I am up very early this morning, 4 a.m., with what I can only assume is a hungry toddler - why else would he wake up this early? Sometimes I don't think he eats enough at dinner, perhaps too many snacks before dinner, who knows. This has happened more than once. Earlier this week it was 3 a.m. - he then has something to eat and then goes back to sleep 2 hours later. There is absolutely nothing I can do to settle him, except feed him some food. Then, he's completely happy, sits quietly in his chair chomping away and I resolve in my head to make sure he has a good dinner the next night! It's times like this when I think ok, let's bring back the caffeine.....in fact I just may.....mornings like this make me rethink everything!!!!
The only side benefit to this is that once he goes back down, he'll sleep a long time, up to 3 or 4 hours longer into them morning which is a bit of a break for me, so I know that is how I must think, "There's a reason for everything!" I can't really tie this into debt-free living, it's just a comment more on being a mom and the sacrifice that is involved. This boy is depending on me to keep him alive. What a privilege to be able to! Whenever there is food on his little tray, I can't help but think of the many starving children around the world and then I think of their moms - how do they stop them from screaming from hunger? So, I can handle a little inconvenience.
Ok, now he's back in bed - just like last time, it took two hours for him to get tired. How am I supposed to go back to sleep knowing everyone is about to wake up in an hour or so? So, I went through all the flyers and have made my list for the week with meal ideas as well as snack ideas.
Eating healthier has been a very interesting challenge as it seems so many of the things that are on sale are packaged foods. I never bought them that much in the first place, but it means I have to really hunt for fresh food to be on sale.
We had a really great week of meals the last two weeks and very creative snacks, let me tell you! Here are some of the things we eat now on a regular basis that everyone loves, that aren't too expensive, and are healthy to boot:
Meals:
Chicken Lentil Tomato Soup
Basic Chicken Soup
Curried Turkey Coconut Lime Sauce on Mashed Potatoes (with coconut milk and oil)
Pork Lentil Potato Stew
Lentil Salad
Fried Beans with ham and onions
Greek Salad (I used everything in the fridge I could find including bok choy which I've never used before, pretty tasty!)
Turkey casserole with chopped nuts instead of bread crumbs on top - they loved it!
Roast Chicken (lots of different vegetable sides or salads)
Roast Beef (no flour in gravy)
Osso Buco done with pork - slow-cooked in two cans of tomatoes, salt and pepper and tons of rosemary - one of our favourite dishes
Salmon fettucine (using a good brand canned salmon - just as good as fresh salmon)
Snacks
Roasted Chick Peas with different seasonings (cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper)
Roasted Beans with seasonings (both these roasted bean snacks are a new favourite)
Homemade popcorn with coconut oil and seasonings
lots of fresh fruit and frozen in smoothies (with coconut milk)
Nachos with artichoke hummus (homemade)
Nachos with salsa (corn tortillas, no wheat)
Peanut Butter (raw) on rice cakes
Boiled eggs
Apples with peanut butter - another favourite
Nut balls (in a food processor - dates, 3-5 different kinds of nuts, coconut oil, a little bit of cocoa, coconut, mixed all together and put into balls - tastes like a dessert! Amazing - never last long)
Cans of tuna or herring (my husband is pretty much the only one who eats the herring, but it's very good for you!)
Tuna salad on rice cakes
This is just naming a few things! So, you see, it really isn't too tricky to eat healthier. I just have to plan the snacks. Breakfasts have been really good, too. We stick with oatmeal during the week and because we live near an apple orchard and there was a bumper crop this year, I've been able to get fresh apples at a bargain price all fall and winter. So I make fresh applesauce everyone morning with about four apples to go on top of the oatmeal to avoid the usual scoops of sugar. If I don't have the apples on hand, I use a bag of frozen fruit, add water and cornstarch and then there's a nice fresh fruit sauce flavour. No one has missed the sugar. I added a little maple syrup this week as technically the ten day detox is over, but once the maple syrup is gone, I probably won't do that anymore. Then, to get a protein (every single meal and snack has a high protein element to it), I have boiled eggs, or scrambled eggs, or a bean salad of some kind. Everyone is full by the time breakfast is over.
I'm continuing to read more on healthy eating and am really learning a lot from the book Trim Healthy Mama, by Serene Allison and Pearl Bartlett (two sisters and daughters of Nancy Campbell from the Above Rubies Magazine, which I also love by the way). I highly recommend that book to explain why we gain weight when we think we're eating healthy. It all comes to down to too much carbs. Very enlightening.
So our family is feeling good, RM is down ten pounds, and I think we're on to a new way of eating and living. I'm still learning to break old habits. The kids have adjusted amazingly well. My mother-in-law joked we'll be no more fun to be around with all the things we took out of our diet. Oh well!
Interesting to note - we've allowed ourselves "sugar breaks" a couple of times due to birthday parties, etc. and my kids absolutely go nuts. They can't seem to stop themselves. Once the sugar is in their mouths, they don't sit back and say, "That's enough!" No, they want more and more and more! It is clearly a crazy addictive drug this sugar thing, so I'm quite happy to have it mostly gone out of our lives. It turns them into monsters. I also saw this with bread. I didn't have eggs one morning and they were all still hungry, so they went to the freezer and found some bread and same thing - slice after slice of toast and butter - it was like they were animals! I read somewhere that gluten has an addictive element to it - my kids were living proof! They couldn't stop at one or two slices and begged me for more.
When I feed them the healthy stuff, everyone calmly eats and then calmly says, "Thanks for dinner, Mom." and walks away calmly. There is no feeding frenzy. But bring out a bag of bread and they act like sharks! Mind you, this is store-bought bread - could be the sugar in the bread, don't know.
Who knows, maybe my kids are sharks in people skin!
Well, it is now 7:30 a.m. and I hear the first rumblings of children coming down looking for breakfast.....better get on that.....!
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