Better than an Egg McMuffin...

Parker and I had quite the action packed weekend while his Dad was out of town. On Saturday, we went to a Cartoon Festival at Symphony hall and on the way there did one of our favorite things, eat.

Since parking in that area is virtually impossible, we rode the city bus (one of Parker's favorite things to do) and ate our breakfast on the way. We were in a hurry so I stopped at Junebug, my favorite cafe and picked up an egg sandwich. I am in love with the breakfast sandwiches there but I wasn't sure how Parker would like it. He's not a picky eater at all and 99% of the time he eats what I eat and likes what I like but every now and then he surprises me.

For instance, I still can't understand why he doesn't like mashed potatoes. It just doesn't make sense to me that any human being, not to mention a kid, would not just swoon at the sight of a big, buttery mass of masheds. I can barely make them without eating at least 5 or 6 spoonfuls before I plate them.

But I've recently decided not to force the issue because he doesn't actually NEED mashed potatoes anyway. Sure it's a vegetable but they don't pack much of a nutritional wollop and their richness could help him develop a strong palate for other rich, highly caloric foods. And I've read that white potatoes can cause a sharp spike in blood sugar levels followed by a subsequent crash.

This spike-crash phenomenon in foods like white potatoes, white rice, white flour and sugar is believed to create a cycle that puts your body into almost constant hunger mode. And what you ususally end up craving is something sweet which causes the cycle to start all over again.

So I've given up. If he doesn't like them, I will no longer force the issue. Doesn't seem worth it except that I no longer get to eat the mashed potatoes he invariably leaves on his plate. Dang.

Back to the sandwich. It was a pale yellow, fluffy egg on a croissant with cheddar cheese, fake (veggie) sausage, and what must have amounted to copious amounts of butter. Yum, yum and yum! The fake sausage is so good, I almost don't believe it's fake. I mean how could veggie sausage POSSIBLY taste that good? And I'm more than a little scared to ask because if it turns out to be real sausage, my 15 year commitment to shunning red meat would certainly be tested.

So, as I should have predicted, Parker loved it. I knew he would like the croissant part and I thought he would end up eating most of the outside while I ate most of the middle. Cause Parker is definitely a bread man. If I let him, he would eat all bread, all the time. But surprisingly he was really more into the eggs.

Still, it wasn't really enough. I'd bought a sandwich for us to share and he ended up eating his half and a some of my half too. And when it was gone, he demanded more. "More sandwich, please," he said when I offered him an Odwalla bar that I'd packed for backup. He was getting upset, and I quickly tried to explain that our sandwich was gone and that we were already halfway downtown, a long way from Junebug. As I prepared for a meltdown, he seemed to accept the logic of my explanation and resigned himself to the Berries GoMega bar.

Disaster averted, we landed at Symphony Hall where Parker enjoyed cartoons, performances, face painting,



AND (drumroll please) a lollipop. See? I'm not a total health-nut-nazi-mommy. :-))





Pic at the top is Parker jamming with a band. Note the look of intense concentration. :-) Pic at the bottom is Parker completely exhausted from our long morning.

bye, bye winter

I, for one, don’t mind that winter is over, but Parker sure does. Here he is enjoying the last of the snow from a blizzard we had last week. Even though it’s much warmer now, it’s taken forever for all the snow and ice we had to melt. Strangely, just two days before the blizzard, it was 70 degrees and we went to the park and ate ice cream cones. ?!?!?!

Parker, may have been the only one in town to be excited about winter’s unwillingness to go down without a fight. “It’s snowing,” he screamed, jumping up and down while I looked for his mittens. He could not have been happier to go outside and ‘help’ his dad shovel the snow from the steps.

I’m not sure how it happened-he certainly didn’t inherit it from my share of the gene pool- but this kid loves snow! Maybe every kid does. But his love seems to extend beyond the initial excitement and novelty of watching it fall from the sky. Every day that he wakes up and sees it, it’s as if he’d never seen it before. “There’s snow outside,” he’s yelled every morning for the entire week we’ve been waiting and hoping it would melt already.

And this year, he’s developed a strange fascination with winter sports. I really don’t know where that comes from. God help him if he likes any sports actually, since his parents are pretty clueless about most, unless you count yoga.

Anyway, he’s asked to go ice skating and skiing more times this winter than I’m comfortable remembering. We didn’t get around to trying either and I feel a little guilty about that. But something tells me we’ll definitely be skating and skiing next year.


Pic that Parker wanted to take 'BACKWARDS'.

Parker is Artist of the Week

I was so stoked to see what Parker had created for his moment in the art room sun. Every week his art teacher chooses a different student's work to display. This week it's Parker's turn. Regarder le chef-d'oeuvre:



The words in the pic are kind of small, so here's what it says:

Artist: Parker
Title: A Bulldozer
Summary: The bulldozer has a digger and it goes inside holes. And it digs the hole. And it has a dumper too. And I drew Muck.
Media: Tempera Paint on White Construction Paper


The summary is in the artist's own words (in case you couldn't tell). And for the unitiated, Muck is of Bob the Builder fame; Bob the Builder being Parker's yearlong obsession.

It's funny, for a long time he wasn't at all interested in painting, coloring or drawing. I'd bought him a ton of art supplies and an easel thinking we'd paint together. Or better yet, that he would entertain himself painting while I cooked dinner, or washed the dishes. But everytime I'd say, let's paint; he would most always decline and run off to play with Bob the Builder.

So I'm rather happy with this development. I don't think he'll give up Bob anytime soon but at least his obsession seems to be taking on more creative channels. Now, if only I could apply some creativity to my efforts not to hate Bob, we'll be in business. ;->

ps. Here's a second pic, taken at Parker's insistence that he wanted to take one with his hat 'DOWN'.

A Big, Green, Brouhaha

Every now and then I read an article that raises far more feathers than I think it should. Such was an article in the New York Times (NYT) last week, “The Year Without Toilet Paper”.

The gist of it is that a couple in New York are undergoing an experiment to live as green as possible for a year. They’ve given up many things, including, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, planes, trains, automobiles and, of course, toilet paper. A fascinating aside is that they also have a two-year-old daughter, which, I know, makes some of their sacrifices even more difficult. And, also, the fact that one can, in fact, live without olive oil. (The horror! And no, I’m not joking.)

Difficult for many, it seems, is that this experiment is not being conducted by your average treehuggers. Alas, both are writers living in a Manhattan apartment building, with a doorman (read $$$). They also employ a cleaning lady. The husband describes the wife as Prada-wearing and she herself confesses to a pre-experiment shopping spree that included two pair of calf-high Chloe boots whose price amounted to something like two week’s salary. Ouch!

On the whole they seem to be a sort of mosh between, yuppie privilege and ambitious self-sacrifice motivated by an awareness that said privileged existence has environmental consequences.

The fact that there is, of course, a blog that documents this whole experiment and a planned book and movie makes the whole enterprise seem like it could be, as the writer from the Times noted, “an ethically murky exercise in self-promotion”.

Now I get that there are some interesting contradictions here. But I have been surprised that, since the article came out there has been a whole spew of venom directed towards this guy. Remarks on this guy’s blog and other sites that have picked up the story, include suggestions (hopefully, if not tastefully in jest) that they be gunned down with uzis, and tracking them down and (otherwise?) killing them. Now, I don’t think any of these remarks were in the least bit serious. But a lot of folks just really seem downright hateful.

And I must say, I don’t get it. Are we so afraid of disturbing our way of life, one that, despite all of our complaints, amounts to a pretty cushy existence as residents of the US? Seriously, what’s wrong with trying to see if one can give up some of their creature comforts for the good of the planet?

Sure, part of the caricature of the couple created by the story seems a little gross, especially if one believes that the entire point is to create a vehicle to promote this guy’s blog, book, movie, whatever. And telling your cleaning lady she can’t use paper towels is a landmine of contradictions. (Figure out an environmentally appropriate way to clean it yourself, maybe?)

But -and this could just be my own belief in the general good intentions of most people coming through here- I do believe they are sincere in their efforts to see what they can reasonably do to make a difference. My guess is that they will decide to reintroduce toilet paper at the end of their experiment. But what if 10 other sacrifices they’ve made remain in place? Or, at the very least, what if they continue to think through each choice they make in their every day living that will have an effect on the environment. That’s more than most people do.

What’s clear is that everybody should be doing something. Something more than reading, thinking, and talking about how our planet seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. I was happy to see someone making a concerted effort at it. What’s wrong with taking the initiative to discover exactly what we can and can’t live without? Because at some point we’ve all got to figure it out.

In the end, I think we’re going to end up keeping many more of our modern conveniences than we discard. But how are we going to know we can’t forego using say, plastic sandwich bags, until we see what it’s like to live without them.


NYT Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/garden/22impact.html?em&ex=1175054400&en=a7e68d0b61fa2583&ei=5087%0A

Subject of Times article's Blog:

http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/

A Blog about a boy and his mother

Welcome,

This space is dedicated to recording the doings of one young Parker George Milligan, age 3.5 and the musings of his curious, caring, sometimes neurotic, often angst ridden mother, age 33.5. Posts will largely involve exploring our passions which include food, Dr. Seuss, the environment, yoga, writing, music, pop culture and the general fascination and wonder life provides. And of course, there will be pictures and videos aplenty!