, September 26th, 2010

“I found yer anus!”

Parent searching for books in a series about the planets in the solar system.

Have you heard yourself saying something crazy to your spouse or to your kids? Has someone said something to you that, in retrospect, seems completely off-the-wall? Let us know!