(no subject)

[the_rck]

The nearby science/nature center is planning a parents’ night out thingy for next weekend. For $30, they’ll keep kids for five hours and feed them dinner and keep them busy. Cordelia is just young enough for it, and I’m tempted because I’d like some time with Scott while she’s not around, but she would loathe it.

I think Scott and I are out of luck on getting time to ourselves. She doesn’t want to spend the night with Scott’s sister or Scott’s parents, and sleepovers are apparently not a thing in her friends group. On weeknights, we have less than an hour after she turns off her lights before we need to be in bed. On weekends, she’s up later than we are.

We’re trying to come up with things that Cordelia is willing to take in her lunches (and will actually eat). Right now, she’s taking some cucumber and a sandwich and then complaining a lot about how that’s not enough. She’s willing to take apples but only if we cut them up for her. Nothing else I’ve suggested has met with her approval. I’ve suggested other vegetables and fruits, hummos, yogurt, beef jerky, and nuts. I’ve also suggested that she put more on her sandwiches.

My left foot started hurting badly again yesterday evening and is still pretty painful. The pain seems to show up in different places at different times, so I’m really pretty confused by it.

We started watching that Shannara adaptation last night. I’m not convinced we’ll finish. It wasn’t terrible by any means, but I don’t think either of us connected to either story or characters. I think I’m going to push for watching our Netflix DVD (Whitecollar season 1 DVD 2) first.

I woke with a headache this morning. It’s on just one side of my head, so I tried my migraine medication first. That hasn’t killed it, so I’m debating what to try next.

Scott decided recently that he wanted to try oatmeal made from steel cut oats instead of instant oatmeal. Unfortunately, our deepest bowls (which are pretty darned deep) aren’t deep enough to keep the stuff from bubbling over in the microwave. Scott cleaned the microwave, but the bowls ended up pretty nasty inside and out. I had to fill the sink in order to soak them, and I still had to pry bits of oatmeal off with my fingernails after. I don’t mind Scott trying something healthier, but I think he’d better cook the stuff on the stove instead of in the microwave.

Comments

[retsuko]

I think Cordelia's old enough to understand that her parents get date nights, and that you should go forward with the Nature Center deal. It's not unreasonable that you get a night out!

[the_rck]

We actually wouldn't so much want a night out as a night in without Cordelia's constant, wakeful presence. Our house is small enough and has thin enough walls that there's no place in it for even a private conversation (Scott and I use email and AIM if we don't want Cordelia to hear, but it's not reliable because Scott's often not paying attention to get the initial message).

I think the hard part in communicating to Cordelia that Scott and I want private time is that we haven't really ever done it at a time when she wasn't doing something else that she really wanted to do or was obligated to do for other reasons. No-- I take that back. We left her with another family once while we went out for dinner when she was about seven, and it was a long time before she forgave us for doing it.

Steel cut oats

[dialecticdreamer]

I prefer stove top method for it, but you MUST stand by the stove and stir, stir, stir. I have to sit on a bar stool.

For microwave, use a wide-mouth quart canning jar and put butter/oil/ margarine on the upper half of the inside (not a re-purposed spaghetti jar, for example. If it has a seam, it CAN explode) and make only ONE serving . All that extra vertical room helps. Also, try using 1/2 a serving of steel oats, cook it at least halfway, and add the other half serving as rolled oats. The steel cut oats end up slightly overdone, but when it's a new flavor, that's actually a good thing.

The most satisfying, dead easy method? Set it up in the crock pot the night before. The spray or wipe-down with oil/margarine as for a baking pan is ESSENTIAL.

http://www.ehow.com/how_7340402_cook-cut-oats-crock-pot.html

Use a little extra water if you like, and that'll make raisins plump up much better. Serving in the morning is the time it takes to pour drinks and get out bowls and spoons. (Dried apples just don't SURVIVE around here, and craisins are cranberries boiled as often in sugar syrup as maraschino cherries are before drying, so we avoid them, too.) We prefer fresh berries, or frozen ones, sliced banana added at the table, a spoonful of peanut or almond butter... there are TONS of variations. Hint- a drizzle of chocolate syrup with steel cut oats and raisins is VERY much like chocolate oatmeal cookies.

[lunabee34]

Emma takes baby bell cheese and string cheese. She makes roll ups of lunch meat and sliced cheese in tortillas. She also takes grapes sometimes. Those little lunch size bags of chips or snack crackers. Yogurt. Pudding or jello cups. Goldfish. Pickles.

I wonder if she's not getting enough protein to feel full. What about a boiled egg?

[the_rck]

If she would eat an egg, I'd happily send one. She's very reluctant to eat eggs. I've told her to double or triple the amount of lunch meat and cheese she puts on her sandwiches.

I've suggested yogurt because I hoped that more protein that way might help.

She's willing to take crackers, but I'm not convinced that they'll carry her through as much as more protein or some veggies for bulk would.

[lunabee34]

*nods nods*

What about baby carrots and cherry tomatoes? Celery sticks full of peanut butter?

[the_rck]

She won't eat carrots, and we've had very mixed luck with cherry tomatoes-- She'll try one from a box and only eat the rest if that one pleases her. Scott and I don't eat tomatoes at all, so it's not like we're going to eat them if she doesn't.

Celery sticks with almond butter (we don't buy peanut butter because I'm allergic) might work. I'll ask her what she thinks.

[lunabee34]

Good luck. *hugs*

[kyrielle]

If she doesn't like bulkier sandwiches, maybe taking two sandwiches would help? You'd need more bread if that worked, but it still might help some.

Does she have Thermoses available? Maybe hot leftovers could work sometimes.

For the apples, would she cut her own if you got her an apple cutter? I kind of adore ours - it takes a hard press down but no knife worries - and it's dishwasher safe (rinsing it right after using is a good bet though). This isn't the same one but actually looks slightly superior / more comfortable to use: http://smile.amazon.com/Chefaith-Slicer-Cutter-Wedger-Divider/dp/B0184YLZZW/

Various things we've put in ours, some of which I think you've already said she doesn't care for, and I apologize for not remembering which:

• Fruit: grapes, oranges (cuties, or wedges from larger oranges), bananas (or banana halves, but mine are smaller), berries or cherries in season, melon slices or balls (rarely, but sometimes - Ian adores this), pouches of dried fruit or single-serving cups of peaches or pears (which requires a spoon included). Sometimes I add a little container of caramel dipping sauce for apples. (Also pouch applesauce, but I think Cordelia is too old for that.)


• Snacks / sides: Cheese sticks, bags of chips. (We don't often add the latter - rarely the former, but if the lunch is low on protein it goes in.) I'd add 'nuts' in this category but Andrew's school discourages them and Ian's bans them, and neither boy loves them.


• Veggies: Carrot pieces with hummus (Ian eats these, Andrew doesn't), green pepper spears, fresh peas in summer, lemon cucumber, regular cucumber, pickles, black olives, cherry tomatoes, corn (sometimes on the cob, in which case a half-cob hot and in the thermos). Peas and corn need forks or spoons, of course - the latter works better with Andrew's short lunch in particular.


• Drinks: besides water, juice boxes, or shelf-stable milk or chocolate milk. For Cordelia, the larger juice bottles might make more sense - mine are still small enough that the little boxes are enough.


• Mains, besides sandwiches: Tortilla roll-ups, quesadillas, leftovers from dinner (some cold, some heated and in a thermos - cold pizza is surprisingly popular), mac'n'cheese (the instant microwave kind), ramen without the broth (cheese sticks usually go in with this), "lunchables style" (crackers, quarters of cheese slices, rolled-up or cut up meat - sometimes I use a fancy cutter but honestly I usually just quarter them). Rarely, "breakfast for lunch" which is chilled toaster waffles with a thing of maple syrup for dipping in, plus hot scrambled eggs in a thermos and accompanying silverware, plus a fruit option.


• Desserts: Zucchini chocolate muffins when I'm really on my game. More often, rice krispie treats, a cookie (or two if they're small), a piece of chocolate, edible cookie dough (doesn't bake well, tastes great uncooked and no eggs, freezes fine for later use - usually with chocolate chips or M&Ms in), brownies....

For the thermos, best piece of advice I got is to fill it with near-boiling water 10-15 minutes before putting the hot stuff in, it stays hotter longer.

[lunabee34]

My daughter is 13 and she loves those applesauce pouches, especially the apple mango flavor.

[carbonel]

Steel cut oats are easy to make on the stove, and easy to clean up after if you put the pot to soak right away. I live alone, and find it simpler to make a few days' worth at once than to try to make a single serving.

(I actually bought the container of steel cut oats for a parkin recipe. That was a disaster, so I ended up using it to make oatmeal instead. The first time, I was surprised at the way it turns from hard little BBs into real oatmeal.)

[the_rck]

I think Scott has lost track of the fact that stove top preparation is possible for things like this. He seems to have the idea that the microwave is automatically easier. He uses the stove top for boiling water and for making popcorn and, once in a very great while, for a stir fry.

[hamsterwoman]

You have my sympathies on the kid lunch dilemma. L is very picky about what she will eat in all contexts, and a slow eater, so (except for some brief months of respite here and there) school lunch has always been a struggle with her. At one point in first grade, when the only thing she'd reliably finish would be a tiny PB&J sandwich and some Goldfish crackers, she was eating lunch with her teacher (this was some reward for good behavior, to have the winning table eat lunch with the teacher), who asked, "Is that all you're having for lunch?" And L said, "That's all they give me." We had an interesting conversation with the teacher afterwards, haha.

Anyway, you've probably tried all of these things already, or they contain dealbreakers for you or for Cordelia, but the things we've had (intermittent) success with:
- celery sticks, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, snap peas, small sweet peppers
- easy-peel tangerines with no pits (like Cuties)
- apple-sauce/apple-banana sauce you can "drink" from a pouch, like this
- dried fruit (apples, mango)
- trail mix
- box of raisins/cranberries
- fruit bars
- small smoothies/drinkable yogurt (or squeezable yogurt, like GoGurt (when we lost the battle over actual healthy yogurt; this is the only form in which L will take her dairy, so we've made Compromises)
- peanut-butter filled pretzels, RitzBits crackers which have cheese or PB inside (these are crap, but at least they do contain some extra protein)

On the kid-free time note, would Cordelia perhaps want to go see a nice long movie with a group of friends? :)

I didn't realize one even *could* make steel-cut oatmeal in the microwave (though maybe this example shows that one can't...) I remember B experimenting with it on the stove, and it was easy but tedious.

[the_rck]

Cordelia says she might eat pea pods, so we're going to get some. She won't touch tangerines/satsumas, and she says she's not interested in applesauce. She's very specifically rejected all forms of yogurt for lunches (she likes it at home sometimes).

She might eat dried fruit, especially sweetened, dried cranberries. She doesn't like raisins, though. We've tried to get her interested in those.

She would probably eat the filled RitzBits. I'll run that by her.

Cordelia won't go to movies in the theater. She says she doesn't like movie theaters, and she's been sticking with that even when she really wants to see a new movie. She'd rather wait and not deal with the theater.

Maybe I can convince her to go to plays instead? We're in a city that has a fair number of those, but I'd guess that only 1/4-1/3 of what's available would interest her, and that bit tends to be seasonal.

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

It's been a long time since I last made hot cereal, but I think I remember making it work in the microwave by putting the microwave on very low power. If I remember right, I would heat it on high for X number of seconds, then switch to low for the rest of the time. Or something like that. It took some experimentation to get that to work, but at some point I had my routine down well enough that I could consistently make hot cereal that way.

Oatmeal!

[ken-3k.livejournal.com]

The intermediate step between "instant oatmeal" and "steel cut oats" is called "old fashioned oats." You can find that from Quaker, or in the store brands (Meijer, Kroger). Old Fashioned Oats cook in a microwave in 3 minutes (my old carpooler was a firm believer in 3 min 20 seconds). A half-cup of oats does not overflow my 8" (I think, can't find a measuring tape) Corelle bowl, and cleanup is easy if it is either immediate, or after a bit of soaking. (Fill the used oat bowl with water if it's going to sit a while.)

I eat 1/3-1/2 cup of microwaved old-fashioned oats a couple of times a week, so this is lived experience. :-) I keep meaning to try steel-cut oats -- my father-in-law was a fan of them -- but I'm too lazy to cook them on the stovetop.