The Experiment

A bit about communication and technology and its evolution.

Back in Laura Ingalls’ time (1870s), friends hosted a taffy pull of a winter evening, or families popped popcorn over the fire together, singing, talking, joking, connecting.

Then came radio, film, and telephones. Communication evolved. A hundred years later, friends hung out at a movie or in front of a screen at home. Of course, hopefully, it would be a bonding activity – – you’d get some discussion about the movie and a common experience. Then you could shut off the TV and go for a walk.

Thirty years later and we find ourselves virtually underwater, drowning in noise, screens, and urgency. The advent of texting, smartphones and the Internet has changed the face and voice of communication.

Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily so. Because of Facebook, I connect with friends across the globe. Because of texting, I can quickly ask my husband to pick up dry-cleaning on his way home. Because of smartphones, I have apps that can help me find my way out of any traffic jam.

BUT – the communication revolution and advent of so much new technology (read: increased screen/media time) is detrimental to our kids’ social, intellectual, emotional and even physical development.

Here is the latest blood-boiling example of technology created especially for young children:

http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/action/att

How are we supposed to expect children to grow up and have long attention spans needed to complete a project, read an assignment or a book, or sustain a meaningful relationship when we teach them from infancy to split their focus and multitask?

Deep thought takes time. Real relationships take effort.

The instantaneous technology shoved under our noses today offers neither deep thought nor real relationships; time and effort not required here.

SO…. after all that background, here is our experiment.

Our car battery died yesterday, and I was stuck waiting for a jump start in the parking lot of a medical building for 2 HOURS with DD7, DS3, and DD1. I decided, “let’s see how long we can stick this out without breaking out the smartphone.”

We didn’t take it out once.

We did play hand-clap games. My daughter showed me some of the ones she plays with her friends at school; I taught her the ones I had played at her age.

We did sing goofy songs (mostly themed about waiting for the car guy).

We did spend time sharing our lives together.

DD7 made bracelets for all her siblings. DS3 had a great time “driving” our minivan to multiple destinations. (He really enjoyed “driving” to the beach and to Disney World. Hm.)  DD1 had a wonderful time playing with her siblings.

When else would we have had an uninterrupted, 2-hour block of time with nothing else to do but focus on each other?

Can we cut down on technology for kids? Absolutely. Should we? Definitely. If I had taken out the smartphone, I guarantee those two hours would have been spent fighting for turns, jockeying for space to see the screen, whining about which apps to open. Instead, what could have been a horrible chunk of time turned into a beautiful memory.

When the car guy finally (finally) showed up… we considered singing him some of the songs we had composed about him, but settled for a rousing round of applause instead.

I challenge you: try it.

Next time you want to reach for the smartphone —  put it back. Wait even five minutes, ten if you’re feeling reckless and lucky. They might (most probably they will) protest at first. Give it time, that precious commodity, and try again.

Try it.

Good luck.

Playground Physics

Taught a rockin’ physics class at my DD7’s Montessori school today. Friction, gravity, potential and kinetic energy, and Newton’s First Law of Motion.

We went to the park. The kids played a while, then I called them all over. “Have you ever given any thought to what makes parks work?” I asked. This spurred a discussion and out came all the physics terms above. Running races showed the kids potential and kinetic energy in action. Going down the twirly slide using different surfaces (we found that WD-40 and waxed paper made the fastest slide) taught them gravity and friction.

Above and beyond the class, though, which was fun and successful, I found a gem amidst the scientific jargon.

Potential energy is the stored energy in an object or system.  Picture an Olympic runner just before the start of a race, poised, every muscle taut, coiled, springlike.

Kinetic energy is the energy of a body or a system in motion. Now the runner is charging down the track, arms pumping, legs loping, chest heaving.

Life is full of potential energy and kinetic energy.

There are moments containing massive amounts of potential energy. Marriage, a new job or move, during pregnancy–any new beginning can be seen as the snowball at the top of the hill before it begins rolling, picking up speed and snow as it tumbles down the hill.

Then there are moments of great kinetic energy. You’re in the middle of a project/scheduled day/relationship and your momentum is really kicking. You’re unstoppable. Things are awesome.  In short, it’s all moving right along.

Potential and kinetic energy travel right along with you, small-scale, all day. Potential energy, in a sense, keeps that inner voice cheering like a powerful combustion engine, saying, “You can do it!” Kinetic energy is your body carrying out the tasks at hand, passing the baton from one life assignment to the next.

But what to do when you run out of steam? Or when the momentum of this kinetic energy carries you the wrong way?

Here comes Newton’s First Law of Motion.

Newton’s First Law of Motion says basically that an object at rest stays at rest; an object in motion stays in motion–unless acted upon by another source.

When you feel your kinetic energy waning, or mis-directing, keep in mind that you, and not your circumstances or surroundings, are in charge of yourself, your attitude, your decisions and your words.

When your nerves are frayed by one too many sibling fights, or you’re running late for the hundredth time because someone, somewhere, forgot and mislaid something terribly important, or you’re heading towards what promises to be an epic argument with someone you love – – you can choose the outcome of this adventure.

You can choose to say to yourself, “Nope! I will beat this! I see that this object is in motion in the wrong direction, SO… I will be Newton’s ‘other source’ to stop the motion!”

STOP.

WAIT.

Then apply some basic physics.

The Bet Continues: Another Can-Do Homemade Breakfast!

My first encounter with baked oatmeal was in college. Oatmeal, old friend, I thought I knew you, in all your dependable gloppy glory . What is this 2.0 version!? If you’ve ever wanted to have a just-baked oatmeal cookie for breakfast, maybe dipped in milk, this is the way to go.

This reheats beautifully in the microwave. You’re set for the week – – if it lasts that long!

I make the whole thing in a Ziploc bag because a) it makes cleanup nonexistent, and b) all the smushing and pounding as you make the batter are great gross motor activities for young children. My ds3 LOVES to help in the kitchen, and the more whacking, egg smashing, and squishing, the better.

“Oatmeal Cookie Breakfast” Baked Oatmeal

For a 9×13 pan, about 8 servings:

1/2 cup butter (or oil)
3 large eggs
1/2 to 3/4 cup brown sugar (more or less)
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
4.5 cups oatmeal (regular or quick)
3 T ground flaxseeds

Melt butter and spray a 9×13 pan with nonstick spray.
Drop eggs in a gallon Ziploc bag and mix well.
Add brown sugar, baking powder, vanilla, spices, and salt. Mix well, no lumps. (more squishing!)
Pour in butter and milk, then add oats and flaxseeds.
Smush it around in the bag until well incorporated, then pour into 9×13 pan.
Refrigerate overnight. (Woot! Woot! ADVANCE PLANNING!)
Bake, uncovered, at 350 for 35-45 min, or until set in the middle.
Serve hot with warm milk poured over.

Bon Appetit and have a great day! 🙂

Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

Fellow Bill Cosby fans are familiar with this awesome sketch.

He should have tried this!

I served this to unsuspecting guests this weekend, to rave reviews. Shock and surprise when I told them what this intense chocolate experience was made of!

Unforgettable Chocolate Quinoa Cake
Adapted from from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe, originally from Quinoa 365

Cake Ingredients:
2 cups cooked quinoa, loosely packed
1/3 cup milk
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 heaping teaspoon instant coffee granules
3/4 cup butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 8″ or 9″ round cake pans (or a 9×13 pan) and then line the bottoms of the pans with parchment. (Do not skip the parchment if you want to be able to flip the cake out of the pan.)

Combine the milk, eggs and vanilla in the blender or food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Add the cooked quinoa and the butter and puree until completely smooth. Stop the machine as needed to scrape the sides and make sure everything is well mixed. This will be a thick and creamy consistency once the quinoa is pureed. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and add the contents from the blender. Stir until well combined.

Divide the batter evenly between the two cake pans and bake on a center oven rack for 28-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove the cakes from the oven and let cool 10 minutes before inverting them onto a wire cooling rack. Peel off the parchment and let the cakes cool completely before frosting.

 

My Bet (Or, The Way to Disneyland Is Through Better Breakfast)

So at my house we’re very into healthy food. Whole food. Food where you recognize the ingredients. Food without shrink-wrap, cardboard boxes or a long list of multisyllabic ingredients that sounds more like it came from a pharmacy than from a grocery store.

The one exception is breakfast. Breakfast, as I’m sure it’s true for most of you with school-age children (or anywhere to be in the morning with a deadline, children or no), is a fast feeding frenzy where you grab a box of (healthy) cereal or a fruit bar, a glass of milk or juice, and crunch and slosh it down as fast as you can before you head out the door. Or on really crazy mornings, you jam it in a Ziploc and nibble when you get a chance throughout the day.

This always bothers me. I believe that food, and the event of eating, should be celebrated. (More on that in a later post!) I believe that when we make an event out of a meal, it lasts longer–in the mind, on the palate, and in the body, too. I find that when we sit down for any meal, my family is not searching the fridge twenty minutes later the way they would if they’d just grabbed something from the pantry, noshed on it, and moved on.

But I could never move past the morning rush and reconciled myself to an unsatisfying culinary start to the day.

Then my super, on-top-of-all-fiscal-matters husband tells me respectfully that, as usual, I’m spending too much on groceries and could we please try to tone it down? I reply respectfully that, as usual, it takes a lot of money to feed a growing family, but I would try my best.

Now a bit of backstory. I’ve been working part-time at a Montessori school for a couple of years. My husband and I agreed that any money I make goes for extras, while the money he makes goes for necessities. Just weeks ago, unfortunate circumstances forced the school to close and I was out of a job. 😦 However,  I had saved enough money to purchase four tickets to Disneyland from my salary working for the school.  “It’s a shame the school closed before I saved enough money to buy tickets for the whole family,” I lament to DH. We only needed money for one more ticket.

My wonderful DH says that he’ll pay for the last ticket IF….. I can tone down the grocery budget. Among other things, I figure out that if we cut out all of our morning processed foods, we’ll save at least $10 a week. If I can continue this routine for 10 weeks, there’s that last Disneyland ticket.

So I decided that it’s time to Take Back the Morning Meal. Homemade, wholesome muffins. Old-fashioned oatmeal. Smoothies. Lots of grab-and-go, healthy, whole-foods breakfasts that I feel good about and my wonderful fiscally-minded husband does, too.

Ha ha, you say. This lady has waaaay too much time in the morning. Homemade muffins? To quote comedian John Pinette, “I say, nay, nay!”

The trick to homemade breakfast? ADVANCE PLANNING.

You can mix up all the dry ingredients for muffins in a Ziploc the night before. Mix up all the wet ingredients in a pourable measuring cup the night before. Put the cupcake papers in the muffin tin the night before. In the morning, throwing these muffins in the oven takes little more time than opening a box of cereal, setting out bowls, spoons and a gallon of milk. Plus the whole family wakes up to this sweet, warm, hearth-y aroma that gets them out of bed with smiles and anticipation. No kidding. Honest. (At least so far!)

If you don’t have the time to bake them in the morning, bake them the night before and freeze them. They thaw in the microwave in about 30 seconds to 1 minute, or pop them in the toaster for about 5 minutes.

Here is what we ate this morning:

Blueberry Oat Muffins*

(adapted from 1 Mix, 100 Muffins by Susanna Tee)

1 cup white whole wheat flour

1 T baking powder

1/4 cup brown sugar (more or less)

scant 2 cups rolled oats

2 T ground flaxseeds

1 t cinnamon

1 package frozen blueberries, thawed and drained (it’s that advance planning thing again)

2 large eggs

1 cup buttermilk

6 T oil or butter

Preheat the oven to 400* F. Place cupcake papers in muffin tin. Put all your dry ingredients (flour through cinnamon) in a large Ziploc and shake it up. Add in the blueberries and toss gently. (For advance planners: blueberries added in the AM, or the juice will continue to seep out of the blueberries overnight and gum up your dry ingredients.)

Mix all your wet ingredients (eggs through butter) in a pourable measuring cup. (For advance planners: place in fridge til the AM.)

Pour the dry mixture plus fruit in a bowl. Add in the wet ingredients. Stir until just incorporated. Spoon into muffin tins.

Bake at 400 for 20 minutes, until well risen, golden brown and firm to the touch. Transfer to a cooling rack and let the family devour them.

Have a healthy, happy, money-saving day!

*This recipe is infinitely adaptable. Try different fruits, different spices, different liquids or oils. Will post another one coming up!

Montessori Madness!

Why I send my daughter to a Montessori school:

I’ve been exposed to homeschooling and alternative education all my life.

I grew up in the public school system. I was an honor student, a Gifted and Talented Program kid. I excelled in language arts and history. Later on I went to university on a full merit scholarship.

But, even with all of these academic accolades and scholarly prizes, I hated school. I hated sitting behind a desk bored, while the teacher explained and explained the same thing to everyone else in the class as I doodled away. I hated the social scene. I hated standardized tests, which to me–and everyone else–were just an excuse to avoid regular classes for a week in favor of filling in bubbles on a Scantron sheet without much regard to mental aptitude or higher thinking abilities.

I learned early on to hide my inquisitiveness, intelligence and eagerness for knowledge in favor of not being labeled a “nerd.” Eventually it was no longer an act; I slogged through chapters of anything merely intent on getting the grade and not the knowledge embedded therein.

When I went to college, now an adult able to carry my head held high no matter what the social circumstances, my brain woke up. It was an incredibly liberating feeling. Suddenly the world was full of things to learn, ideas to discover, new concepts with which to struggle.

Yet I mourned those lost years of my own education. What would be now, if I had had gumption enough and foresight enough to fight off the peer pressure that learning was “uncool” and enjoy the mountains and valleys of knowledge all around me?

I mentioned earlier that I had been exposed to homeschooling and alternative education. My mother, a Juilliard-educated piano teacher (see Resa Steindel Brown’s A Call to Brilliance), taught several homeschoolers how to play the piano and I was fortunate enough to know these children for many years, watching them grow and flourish as the years went by. A lot of the kids were my age, yet more accomplished than I in many areas. One of them was a tech whiz (today he owns an international corporation). Another was a math genius. Still another composed complex musical pieces at age 10.

These were kids whose creativity was allowed to flourish. These were kids who were not told that learning was simply to get A’s and pass standardized tests to make the schools look good. These were kids whose passions were fueled, whose love of learning was fed like an ever-hungry beast, rather than extinguished in favor of churning out another docile cog in society’s educational wheel.

This is why I send my daughter–and will hopefully send the rest of my children–to a Montessori school. I want to fan the flames of their creativity, their love for life and learning.

Watch Trevor Eissler explain the Montessori style of education, an educational theory which allows kids’ creativity and passions to develop organically, beautifully, full of joy and excitement.

Ma Ingalls’ Pancake Men

“For breakfast there were pancakes, and Ma made a pancake man for each one of the children. Ma called each one in turn to bring her plate, and each could stand by the stove and watch, while with the spoonful of batter Ma put the arms and the legs and the head. It was exciting to watch her turn the whole little man over, quickly and carefully, on a hot griddle. When it was done, she put it smoking hot on the plate.”

— Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House In the Big Woods

I grew up on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books. We made molasses-on-snow candy and held taffy pulls with friends. My mother even purchased The Little House Cookbook by Barbara M. Walker so we could try out some authentic recipes, learning about Laura Ingalls’ life via the kitchen. (More about my daughters’ Laura Ingalls Wilder birthday party in an upcoming post!)

But Ma’s pancake men were another story. For years I’ve tried to replicate the pancake men in my own kitchen, serving my children something resembling Jabba the Hut rather than a cute little edible guy. Ma Ingalls must have been a deft hand with a wooden spoon! I gave up and started making waffles. Perfect shape, every time.

Today I finally figured it out! (Thank you Martha Stewart http://www.marthastewart.com/354696/firework-cookies.) If you use a plastic squeeze bottle–the kind you’d see in a diner holding ketchup or mustard– and cut a half inch off of the tip, you have a perfect vehicle to draw any shape you’d like in your pan. Work quickly and have fun!

This is our family recipe for pancakes, adapted from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

Pancake Men Recipe

1 1/2 c white whole wheat flour

1/2 c white flour

scant 1/4 cup sugar, or 3 T sugar (you don’t need a lot, especially if you’re putting syrup on the pancakes)

1 T baking powder

2 T ground flaxseeds

1 egg

2 T melted butter

Grease a frying pan with nonstick spray or butter, and spray your pancake turner with nonstick spray. Turn your pan on medium heat.

Mix dry ingredients together. In a Pyrex measuring cup with a spout, beat egg, add milk, and pour slowly into dry ingredients. Stir gently until just mixed. Add the butter and mix again.

Using a funnel, pour your pancake batter into a plastic squeeze bottle and screw on the top. (Hopefully you’ve cut off 1/2 inch of the tip before you start! Otherwise, do it now.)

Test if the pan is hot enough by squeezing a drop of batter in the pan. If it sizzles and starts to puff, your pan is ready.

Working quickly, draw the outline of the head and fill it in. Below the head and connected at the bottom, draw an oval and fill it in. Then add two longer ovals for arms and two even longer ovals for legs. If you want to get fancy, add anything else (feet, hands, etc).

Your pancake man is ready to flip when puffed, full of bubbles and cooked on the edges. Don’t wait too long!

Carefully ease the pancake turner under your pancake man. If he’s ready, he should slide right onto the turner. Slowly turn your pancake man over and cook another minute.

Serve with butter and maple syrup.

We had fun decorating our pancake people with chocolate chip eyes, pretzel stick hands and arms, and syrup clothing. Dd7 and dd5 asked for pancake princesses rather than pancake men. 🙂 Enjoy getting creative with my new favorite kitchen tool!

Perspective

Some of you might be wondering about the picture at the top of my post: Los Angeles at night, with its twisting, snaking freeways all lit up, the lights of the cars swept together in motion.

Life, especially as a parent of young children, can be chaotic. The schedules, the tantrums, the tests of will. The toys everywhere. The endless trips to the bathroom. So here is where the picture at the top of my post comes in.

Life is not a choice. Life is what you get when you wake up each day facing the tasks ahead of you and you move through them in sequence until you go to bed, hitting “repeat” the next morning. BUT – how you live your life is a choice. My Granddaddy, of blessed memory, always said, “You can ruin your life one day at a time. It’s all in your attitude.” So – when faced with a situation (Susie needs to be wiped on the toilet while Jon and Blake hit each other over Legos; meantime the pot on the stove has begun to spit boiling rice everywhere, and of course the baby’s crying), you can ask yourself a few questions:

1. Will this matter in 10 years?

2. Will this matter in 10 minutes?

3. Is it urgent?

4. Is anyone bleeding?

Obviously, if the answer is “yes,” to any of the above, you need to put your priorities into place. Blood comes first, then the pot on the stove. But if the answer to all four questions is “no,” then take a break. Count as many deep breaths as you need while the chaos continues until you can handle it all calmly. (Unfortunately, the craziness will wait for you! 🙂 ) And then go tackle it with a smile. Remember it will not last forever.

The darkness, the freeways – those are life’s twists and turns.  The freeway during the day is a horrible place… long, monotonous stretches of sun-bleached gray asphalt covered by cars crawling through traffic. But look at the picture above. The lights, the motion, make the freeway interesting, fluid, magical even. What changed? Attitude. Light.

Your choices can bring light and make life–yours, and those around you–beautiful.

Welcome!

Glad you’ve found me in my Little House in Los Angeles.

A bit about myself and my blog:

I’m a busy mom of 4. My wonderful husband is at work most of the time. I’ve learned to take (most of) the challenges of parenting with patience, perspective, a sense of humor, and a delicious, healthy diet. I hope to imbue my “little house” with all of the above, and share our journey with you.

I am passionate about education and children. I believe firmly in each child’s innate curiosity and unique intelligences.

Food is one of G-d’s greatest gifts. I look at the meals my family eats each day as a way to say “thank you” to the One Who made all of it, or more precisely, the One Who put all these raw materials at my disposal to tinker with, dice, sautee, and season. I’m glad one of my favorite hobbies is something that I need to do so often! 🙂

Being a mom has made me learn a lot of cool tips how to make life’s craziness easier. Like making dinner ready in the morning so all you need to do is pop it in the oven/on the stove before dinnertime. More on that later.

Looking forward to seeing you. 🙂