Family Manifesto - In Progress: If you eat, you should cook.

(c) 2014 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Quite a while back, on some parenting website or another, I saw a post about a family manifesto.  They had a (pretty, various fonts, color-coordinated) poster of their family rules/important saying/way of living.  I thought it was kinda cool, but way too much work!  

But as time went on, I realized there were a few things that could certainly go on a manifesto for our family, were I to want to create one.  Sayings that have evolved over time, ways we have of living, things that are important to all of us, priorities in our lives. There are only three so far, but seeing as how organically these have manifested, I could definitely see more evolving over time.  

So far, if I were to put together a family manifesto, it would contain the following:

• You can always snitch vegetables. 
• There always should be books in your room and usually on your nightstand.
• If you eat, you need to know how to cook.

I've had the veggie rule for a long time, in part reinforced by Mary P.'s sensible food/eating strategies.  Want to snitch your veggies before the meal? Ok!  Eat 'em all before we sit down?  Well that's just fine! If you're not hungry enough to eat the vegetables offered (upon request) as a between-meal, or even as a pre-meal snack?  Well, then, you're not really hungry & you can wait until the actual meal!

Our family as a whole loves to read.  We need more bookshelves.  In fact, I anticipate that even with Mr. Kluges's plan to build some (gorgeous) bookshelves, we'll never have too many.  Easy access to books is important to us! I rarely end the day without reading at least a few pages.

My kids enjoy cooking, especially when it's baking, particularly when it's cookies!  But hey, once you get out in the real world, on your own, cookies alone aren't gonna cut it.  Penguin in particular has shown a strong interest in cooking, but I figure, hey, if you eat, you need to know how to cook, at least some basics and how to follow a recipe.  So I've been trying to involve them more in real recipes, even if it's just a side to main dish I'm making.  Well, last week I was feeling particularly uninspired and decided, "Hey, it's Saturday.  We've got lots of time.  I'm putting the girls in charge of supper!"  They were so informed, told that supper needed to contain, at a minimum, a protein, a grain and a vegetable.  They ended up with pasta (grain) with chickpeas (protein) and frozen peas (veg) and canned artichoke hearts (veg), with a dessert that was basically a recipe that turned fresh strawberries into frozen strawberry sorbet.  We added pesto for a sauce, and it turned out fine, and this week, due to Pumpkin being away at a sleepover Friday into Saturday, I put Penguin in charge of the menu, promising my help as needed.

Well, for supper tonight we had spaghetti and meatballs, with salad or frozen peas as the vegetable.  The meatballs were made, not with my a-little-of-this-a-little-of-that mental recipe, but with an adapted real recipe from a cookbook Penguin had purchased with her own money at the school book fair.  

It was great.  Pumpkin helped with the meatball formation, but Penguin was really in charge of them.  Of course, I did the actually frying-up, but on the whole, Penguin told me what she needed, how much, that she wanted to skip the chopped onions & some spices, etc.  I recommended adding some splashes of Worchestershire and dashes of powdered onion, but those were okayed by Chef Penguin. In the end, it was decided that less onion powder was needed, maybe a little salt should be added, and that I should add some milk with the bread crumbs when I make my meatballs.  All of the meatballs were eaten, which I consider a total success!

  

 

Kids and Money Skills, Part 1

(c) 2013 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Kids need to learn about money.  Just like they need to learn about cooking, cooperation, planning out long tasks, cleaning up after themselves, being a good friend, doing laundry, and all those other life skills.  I've been doing some thinking about kids and money skills, and how Mr. Kluges and I can help our girls learn about money at ages 8 & 5 and beyond.  

They get an allowance.  Or rather, they got a weekly allowance until we got lazy about remembering to give it to them.... and then they ...just kind of didn't anymore.  I wasn't keen on how things were going anyway - the girls just had some money, but didn't really have a plan to use it.  They'd get their allowance or some birthday money or something and they'd just squirrel it away in their banks.  They made plans to purchase big things, like a DS game thingie, or a large American Girl furniture item.  Granted, Pumpkin did use some of her money to buy her second American Girl doll a couple of years ago, so there was that, but it just seemed very haphazard and without any real-life-skill learning going on.

Also, our method was that they had to be done with that week's jobs (1/day during school year - for example, 5 minutes picking up your floor, or find your school library book the night before library day... but the summer had about 5/day including things like set the table) to get their allowance.  We weren't thrilled with that method though - we wanted the girls to see those jobs/chores as just something they needed to do as members of a family and people with responsibilities for their own living space.  But it was hard to remember to give their allowance if it wasn't tied into the completion of the chart.

Around Christmas time we were thinking about and talking about getting them a 3-part bank like one of these options.  They were kind of pricey though, especially to get two, and I wasn't quite pleased with them.  I want our kids to have pocket money to spend for things like the student council's pencil sales at school or when we go to the zoo for a souvenir.  I also want them to have some to donate, so that they are giving to/for things like our church's Haiti school meal program or Jump Rope for Heart at school.  I want them to have the chance to save for a larger item like that American Girl doll, but I also want them to save for the distant future - for something like college or a car - where they're not going to see the results for years.

There are a couple of four-part banks, but the reviews were poor, the size of the compartments looked small, and it would not be easy to get the money out to do anything with it.  So I decided we should make our own.

Some months ago, Mr. Kluges and the girls had come back from a trip to Home Depot with a Venus flytrap and pitcher plant kit.  (Did I mention I wasn't along?!)  It needed a terrarium sort of thing to keep it moist, so I'd ended up finding this clear acrylic box at  Hobby Lobby.  Worked great.   Mr. Kluges even drilled a few holes in it 'cuz it was too airtight.  So as I was pondering just how we could make some sort of four-compartment bank, that container popped into my mind.

Combine 8 clear acrylic boxes, some paint markers, and a couple of bands made out of pretty pink elastic and you've got yourselves two 4-part banks!  Mr. Kluges cut coin/bill slots in the tops of the lids and the girls each decorated their banks.  I wrote on their name and "Donate," "Spend," "Save," or "Invest" on each piece (making sure to do the top lids and the bottom bank parts!).  
 

 And now, since this is plenty long, I've still got to finish getting things ready for the morning, AND I've realized I don't have any pix of the finished banks, we'll just add "Part 1" to the title of this post, and I'll continue another day!  :)   

Cook's Helpers

(c) 2012 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

We've started a new thing here at the House of 42 Doors.  It's summer, you see, which means the girls and I are around the house & each other pretty much ALL DAY LONG.  We've got swimming lessons in the morning for now, and tumbling for one evening a week for 6 weeks, but that's it.

Do you know what happens when kids get bored? They bicker.  They whine.  They fight.  They get a TEENY bit annoying...even to their loving mother.

Now, I'm definitely all for letting them figure out what to do to entertain themselves much of the time, 'cuz boredom isn't all bad!  But all these hours DO allow for a lot more opportunities. Opportunities for them to learn some responsibility, some household skills, some LIFE skills.

One of those opportunities is getting to be "Cook's Helper."  I think strongly that if you eat, you should know some rudiments of cooking!  The girls have been alternately responsible for table-setting for a while now, but this is a new evening responsibility (aka chore).   

And they LOVE it! 

Sure, we're still a bit in the honeymoon phase, but while one child takes care of setting the table, the other is my assistant.  They get to wash potatoes (with a rubba scrubba),  cut up tomatoes (with a real, sharp knife... and a little more help for the 5 year old than the 7 1/2 year old!), wash lettuce and rip it up into bite-size pieces, choose between two different noodle dishes, cut up almost a pound of mushrooms, run out to the garden to get specific herbs, etc.  Heck, my 5 year old turned two carrots into carrot ribbons with a real vegetable peeler today!  

I'm right there.  I'm supervising.  I explain and demonstrate the task as needed, and I watch like a hawk at the beginning to make sure it's suitable and that I haven't misjudged the child's abilities, dexterity, or carefulness.

But you know what?   

They take it so seriously.  This is real work.  This is a genuine job that needs doing.  They respect their tools (especially the sharp ones) and use them with care.  They are so INVOLVED with their task.  My 5 year old spent probably 20 minutes carefully cutting up almost a pound of mushrooms with a butter knife.  (And then she thoroughly enjoyed eating them sauteed in butter with a sprinkle of salt!) 

They are learning so much - cooking skills, refining their dexterity and fine motor skills, gaining experience with unusual vegetables from our CSA, respecting potentially dangerous yet useful tools, and being contributing members of our household.

Yup, I think "Cook's Helper" is here to stay!