We are what we eat

There comes a time in the StereoMom's life when she realizes that if she were at a cocktail party or work function and the small talk turned to literature, she would be forced to admit that the stack on her bedside table was more about form than function and that the last book she'd actually read had a very high illustration to text ratio.

When I reached that point, I dug out my library card (because we StereoMom's have to save our pennies for giant pickles from the snack cart in the school cafeteria so our child isn't the only one who never gets to buy a snack) and started surfing the stacks. My first choice was Sula, a Toni Morrison book recommended to me by our summer office intern, a 19-year old with nothing but time and, fortunately, good taste in books.

Energized by the intellectual jolt and intrigued by an article I'd read in one of the Edible Communities magazines, I trotted back to the library and plucked a couple of Michael Pollan books - specifically, Food Rules, An Eater's Manual and The Omnivore's Dilemma - from the shelves.

Unfortunately, the books did not come with any warnings for StereoMoms with a high propensity for "mommy guilt", and so it is that I find myself fresh off of Food Rules and at once inspired to ditch the fat, sugar, salt and general excess that characterize the so-called Western diet and horrified by the amount of fat, sugar, salt and general excess that characterize the dietary habits of our family.

When I crawled into bed with the book two nights ago, my husband asked me what I was reading. After I explained the premise, he gave me a look that said, 'Don't even think about getting rid of my fatty breakfast pork products'  before he rolled over and closed his eyes.

The more I read, the more I found myself nodding and silently condemning myself as a mother for passing off "edible foodlike substances" such as Cheetos (but I buy the baked version!) and "fruit" by the foot (my husband gets the blame for those) to my kids.

If my son had any idea what was contained in Pollan's missive, he would organize himself a good ol'-fashioned book burnin' and toss every copy in the barrel. The processed snack category is one of his favorite food groups, second only to candy and desserts.

Moving from our "as is" state to a state more like the one Pollan proposes (he doesn't suggest that people completely forgo treats like fried chicken and cake but simply treat them as the treats they used to be decades ago before the dawn of fast food chains and big box snack companies) would be no small feat, particularly when it comes to the men in my house, who have been known to lunch on Club Crackers and pepperoni. But I was with him all the way until I got to Rule No. 64:

Try to Spend as Much Time Enjoying the Meal as it Took to Prepare It.

Indeed, Mr. Pollan. If you live in an empty nest, I'm sure it is lovely to savor every bite, appreciate the flavor, think about the time that golden baby beet spent blossoming in your garden. But just try enjoying a meal in a house where the adults are outnumbered and the combined age of the majority party is 11, and you, too, might find yourself shoving a stack of Trader Joe's pepperoni and Club Crackers down your gullet before racing from the table to the living room just in time to thwart a king-of-the-couch coup attempt by your toddler.

Somebody pass the Cheez-Its.

What's new, Pussycat?

It's November 28th, and my four-year old has already dictated four different Christmas lists to anyone who would oblige him a few minutes of time to take short-hand. My six-year old has been debating whether she should ask Grammy for an American Girl doll or an American Girl doll bed for the past two weeks because, as she was quick to point out to my husband, she only has a doll cradle, and American Girl dolls are not babies.
 
The irony is, in all the items on those four lists, I am hard-pressed to find something that we don't already own in some slightly modified form. Exhibit A: Power Blaster Buzz Lightyear comes equipped with a shield and space gun (that will disappear into the abyss under our couch before the end of the day on December 25), which none of the six Buzz Lightyears littering our living room floor has.

If my daughter opts for the doll, it will be her fourth of the American Girl variety (two she inherited from my niece and one was a birthday gift from Grammy, the bankroller), while the bed would be a novelty on a semantical technicality.

This phenomenon isn't unique to my kids . . . (what do I want for Christmas? Options I've entertained include a new purse, more office-appropriate pants and a salad spinner to replace the one that broke six months ago. After accidentally uttering that last item aloud to my husband I realized how lame it would be to get a salad spinner for Christmas, so I quickly and adamantly told him that I definitely did not want a salad spinner for Christmas.)

. . . or to things. Since I started (sporadically) writing this blog almost a year ago, several of the moms who read it have commented on how much they identify with what I'm saying, which is great. There's comfort in commiserating, satisfaction in standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the daily battles of raising kids, pursuing careers and sweeping three meals worth of crust and crud from underneath the dining room table at the end of each day.

On the flip side, however, those remarks bring into laser focus the undeniable fact that my adventures in parenting, marriage and life in general are ultimately no different than any other mid-30something wife and mom livin' the suburban dream. Funny how one day you just wake up and find that you have become a stereotype. A minivan-driving, carpooling stereotype who has "date nights", stocks her pantry with gummy vitamins and gummy snacks and scolds the teenagers who attend the high school down the street for speeding in her neighborhood.

On second thought, maybe I should just go ahead and ask for that salad spinner.

Lights, camera, action!

Our six-year old had a solo - a poem - in her kindergarten Thanksgiving chapel, which was two days before her brother's preschool Thanksgiving program. With both events scheduled for weekday mornings (are we the only parents who have to work to pay those tuition bills?), my husband, a teacher, had to make a difficult choice, and the Friday event, which included lunch, won out.

In my ongoing campaign for the title of Wife/Mother of the Year, I made a point of charging our video camera and actually remembering to take it with me to the chapel program so my husband could at least watch a replay of our daughter's 17 seconds of fame. Sliding into the gym minutes before the program started, I had forfeited all the good spots on the bleachers. Determined to find a good angle for filming, I parked myself on the end of a semicircle of first graders on the gym floor, trying not to wonder (or care) if any other parents thought I was a crazy pageant mom. 

As soon as the first notes wafted from the piano, I flipped on the camera and hoisted my right arm in a proud parent salute, my eyes darting back and forth between live action and camera screen. The kids belted out song after song about pilgrims, Indians (I know the term isn't PC, but if Florida State can get away with having some guy decked out in full Seminole face paint ride onto their football field every week and slam a spear into midfield, then I guess a bunch of five- and six-year olds should get a pass too), and eating turkey, until I was afraid our short-life battery and my tired arm would give out before the poem was recited.

I am proud to say that both the battery and my arm made it through the entire show. I am embarrassed to admit that I shot most of the program, poem included, with the camera on pause. I didn't even realize it until I got home and attempted to show my dad, who'd pulled house duty with our 15-month old so I could focus on the program (for all the good that did), her big moment that was, oddly, nowhere on the camera.

Needless to say, I let my husband man the camera during the preschool show, which lasted approximately seven minutes.

Hope your Thanksgiving was happy and that you enjoy this rendition of the holiday classic, "I'm a Little Indian."