Dinner Talk

Before we moved to the Gulf Coast, we had one of the best small groups. It is something we still longingly miss most from our departure from the Bluff City. It was a tight knit group and the people in it spoke wisdom and poured into our lives. We learned a little formula to this closeness as well. Sharing a meal at a table together and speaking things of the heart truly go well together. One of the key components was when the meal was over, we didn't vacate from the table to move to a sitting area for the deeper discussion times. We stayed at the table. The observation was people generally felt more comfortable opening up and sharing while staying at the table, but tend to more or less clamor up and feel less at ease in sharing once moving from the table. 

I think so much of this applies in family dynamics as well. 

Our family sits down for family dinner on weeknights. The kids help set the table and get drinks while Kyle and I prepare the food together. We usually pick a weekly rotation like Monday burger night and Taco Tuesday, of course. Kyle makes home made French fries, cutting up potatoes and frying them on Burger nights. We don't do phones or devices at the table, so I really enjoy the undistracted time with all of us together. It's a great time to hear what's on everyone's mind. Kyle likes to ask funny questions or spout off funny facts. Our normal conversation breaker is ask the favorite part of everyone's day, Mommy and Daddy included, because let's face it, kids will tell you their day was "fine" and they did "nothing." Asking the kids their favorite part or going further and asking maybe their not so favorite part of the day can really open up the table discussion. 

But just like we do a weekly dinner food rotation, some days have designated themes assigned to them. Taco Tuesday night is Joke Night at our house. All the kids prepare 2 or 3 jokes to bring to dinnertime. All the kids go around the table sharing their jokes and all of us vote on the funniest one. Livie and Ryan make up their own jokes and usually laugh all the way through telling them. They usually succumb to the classic, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" 

Wednesday nights, we like to share positive words of affirmation. We go around the table speaking characteristics we love about one another. We try to focus on attributes of each individual and not solely on physical aspects. I think it's easy to think the negative about ourselves or with siblings, they often squabble, forgetting to appreciate what they love in their brother or sister, so this brings encouragement to build each other up and establishing a safe space. It also teaches our kids to try to see the good in others. 

We have done Positive Wednesday two ways. The first being we pick the person to our left (or right, or across, etc.) and we each go around and say a positive word about the person next to us so each person gets to hear an affirmation about themselves at dinner. The second idea is to pull a name out of a hat and each member can join in saying positive attributes about the person drawn, pulling a different name out each week. We alternate using both. We most often speak affirmations to the person next to us, but at times when I notice one of our kids needing some extra positive reinforcement or it's a birthday, we shift to focusing on one individual. One of the more humbling times was when the kids put my name in the hat and had a night sharing what they love about me. It's one of those times I realize as a Mom I try to exclude myself and try to avoid attention, but it was important to them. The kids got excited to share about me and that was significant for me to witness and hear.

Thursday nights are feelings check in nights. Kyle and I both participated in a workshop where we both learned the importance of naming feelings. We both realized we have grown into adults not always being able to name what we are feeling or naming our emotions. I want our children to be able to start naming their emotions as young people.

I listened to an excellent episode on the "Raising Boys and Girls" podcast talking about Children's Emotional Milestone Vocabulary and learned the importance for our children to hear the adult's in their life naming our emotions through our own daily experiences in order for them to start verbalizing their own. 

We go through the 9 basic emotions, sharing at least 3 at dinner, "I felt ___ when....":

Mad

Afraid

Guilty

Joy

Lonely

Love

Sad

Embarrassed

Excited

This is an exercise that is not limited to the dinner table obviously, but we have found sharing at the dinner table makes it less awkward and less pressure for sharing some of those more apprehensive feelings... and over time making sharing feelings less hard away from the table. 

I thought Feelings Check In night would be the most bumbling night and I hesitated most on it, probably my own uneasiness in the application, but really our kids miss it the most when we skip it and oddly request it most of all the other nights. 

Other nights, Kyle will tell the kids to just ask him anything. It usually ends up with him sharing childhood stories.

After dinner, everyone works together to clear the table, wipe up, and sweep. Every person is important in the process. 

We enjoy our nights together so I wanted to share some of our traditions with you to inspire dinner time. Bonding and quality time seem to go hand in hand with the comfort of food and home. If I'm honest, I used to have a hard time getting in the family dinner groove.  We didn't do it consistently or make it a priority. Years ago, it felt easier to me not to do it, not to have that focused time, or the pressure, but it felt like there was a piece missing in our family dynamic and I wanted it to change. I want our family to know it is a priority and has a sacred time in our busy schedules to listen to one another, a place to be heard, and a place to be seen. 

I'd love to hear any dinner traditions you have in your home! 

Weaning to a Sugar Less Household [With a 3 Year Old]

We have been on a very interesting healing journey with our #5. From almost the beginning, around 2 months old, Ryan has been our little sufferer. He had silent reflux and some other issues. We (he + me) never slept, he could never be set down, constantly restless, all the things. Being that this was not my first rodeo, I knew this wasn't just a clingy baby. He was not feeling well, but being that he was considered a healthy weight, meeting milestones, and no other determining factors, I didn't have a lot of support from the pediatrician. 

After the advise of several friends and desperation, we started taking him to a chiropractor around 6 months old, which seemed absolutely foreign to me and out of my comfort zone. We, then, started a path of natural medicine through the practitioner when he was closer to 18 months old. He made so many strides and we started seeing his little personality poke through and him beginning to play and have more better days. 

In the long game of that journey, our family has learned a lot of natural medicine and remedies. We went from our kids constantly being in and out of the doctor's office and at least one kid or more on antibiotics every other month to now in the past 2 years, we've had no sick visits (minus this story below) and not one of our kids has been on antibiotics in two years now. I also want to note for the Covid years, we have been living life normally down here at the Florida border. 

Fast forward now to 3 years old and he is in a better place in our journey. He's still not one hundred percent, but a vastly different kid.

We, recently, took our kids to a military celebration of a neighbor, who arrived home after a year deployment. There was a bounce house, fun, a snow cone truck, lots of treats, juice boxes, etc. Our kids participating in it all, of course.

Ryan was sitting on Kyle's lap when he had what is called a mini absence seizure. His eyes rolled up and went back and forth for a few seconds, but no abnormal body movements. It definitely scared this Mama bear no less. 

Longer story short, the culprit seemed to result from his sugar getting too high. Hence, the party eating in that episode. This answer felt scary to me. I cried in the appointment. It felt overwhelming to think our child could be looking at pre-diabetic symptoms at 3 years old, but thankfully, we already have some successful alternatives that are working for him in healing the body and praying he will live far from these ailments. 

In the meantime, our family had to make some changes....

I've always been a super conservative Mom when it comes to sugar intake in our home to begin with, so this felt like an equal blow. It's something I have always tried to watch in our home. I suffer from autoimmune and have learned the ugly sides of sugar and I wanted to teach our kids young to not over indulge and learn healthy eating habits as they grow into adults.

I think all the grandparents have always been the most frustrated with my practice because I'll cut off their spoilings after a moderate amount.

My husband and I don't drink sodas. It's never in our house. Our kids have never tried a Sprite and just recently tried a Gatorade. Our kids are allowed watered down juice at lunch time. Water and milk the rest of the day. Desserts after lunch or dinner are seldom or special occasions and we don't do cereals and sugar at breakfast, except Saturdays.

But starting to look at labels of what I was allowing or passively allowing our kids to consume, down to instant oatmeals, pasta sauces, and ketchup was still unsettling, and taking away some of the few treats they were allowed to have, at least mostly with a 3 year old, is hard to bargain with. Change is never easy especially these sweet treat ones. 

At three years old...how was I going to do this in an easy way where I didn't have meltdowns and stalemates over loved snacks and try to offer what seemed less appealing foods in the process with our already hard eater?

The answer: Hot Wheels cars!

Ryan being only three, I didn't think he would understand or grasp my words, but I had to communicate the changes, so I told him frankly even though the verbiage felt big for his age. 'Ryan, your body does not like sugar. It doesn't make your body feel good when you eat it. We are going to have to start making healthy choices. That means, we are going to have to start giving up some of our foods and treats for healthier foods like....'

I was surprised at how well he seemed to take it in and understood a fair amount. I, honestly, didn't have that expectation. Sometimes I wonder if we just don't give kids enough credit, even at three years old!

I decided I would instate what we learned from our "Yes, Mommy! Yes, Daddy!" days when we taught our youngers how to establish respect at young ages. We started obedience out with incentives for two weeks and then took away the incentives and still acquire the behavior after it becomes more instilled habit.

So Ryan and I made a trip to the store. We went to the Hot Wheels aisle and we picked out a bunch of $1 Hot Wheels he loved. He's a cars guy! I let him know that these are going to be our 'Healthy Choices' cars and he will get them as rewards when making good choices.

A huge point I also learned myself from autoimmune diets is you have to stay focused on what you CAN eat and NOT what you can't eat, so I applied this as much as I could with Ryan. Positivity matters. We are eating to live well.   

The first morning of going sugar less went great with Ryan. He ate chicken for breakfast. He was very positive and even tried a new food at dinner, which is huge for this guy, who has several food aversions. First day, I presented snack time with saying, 'Hey, we can have x, y, or z. Which one would you like?' instead of approaching him with, 'Hey, we can't have this today, but you can have this instead.' 

I was surprised how well Ryan was doing, honestly. He's our hard kid. It seemed funny how setting an expectation and following through with it, seemed to go, but there always came that moment when we would have a stand off. He would become focused on having an old snack that he was no longer allowed to have. He would start fussing as a 3 year old does (I would want to too. I mean it's hard for adults too!) and it seemed like it's circles... that meltdown spot...and that's when I would break out a "Good Choices" Hot Wheels cars!

I would acknowledge his emotions of this feeling hard but refocusing the situation to an appealing offer: Would he like to trade the coveted snack for a "good choices" car? I would then show him the selections of Hot Wheels and let him know he could pick any car for trading Mommy the snack and making a good choice instead....and most every time, it was a winner. It was very important to infer the car was a reward for his own decisions of a healthy choice and changing the mindset from negative to positive with the new snack choices and a car.

There were some days that came easy and others hard. Days that were easy and he made good choices throughout, I would still reward him at the end of the day with a toy car reward and praise him for all the healthy foods he chose to eat that day. He seemed to love the praise for his choices on his own, even at 3 years old.

After about a week and a half of Hot Wheels bargaining, I took the cars away and implemented the true rules. I know some would just implement the rules from Day One, but I really wanted to make this a positive experience, I wanted him to feel like he had the power to chose for himself, which will carry to adulthood, and I really wanted to avoid the Mommy-threenager power struggle! It is real!

The few days before I decided it was going to be the last of the Hot Wheels negotiations, I thought he was going to transition just fine without them and he did! He didn't notice there were no more cars too often. We going whole days without exchanges days leading up to and it was becoming less of a big deal. Eating healthy was becoming his normal. He started forgetting about foods and snacks he used to eat since we had been replacing and making new go to habits.

I'll never forget about 2 weeks in and Ryan raided the pantry for a snack while I was outside talking to a friend. He brought me a bag of Goldfish crackers, unopened, and asked, "Is this sugar?" In his words, he was bringing it to me to ask for my approval for eating. He seemingly understood the message he had learned. My jaw dropped, but I felt so proud that my three year old was conquering sugar like an champ and trying to make choices for himself. (And if you know Ryan, he will instill an older sibling to open what he wants to bypass Mommy.)

After about a week of cutting out sugar, there were noticeable behavior changes in Ryan. He was less fussy, almost no meltdowns, more good moods, sleeping better, and overall more content. 

So far, we haven't had any more absence seizure episodes that we have seen, so we are very thankful. 

I want to add that it's hard to 100% cut out all sugar out of the diet. Hence, sugar less, not sugarless. It's a matter of eliminating most sugar and processed foods. We try to stick to more natural sugars in fruit since his body tolerates it better. As his body has begun healing a bit, we've added a Kind Kids Chocolate Chip granola bar to his afternoon snack some days or one that is sweetened with dates, or making a healthy cookie recipe sweetened with maple syrup.

There will always be times where we splurge for ice cream or still have our chocolate chip pancake mornings, but it's key to keeping those in moderation and limiting how often.

And if you were wondering, our big kids took the changes exceedingly well even down to sugarless ketchup. Being that we weren't overly sugar excessive to begin with, I think, helped a lot. We have also had healthy eating conversations in our household for a few years now and as much as the kids some times think they are missing out, especially at school with what's in other kids' lunchboxes, they seem to have an understanding of the discipline and don't complain too often.

Food is learning to love what you can eat or as a friend of mine says, "It's learning to eat to live instead of living to eat."