Kitchen Closes, 7pm!

Behold: The Kimmel Family Dinner

This is the third post in my series on why meals stink when you are a parent. See here for breakfast and lunch.

This happens about four nights every week – Andrea and I look up from what we are doing around 6pm and say to one another “What the heck are we doing for dinner?” The fifth night we’ve usually already planned to eat pizza.

The result is exactly what you might imagine. We have several, simple-to-prepare meals that we lean on heavily. We eat microwaveable food. We eat leftovers. We snack instead of dinner. Some nights are known as “every man for himself,” where all of the above are options.

The biggest problem with dinner is that it takes pre-planning. Meat has to be thawed. Ingredients have to be purchased. Veggies need to be chopped. The slow-cooker needs to be turned on. The disgusting, half-eaten, goopy cucumber in the veggie drawer has to be thrown away and replaced by another half-eaten one that can be left to rot properly.

To Andrea’s great credit, she does plan a couple of meals a week and get the necessary prep work done. I have no idea how she manages this, because most evenings all I have the strength to plan for is a bag of Skittles. The problem with the pre-planning is you never want what you planned for. Our “future” selves always want light and healthy faire - Lots of veggies and salads. Our “current” selves are too darn hungry and tired to be bothered with all that. Just give us another ham and cheese Hot Pocket, please!

There are bonus nights when the kids will eat the same thing as the adults. But usually we are making not one, but three meals on the fly. Soup for the adults, mac and cheese for Cody and pepperoni with crackers for Chiara is a possible combination. The experts and grandparents say “make them at least try the grown-up dish” and we do that… sometimes. Usually the result is that we end up making mac and cheese while the grown-up dish goes cold.  

We insist on at least some vegetables, with post-dinner sweets as the bribe. The kids, who could apparently subsist on nothing but chicken nuggets (Cody) and buttered noodles (Chiara), will have almost nothing to do with veggies. They each have one, and only one, vegetable which they will tolerate. For Cody, it’s raw baby carrots with a hefty amount of ranch dressing; for Chiara, it’s broccoli. We go through Costco quantities of broccoli and baby carrots. By “go through,” I don’t necessarily mean “eat;” the kids resist even the few pieces of each we put on the plate, and admittedly some nights the vegetable consumption that justifies the candy can be measured on the molecular level.

We have a chalkboard in the kitchen where Andrea has written “Kitchen Closes, 7pm!” It’s written in jest, but the joke is mostly on us. Chiara is always last to start a meal – there are baby dolls to be put to bed, after all – and she is slowest to eat. She’s routinely barely getting warmed up by 7pm, much less ready to allow the kitchen to close. The other part of the joke is that what little we manage to get into the kids at dinner time is often not filling enough. About the time bedtime rolls around they need something else to eat – which is a leading contributor to the rapid decline of their parents’ mental health.

One thing I am proud of is that we have eradicated TV watching from dinner. Andrea and I are not averse to TV in general – the kids have very structured, TV-free days so a little couch time in the evening is okay as far as we are concerned. But TV and meals are contradictory. The kids stare at the TV gape-jawed and don’t move a muscle towards lifting their spoons. I do sometimes think I could slide a feeding tube down Chiara’s throat during those rare TV-meal occasions. That might be one way to get her to eat the grown-up meal and her three broccoli sprigs.

At the end of every dinner is clean-up, which is a structured, proceduralized process in the Kimmel household. Parts of the process might not be otherwise necessary but there is nary a meal without a mess - the kids are totally incapable of eating without making one. Spills, too, are frequent. So the vacuum cleaner, Windex and paper towels are only an arms-reach away at every meal. You don’t want to be frustrated by a spill, you really don’t. They’re kids, after all. But, darn it, the spills are so preventable that they are enough to send you into a “fugue state” as follows:

Child: “Sorry I spilled my milk again. It was an accident”

Parent, sputtering: “Well, yeah it was an accident… But we told you not to leave your spoon… It’s the same as last… BWAAARRRR!” (Fugue state ensues)

Our diet is not what it should be. We eat too many processed foods and nowhere near enough fresh fruits and vegetables. We top it off with sweets and alcohol and pizza. But Geez, we are busy, stressed people with small children. Someday, the kids will be older and we’ll be less busy and stressed, and we will eat a lot healthier. Or at least our future selves will.

May the Cheese Be With You

In the search for a freighter pilot to smuggle them to Alderaan, Obi-Wan Kenobi takes Luke Skywalker to the Cantina at Mos Eisley. It’s not for the faint of heart: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy,” Obi-Wan warns Luke.

Well, Obi-Wan, you are wise in the ways of The Force, but I have indeed found such a wretched hive. It’s called Chuck-E-Cheese, and it’s where I spent time on my Labor Day weekend.

Sure, Mos Eisley has vile bandits, privateers, bounty hunters and mercenaries. But Chuck-E-Cheese has vile video games, animatronics and The Cupid Shuffle*. Han Solo had to shoot the bounty hunter Greedo to escape the wrath of Jabba the Hut; we had to shoot skee-ball to avoid the wrath of our children. Han charges 17,000 imperial credits for the trip to Alderaan, almost enough to buy a whole starship. Look at the ticket requirements for the good toys at the prize counter and that starship starts to look like a real bargain.

I have to give Chuck-E-Cheese credit, though - a while back I posted my admiration for our dance troupe and our gymnastics studio for the efficiency with which they parted us from our money. But Chuck-E-Cheese is a force never reckoned with in the realm of parental funds. It is an unbelievably efficient money-destroying machine, turning dollars into tokens, which turn into a small chance at winning tickets worth a tiny fraction of your original dollars. It goes through this money-token-ticket-junk cycle with unparalleled efficiency. The Death Star can destroy whole planets - Chuck-E-Cheese can destroy whole paychecks.**

These tickets and their token precursors are like Wookie Nip to my kids. They run from machine to machine, slugging tokens faster than the Millennium Falcon on hyperdrive.  They can run through 100 tokens in under 12 parsecs.

The Death Star has the tractor beam, but Chuck-E has mass media. They sponsor Curious George, which tells you right away that PBS has gone to the Dark Side. Inundated with commercials, our kids beg to Chuck-E-Cheese weekly. No Jedi mind tricks will work: This isn’t the pizza you’re looking for, go about your business might be effective with weak-minded Stormtroopers, but not with kids who have a steel-trap focus on tokens and tickets.

In order to escape the Death Star, Obi-Wan had to sacrifice his life to allow Han, Luke and Leia time to get away. His light saber duel with Darth Vader ended in tragedy. To escape Chuck-E-Cheese, we had to go to the prize counter with our hard-won tickets. As I watched my $20 turn into a crummy plastic slinky with the life expectancy of a fruit fly, I felt Luke’s pain as he watched Obi-Wan’s robes crumple to the ground.

Star Wars, of course, ends on a high note. The rebel alliance eventually defeated the Death Star. Its defenses were designed for bigger ships; the small X-Wing Fighters were able to fire missiles into an exhaust port that led to the main reactor. Luke Skywalker used The Force to guide his one-shot chance at destroying the evil space station.

Well, Luke has The Force, but I’ve got nothing. I wasn’t able to find any vulnerabilities in Chuck-E’s mighty defenses. But Chuck-E was able to shoot down my X-Wing – I couldn’t destroy the Death Star, but my kids used the Fun Dips they won with their tickets to destroy the back seat of my car. Please, kids, I’m begging you: The Saab 9.3 is a peaceful car. It has no weapons. Show mercy!

So, the next time you feel a great disturbance in The Force, beware. It could be a million voices suddenly crying out in terror and suddenly silenced. It could be that the Death Star has blown up another planet. Or, it could be worse. It could be a day you have to go to Chuck-E-Cheese!

* Cupid Shuffle is apparently the required theme song for dancing mascots at kids’ places, which anyone who has been to The Jump Yard knows. My god, the poor souls who work at these places must, having heard this song 10,000 times, lay awake at night with to the left, to the left, to the right, to the right ringing in their ears.

** It was very tempting to compare Chuck-E-Cheese to the garbage compactor that the heroes ended up in after rescuing Leia from the Death Star brig: dark, disgusting, dirty, with an animated monster pestering them and the walls closing in. But, I have to be fair to Chuck-E. The restaurant is actually quite open, airy and clean with abundant natural lighting. The animatronics, games and all of the furnishings were in good shape. That said, I’m sure Imperial Star Destroyers are quite comfy-umfy for the laser gun operators who live in them -- that doesn’t stop them from being part of The Evil Empire!

The Truth About Educational TV

Almost everything my kids have learned, they’ve learned from one important source: Nickelodeon. On a very regular basis, one of my kids tells me something I’m amazed to hear they know. “Saturn is the Ice Planet,” I learn; or “mammals have fur.” Upon prodding, I invariably find they’ve pick up their factoid from Dora the Explorer or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Unfortunately, they’ve also learned that monkeys can talk and that baby dragons come from magical eggs. I guess we can live with some confusion in that realm. Heck, maybe monkeys can talk.

I do have a few bones to pick with these shows, however. Number one on my list is Dora. In the course of her various adventures, Dora is constantly doing something like climbing Cupcake Mountain or rowing across Chocolate Syrup Lake. The goal of her adventures is always hot chocolate for Grandma, or ice cream for Boots or birthday cake for Isa. Dora frequently says things like “Mmmm, I love lollipops!”

Listen, Nick Junior, it’s hard enough to get your kids to eat their veggies without their animated icons gallivanting around chasing after sweets. Can’t Dora climb Broccoli Mountain and row across Applesauce Lake? Can’t she chase down oranges to make orange juice with Papi? How about “Mmmm, I love Brussels sprouts?!?!?”

I know the reason here – Nick Junior is free with no commercials. But Nickelodeon for big kids is chock full of commercials for sugary snacks and cereals. So how to get the little kids hooked early? It’s the closest thing to product placement they have for this age group. I predict that it’s only a matter of time before Dora is riding her Kit-Kat barge to Dorito valley to see the great strawberry Pop-Tart monument. You heard it here first.

A few notches up the dial, Disney Junior is clearly staffed by Calvinists. How do I know? Toodles on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Toodles is the one who carries all of the tools for Mickey’s adventures. But how in the world can Tootles possibly know in advance that today, and only today, Mickey is going to need a whistle, a hair dryer and a ladder? Predestination, obviously. Disney is clearly trying to teach our children that their futures are predestined and they should accept their fates. It’s another way for The Man to keep us down and it starts in preschool. Am I the only one who thinks of these things?

Another overarching issue with both Dora and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is what it teaches kids about problem solving. Instead of learning that they should run, screaming, from crocodiles, Dora is teaching my kids that they can get past them if they can only make them giggle or build a rainbow bridge over them. Mickey Mouse is teaching them that to solve their problems they just need magical flying tool kits named Tootles.

At least things have come a long way in the realm of animated storytelling. Dumbo, the Disney movie, was released in 1941. How’s this for a story line? In this little ditty, the main character is ostracized for a physical defect. His mother is imprisoned for defending him and he has to live with his outcast companion. Contemplating their troubles, they become so drunk that they hallucinate and pass out. They are awoken by embarrassingly stereotypical minority characters who tease Dumbo into turning his physical defect to a strength.

Uh, I’ll take giggling crocodiles any day.

Lunch

This is second in my 3-part series on why meals stink when you are a parent. For breakfast, see here.

One of the tasks I dread in life – because it is relentless, every night - is packing lunches. Packing for Andrea and myself is bad enough. At least there we can rely on a few good standbys like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It’s boring, but it gets the job done. The kids, however, don’t eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or any kind of sandwich. So you have to get creative. Cheese stick and apple sauce? Does that count as a meal? How about hummus and pepperoni?

Part of the process, every night, is checking the menu at Sweet Kiddles to see if the kids will eat the next day lunch there. There was a point where the novelty of eating the school lunch was enough to get them to eat almost anything that was served there (“Mommy, mommy, today we had Foie Gras and I liked it!” … well, okay, maybe not). No more. Now one or both children won’t eat virtually every meal. Beef Goulash? Chiara loves it, and Cody hates it. Chicken Patty Sandwich? You guessed it, Cody loves it, Chiara hates it. Plus the curve balls- Cody liked Swedish Meatballs last time but four weeks of deep thought on the subject matter and they no longer suit his more mature palate. Forget that someone needed a lunch that day and you are in hot water later. Luckily Miss Lynn has many cream-cheese-and-cracker tricks up her sleeve.

There is one, and only one, blessed meal where both children will eat it: Macaroni and Cheese with hot dog pieces. Chiara loves macaroni. Cody loves hot dog. It is the greatest dish conceived by man as far as we’re concerned – at least since Sweet Kiddles stopped serving Foie Gras.

Ladies and gentlemen, this week Wednesday, August 21, 2013, was macaroni and cheese and hot dog day. It was a great day. And that made Tuesday, August 20, 2013 a great evening.

The macaroni and cheese, as well as every other meal at Sweet Kiddles, is surrounded by fruits and vegetables in an attempt to ensure a healthy diet. As far as my kids are concerned, these are just garnish. They would no sooner eat the peas served at lunch than you or I would eat the sprig of parsley atop our Morton’s Steakhouse steak. When we pack a lunch, we often pack veggie crisps since they eat them and they maybe, just maybe, get some nutrients into the kids. We’re being delusional, of course. Reading the nutrition label on veggie crisps reveals they provide 2% daily allowance of Vitamin A, 0% Vitamin C, Sodium 26%. Read the ingredients: potato flakes are listed first. Yes, veggie crisps are Pringles with some food coloring in earth-toned packaging.

There’s one more course at lunch, which we have no problem getting our kids to eat – it’s the candy course. We must pack a piece of candy in each lunch, or we hear about it later. The kids also usually get a piece of candy on their way home from school at the end of the day, and often one more at dinner. I often wonder: How did we end up giving out so much candy? The simple fact is: it’s the law of precedent in action. A loving gesture on their mother or father’s part one day long ago turned into candy every lunch, ride home and dinner, presumably for the rest of their lives.

The rewards of parenting are far away and the pain is close. Sort of like dieting. And like dieting, sometimes you need the little cheats to get through the painful parts. One Hersey kiss isn’t going to wreck your diet, nor will it wreck your child’s upbringing. You can tell I’m an expert at both diet and childrearing: the first by my masculine, athletic physique and second by my calm, collected presence with my children. The secret to the physique is veggie crisps. The secret to the collected presence? Macaroni and cheese and hot-dog lunches.

The Pre-history of Sleep

Each night in our household goes through a series of phases, each of these are an assault on sleep. It seems that the law of natural selection has favored those qualities in our children that are most adept at keeping me from my slumber. Here’s a walk through the pre-history of sleep:

At the dawn of the sleep era is the Early Gotobedium period (c. 7:30-9:00pm). Dinners and tubbies are done and the house is cleaned up. Now the fight over sleep can begin in earnest. The defensive tactics that evolve during this time period can be summed up by the phrase “delay, delay, delay.” This can be done several ways: claim hunger (a good mechanism for this is to refuse to eat dinner); refuse to get on pajamas; refuse to pick out books; and - when all else fails – the battle cry of sleep avoidance: laywithmelaywithmestaywithmestaywithmeIdontwannagotobed!!!

Next comes the Middle Gotobedium period, sometimes called the Gotofrickenbedium period (c. 9pm-10pm). Here, the parents are just trying to get some work done, for goodness sake – there is always work – so that they can watch a little TV and relax. But regular interruptions can be expected. A great defense against sleep at this point is to be scared of the dark. When the lights are left on, you have to get creative, but since you’re not sleepy at all, monsters can be imagined anywhere you put your mind to it. Bonus points in this phase if you re-waken your sister and get her involved, double bonus if one parent is out of town and has to put both kids back to sleep.

Finally, finally, the kids are asleep and we begin the Late Gotobedium period (c. 10pm-12am). Here the wounds on sleep are mostly self-inflicted by the parents. Work gets wrapped up or postponed until morning (when it can then be postponed until evening), and it’s time to go to bed. But wait, I’m not a robot! I’m not a nun! I can’t just work and take care of kids all day and not have a little me time. So even though we really shouldn’t, we cut into our sleep and watch some TV. A snack and maybe a drink help to do even more damage to our mental and physical health, but we deserve them.

At some point we enter the Early Whattheheckium period (c. 12am-3am). Parents are in early, light slumber or even still awake trying to fall asleep but wound up from the work and TV show. This is the perfect time for Chiara to interrupt and totally derail the falling-asleep process. The need for potty usually works great here. Sometimes, you can even refuse to go back to your bed and wiggle your way in between mom and dad for a time.

Late Whattheheckium (also known by far worse names, c. 3am-5am). Here you are in deep, deep sleep. Long, uninterrupted periods are absolutely necessary to wake feeling rested. Thus, this is the perfect time for physical brutality. This is Cody’s period, and snuggles up before you are aware of his presence, which allows him to start kicking you in the ribs and knocking his head against your jaw. Getting dowsed with ice water would honestly be more regenerative than cuddling with Cody.

The Ohgodsoearlium period (c. 5am-7am). No matter how late they stayed up or how late you think you will get to sleep, the kids will be in before this time (the exception is when you have to be somewhere early; they’ll decide it’s the perfect day to sleep until 9am). This period is characterized by the rise of the children to dominance and the complete extinction of sleep. The kids usually overtake the bed, forcing parents to seek refuge on places like the settee, for a few more minutes of desperately needed, if crooked-necked, sleep.

Which brings us to The Waking Era (c. 7am-present). Aided by stimulants such as hot showers and caffeine, the parents can usually bring themselves to a functional, if zombie-like, existence. Down in the kitchen, they sit in silence contemplating the brutality of facing the day to come. Meanwhile, the children, who seemed to get no more sleep than the adults, race up and down the upstairs hallway, knocking into things and screaming like frenzied howler monkeys.

I went into this parenting gig with eyes open, knowing it would be tough at times. I knew there would be sleep interruptions while the children were infants and needed feeding. But never did I imagine that, almost 6 years into it, I would still be sleep deprived. Perhaps I was naïve and did not know Darwin’s Law of Sleep Selection: species rise and fall, tectonic plates shift, but one thing never changes – children hate, hate sleep.

Put this post back where it goes!

While we were in Boston several weeks ago, my brother-in-law Jay approached my sister-in-law Lauren with the newly folded laundry. Working his way through the stacks, he proceeds to hand her a folded blanket.

“Go ahead and put it away, Jay” she tells him.

“Where should I put it?” he asks.

“Where it goes.”

“Where’s that?”

This is the blanket that Jay has been using to keep his toes warm in his favorite chair while watching television for the past eight years. It seems his male brain had never deemed familiarity with the blanket something worth worrying about. This blew Lauren’s female brain mind.

Honestly, I can relate to Jay. There have been many times when I’ve found myself with a folded article or toy to put away and thinking to myself in a panic “I know I’ve seen where this goes. I know it.” Last week I was putting away bath mats, and accidentally put the kids’ mat in our bathroom and vice versa. I knew they were mats, I knew they went on the tub, but I couldn’t remember which went where. Even as I write this I couldn’t say with confidence whether green goes in our bathroom or the kids. Apparently it matters, I just can’t figure out why.

Our friend Brian often gets mixed up which underwear is his daughter’s and which is his wife’s. I have a simple mnemonic for this myself: The underwear with Hello Kitty on them belongs to the 5-year-old (although I do understand this doesn’t hold true in all households).

And the biggest problem of all is redecoration. Andrea likes to keep her house up to date, periodically redecorating rooms, especially as the children get older and outgrow their kiddie furniture. While great for the curb appeal of our home, it’s more than my Neanderthalish mind can handle. In the playroom, where white bins have been replaced by wooden cabinets, I find myself asking “God, where in the world does Captain America go now?” Eventually I just give up, and Captain America takes up temporary residence on the train table (very temporary, of course, because the train table is literally being replaced this weekend).

In the end, giving up is usually what I do best. When making beds, Chiara’s pillows stand up. Cody’s lay flat. Don’t get them wrong. Who can remember this [stuff]? I give up!

But I’ve devised the perfect solution for Andrea – given the bird-brained capabilities of the male cranium, take a solution that has worked with birds. Build a device that rewards and punishes behavior, and the brain will teach itself. Stand the pillows up, and get a pellet of food. Lay the pillows down, get a mild shock.

Or wait, was it lay the pillows down for food?  ………ZAAAAP!

Crime and Punishment

You can almost see how the idea was first hatched: a military briefing room, covered in maps and blinking lights, the colonels and majors hunkered over a table chomping cigars. “It’s come to the final hour, men. What can we do? How can we assert control over this situation?”

“I know what to do,” says a gravelly voice from the dark corner. The soldiers gasp. No one knew he was sitting there, and even now only the ember from his cigarette gives any hint of form.

“Well Captain?” says the Colonel.

The commando steps into the light, revealing his sinewy, scarred face and eye patch. His one eye glares out with resolute determination, and he speaks slowly and deliberately. “I know what will strike fear into their hearts and force compliance… make them sit on the steps for 3 minutes!”

The time-out was born. Over time it evolved from military torture method into suburban disciplinary technique. In our house, the time out is surrounded by a whole system gleaned from the TV show The Nanny, where all great parenting is learned. Here’s how it goes: after serving his time on the steps, the child must say what he’s done, apologize, say he won’t do it again, and give hugs and kisses. It works wonders when televised.

Here’s the problem – it doesn’t seem to be working in real life. Our recidivism rate is appalling. The children attend their parole hearing, swear they are reformed, and then go straight back to their criminal ways. Longer and more draconian sentences don’t seem to be working. NOTHING SEEMS TO BE WORKING! THE KIDS JUST KEEP ACTING LIKE JUVENILES!

Another thing I’ve found is that the steps have, shall we say, porous containment ability. Jail breaks are frequent. If you are in our neighborhood, do not pick up hitchhikers. They could be time-out escapees. The stress level on the prison guards, which was high to begin with, shoots through the roof when the children abscond.

Finally, there are the two DA’s, who are constantly overworked and underappreciated. They relentlessly accuse one another of being “soft on crime” and of prejudices in the system, especially in regards to their partiality towards certain family members. (As a side note, this is certainly true in the case of Andrea’s dealings with Cody, who is a hellion and deserves everything he has coming. Chiara, on the other hand, is a dear, sweet angel who doesn’t really warrant hard discipline but instead needs tender and nurturing guidance).

Basically, the whole household justice system is broken and is desperately in need of reform. Sometimes I think we should do as England did in the 18^th century and ship our criminal class (children) to Australia. At least then we could explain their behavior due to upbringing by kangaroos.