Chef jeff “dinneRevolution” Giveaway

I’ve been blogging in this space for almost a year, and I thought I’d run my first giveaway as a fun way to say thanks for reading. I’m giving away an E-copy of Chef Jeff’s “dinneRevolution.” It’s a family-friendly cookbook that contains “Healthy and Modern recipes, made simply with 10 ingredients or less in under 30 minutes.”

In the words of Cheff Jeff, a US chef and author with an interesting and diverse cooking background: “I realize that in today’s busy lifestyle people simply don’t have the time or desire to spend all day in the kitchen. My hope is that these recipes bring more time and joy back to your life because only when we prepare our meals do we truly know what we are putting in our bodies.”

I’s that last sentiment, “when we prepare our meals do we truly know what we are putting in our bodies” that I’m glad he expressed. That’s my feeling exactly. I try to prepare all my children’s meals myself so that I know what they’re getting. I prepare ahead in bulk and freeze in portions so I have quick meals to hand. The recipes in this book are based on popular family favourites, some of which will hopefully appeal to you and your kids. Examples of some of the ones that appeal to my family are:

Chicken and chickpea soup
Balsamic Glazed Salmon

Crabcakes with mango

Oven baked fish sticks

Spaghetti with Shrimp and snow peas

Crispy Black bean burritos

Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie

GIVEAWAY CONTEST RULES

1. Sign up for Jeff’s newsletter
2. Click to “like” me on facebook or “follow” me on twitter
3. Post a Comment below telling me you did the above.

           Get an extra entry by liking my facebook page AND following me on Twitter

          Get two extra entries by also adding me to a circle on Google+

 

I will generate a random winner in one week, on July 29^th!

Looking forward to hearing from you.

-          Lory

 

Disclosure: I received a free copy of DinneRevolution

What Motherhood has Taught me about Management

I wrote about the Mommy Brain in a previous post as well as in a 17 June Irish Examiner newspaper article titled “Mum Knows Best.” As per National Institutes of Mental Health neuroscientist Dr. Pilyoung Kim, women’s grey matter actually GROWS after childbirth. We become smarter. Raise your mugs of coffee and say a toast, mommies, because your muddled brain is attributable to exhaustion and not to some post-partum depletion of your faculties. Hormones actually work in your favour.

Manage that Baby! photo by CapemayL

I’m positive this whole motherhood thing has improved not only my brain but my managerial skills as well.  And I’m not the only one who thinks so, either. Read this article by Liza Kent in the May 2003 publication “Women in Business.” In it, Kent says “the lessons a mother learns are unique, and I have found that mothers often are surprised at what they already know about being an effective manager, based on the everyday experiences in their homes.” And, yes, our articles have the same title. It’s a coincidence (thought of mine before I saw hers and I’m keeping it. It sums my main idea up perfectly).

Women, tell me: aren’t you better at managing after kids? One of the brain areas which Dr. Kim discovered improve after childbirth is a part that deals with planning and judgement - key components of management. I used to hear about people who could see one step ahead; about tennis players who were good because they knew the next step their opponent was going to take; about people who could manage staff very well because they understood human behaviour; and, most importantly, about people who could see the consequences of their own behaviour – and that of others. I’m now one of those people.

I know EXACTLY what my three and five year olds are going to do next. I have an intimate understanding of their behaviour and understand exactly what the consequences of every interaction will be. I know that if I find a promotional packet of stickers in with the cheese stick bag and I give it to one of them, there will be war in the living room. So, I wait until we buy another bag of cheese sticks and get a second promotional packet of stickers. I don’t distribute any stickers until that time. This is a simple example, but it’s all about understanding human psychology and behaviour in a way that I didn’t before.

Knowing consequences makes you a better planner and organiser. You see what’s coming, and prepare. You don’t leave the house without baby wipes and a change of pants for your kids, do you? Of course not, because if you did it would ensure someone wets themselves and has to spend the rest of the afternoon wearing nothing but an old towel you found in the back of the car.

A great deal of this understanding you develop as a mother seems to come from paying attention to the needs of others and being a good listener - key management skills. But understanding what someone is articulating – his wants – doesn’t mean you’re going to give it to him. Think of how many times you have to say no to your child in a day. It’s healthy. They can’t have every toy they see or every sweet they want. Saying no and meaning it, being honest, is also a good skill for a manager. You have to know where to draw the line.

Some of this improvement in my managerial skills probably comes with age (don’t ask mine, it’s not polite); or maybe it comes with motherhood. More likely it’s a combination of the two. In either case: I win! Oh, by the way, since the improvement in brains is partly due to hormones and partly due to interaction with the new baby, scientists postulate that adoptive parents and fathers also experience some brain growth due to interaction with new infants and the challenges presented, even though they don’t get a dose of post-partum or breastfeeding hormones. Dads: as long as you interact loads with your kids, your management ability can improve, too.

Parenting Techniques Survey

Please take my Parenting Techniques Survey. It will only take you a few moments to complete, but the answers you give could help save a life (not really - but it is a bit of fun).

Click here to take The Mom Blogs Parenting Techniques Survey!

Leave a commet below about how you answered. 

Breastfeeding in Public: The Irish Edition

The current received wisdom is that breastfeeding is best for baby and mother. The benefits are numerous and include: Safe, healthy food for the child since you don’t have to worry about baby bottle contamination; Convenience and money – no weekly purchase of formula required, and you don’t have to bring prepared bottles around town with you; reduced colic; a perfectly adapted food source for the infant; reduced ear infections for the child; weight loss aid for mothers post-partum; decreased risk of obesity for children who were breastfed; and I could go on.  

photo by Koratmember

Despite this being the message people like American First Lady Michelle Obama are spreading, modern society is not really doing a huge amount to support breastfeeding mothers. If babies should be breastfed for their health, the health of the mother and the health of society, then they’re going to have to be breastfed in public on occasion. Mommies have to get out of the house sometimes, you know. We need to go shopping, run errands, stop by the post office, take baby to Gymboree class and so on.  And when we go out, so do our babies. And they need to eat. Often.

While I’m sure we would love to be able to squeeze our errands into 90 minute slots between feeds and be comfortably seated on the sofa before baby starts to howl for a suckle, it rarely works that way.  So, often, we are in the coffee shop or the playground with our older kids or maybe out shopping and, boom, feed time comes ‘round. Or, maybe the kid just wants to eat early – they’re not robots, you know. So, we feed them. This may have to be done, as a friend did recently, in the dressing room of a clothing boutique, or as others have done, in a toilet stall. Sometimes, though, you just have to feed them in front of others in a restaurant or city park.

I’m done with breastfeeding, but back when I was breastfeeding, I never cared what anyone thought. Once, my baby started howling during a doctor visit so I just picked him up, pulled down my top, stuck him on the breast and kept talking. Once I was at a pub lunch in the Southwest of Ireland with some visiting Americans. Zach – about a month or two old at the time – started howling for a feed. I picked him up and breastfed as long as I needed to. The waiter came and went, staring at my boob out of the corner of his eye. I didn’t care. And I didn’t care if anybody else cared.  Zach needed to eat. Babies are part of society. They get to eat while out mixing with society.

Some women would like to be more private about it, and I totally understand this. They’d like to sit comfortably not in a toilet stall but perhaps on a chair with a cushion and feed the baby. There are rarely any such conveniences available when you’re out and about, though. Even if you want to be discrete (not me, mind you, I couldn’t care less) but you, you well bred, polite and discrete lady – even if you wanted to be discrete, you couldn’t be half the time. You have to feed in a corner of the cafe.

Breastfeeding rates in Ireland are still amongst the lowest in Europe. According to a 2010 article in the Irish Medical times, “If breastfeeding isn’t considered the culturally accepted method of infant feeding and not perceived traditionally as the norm, then it tends not to be the highest rate of infant feeding. This is the generally accepted situation in Ireland.” Let’s face it: You do feel really awkward trying to get your baby to latch on in public. The whole vibe and atmosphere around here is that it should be done behind closed doors. But if you want breastfeeding rates to increase – and all the doctors and midwives and public health nurses say this – there has to be a cultural change, not just more clinics as suggested in the article.  In order for the culture to change, more women have to get out there and breastfeed in public, as needs dictate. If you’re willing to warm a bottle in a cafe, you should be willing to breastfeed. Use a shawl or large t-shirt or a baby blanket to cover up while you’re helping the child latch on. Once you’re both comfortable, you could consider opening your shawl a bit or adjusting the baby blanket so that the child’s face is visible to you.  Turn away when you’re putting the baby on the breast. Have a friend or husband stand up and cover you both while you settle in. Like most things, it’s the beginning and the end that can get awkward or embarrassing – the latching or the buttoning up when you’re done.

If you choose to bottle feed, you’re set. Society loves you. As long as your baby doesn’t make too much of a fuss (though you know she will) you’ll have an easy ride out in public. But, if you need to use your breasts to feed the baby, as has been done since the dawn of time, you may be in for an awkward ride. But stick with it. It’s worth it.

Breastfeeding in Public, or How to Become Socially Unacceptable

I've done a post swap with Marilia of Tripping Mom. Marília is a surfer-single mom of a 4-year old girl. She writes about our common values system, how to find a relevant education and ways to keep your sanity around a kid. Her single mom blog has lots of unconventional parenting ideas. 

Below, she writes about breastfeeding in public in metropolitan Brazil - apparently not as socially acceptable as you might think.  I'll be posting about breastfeeding in Ireland over on her site, soon.

Enjoy!

****

Breastfeeding in Public or How to Become Socially Unacceptable

 If you decided to breastfeed your baby on demand, or even if your child is on a schedule, it´s hard to avoid doing it when you are out of the house. If you have a young baby, say up to 6 months, people are tolerant to breastfeeding in the big cities. But if your baby is a bit older, then you get all kinds of negative reactions from people looking at you disgusted to outright telilng you that you could be doing it elsewhere  (like the bathroom, go figure), to asking silly questions about your toddler like ¨Isn´t she too big to breasfeed?¨

We know there is no such a thing as too big to breastfeed and La Leche League has tons of articles about the benefits of extended nursing (beyond one year).

Back in my home in the northeast of Brazil, a small beach village, breastfeeding is more of the rule. But when my daughter was 2.5-years old we went to visit my family in São Paulo, a big metropolis with over 20 million inhabitants. There, I felt really judged for doing this wonderful nurturing thing. Even my family felt awkward too see a ¨big¨ child breastfeeding.

I felt so bad about this, and breastfeeding was still so central in my relationship with Luísa, that I decided on not going back while I was still nursing. I went back to visit my family only last January, when Luísa was closer to 4-years old and free from the boob.

For me it was easy to solve the problem just by staying away from the big cities (where crazily people avoid so many natural things). But the women living in the big cities have to face people´s unfounded criticism no matter what.  La Leche League advises us to do it anywhere anyway, instead of hiding, to encourage other women to do so, to make this more common place with time.

 If you live in a big city, you can use humor when people ask you stupid things like: ¨Why are you still breastfeeding her?¨  You can try something like this:

¨I decided to be socially inacceptable.¨

¨My child is not very keen on the hormones injected in cows.¨

¨We have an incestuous relationship, as you can tell.¨

The important thing is to keep the answer short and not engage in too much of a discussion. First because this would mean turning yourself into a breastfeeding advocate, publicly trying to get people on our side (and although there´s nothing wrong with that, I think it´s better to do it by example than by engaging in polemics with narrow minded people). Secondly, because no matter what you say, those people will most likely keep thinking you are an aberration.

 Instead of discussing the important topic with people that clearly have no idea, get inspired by people who are also doing it.

If you don´t know anyone in your physical world doing it (I didn´t), get online support, read stories and rest reassured of the fact that breastfeeding is one of the best things you can do for your baby. Remember that besides the weird looks, there might be silent curious looks from women who will get encouraged by you.

A Q&A with Pam Allyn, author of "Best Books for Boys"

Pam Allyn’s ninth book for Scholastic publishers provided me with some disturbing information about the state of boys in education today. They’re basically falling behind girls in every subject. However, in the pages of "Best Books for Boys" Allyn also provides hope to mothers of boys (such as me) by offering creative solutions to boys’ education. The simple act of placing books in baskets rather than on shelves, in making them accessible, and in expanding our definition of what “reading constitutes” allows room for boys to be boys when it comes to reading and to education. Allow active young men to read in groups, to talk about what they read, to gather around a computer screen or to take a book to recess. With flexibility and an open mind, boys can be encouraged to read and ultimately to re-engage with the educational system.
Pam Allyn was kind enough to submit to a Q&A with me. Following are very interesting details about Pam and her work, in her own words:

Lory: What is your background, Pam, and how did you come into your current line of work?

Pam: My two passions are children and the power of literacy and I am very blessed I've gotten to travel along this journey that combines them both. I started out as a teacher of the deaf, became a leader for literacy reform in New York City and started my own organizations, litlife and now litworld. Early on, I did a lot of advocacy work at a foster care agency in New York where I launched the award winning Books for Boys campaign. Every step of the way has felt like the next logical step. I am just trying to reach as many kids, families and teachers as I can with the message that words do change worlds. “Best Books for Boys” is my ninth book for Scholastic Publishers.

Lory: How long have you been planning this book?

Pam: I think it has been simmering inside me for the last decade, ever since my Books for Boys initiative started growing in a big way. I started to think that there is a big message here in that we as adults are not really paying attention to the messages boys are sending us about what they really want to read, and in the last few years, the alarming statistics about boys as readers got me fired up to make sure I could make this book happen. Luckily my publisher agreed this is an important topic!

Lory: Who is the intended audience of the book?

Pam: Early on I knew this book would be compelling for both teachers and parents. So although it is published in the teaching division and seems more geared to teachers, I've already gotten tons of emails from parents saying it suits them just as well. This is what I was hoping for.

Lory: Why does the classroom set up favour girls?

Pam: Most teachers are still women and we bring our own memories and biases about what constitutes "real" reading. We have to be really careful we do not bias our learning communities in these ways. For example, there is a preponderance of narrative fiction in our classrooms, when in fact boys tend to gravitate towards nonfiction. We have to pay more attention to what all readers want.

Lory: You have a fabulous and extensive reading list here. How did you decide on what to include and what to exclude?

Pam: This was a very difficult task! There are millions more great books out there. I tried to be very true to the fact that good writing is compelling, no matter what the genre. I also heard some titles over and over from the boys I interviewed and I wanted to be sure I honored their voices.

Lory: Who else, like you, is leading the way to getting boys back into education and reading?

Pam: I have some wonderful mentors, role models and friends in the field who are also speaking to this issue, and for whom I have the deepest respect. They include Alfred Tatum, Tim Rasinski, Ralph Fletcher, James Patterson and John Sziescka. I am proud to be a woman among these great men, speaking as someone who has taught in classrooms of all ages and who has nurtured and loved the boys with whom I have worked. I think my vantage point as a teacher of teachers is unique and I hope complements these other wonderful voices.

Lory: Any other comments?

Pam: I hope the next time a boy says he doesn't like to read, we don't give up on him!


Disclosure: I received a free copy of Pam Allyn’s e-book.

Bloggedy Blog

MOTHER'S DAY  Guest Blog on Printsasia

Click here http://bit.ly/lXeSj4  to read my guest blog for Printsasia.com's book blog on U.S. Mother's Day, May 8th, 2011. Yes - this is in lieu of a real post! 

This Wednesday I will be posting a book review and Q&A with Pam Allyn, as part of her blog book tour.  Here is some information about Pam: http://bit.ly/jhpt93

Here is her book:


See you Wednesday!