Cyberschooler Lunch - Orange-Honey-Glazed Chicken

Today's midday meal for Spawn consists of an amalgam of leftovers from the previous few dinners: CS Dad's amazing Orange-Honey-Glazed Chicken Drumsticks, jasmine rice (from Yellow Thai Curry Night! Yum!), steamed spinach with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, 2 pineapple rings, a frozen Scooby-Doo Go-Gurt for dessert, and a Pixar Cars cup of watered-down pineapple orange juice with ice. I know it looks a little sparse, but it's on a full size adult dinner plate because all the kids plates are in the bottom of the kitchen sink right now. ;) This is actually a little more than Spawn would usually eat, but he had a check-up with his pediatrician yesterday and his weight gain is stagnating again even though he's grown nearly another inch since January. Prescription: more frequent smoothies and milkshakes! Doc Phil wants to see a little more fat in Spawn's diet, too, so that's something for us to work on this month and next.

There's no recipe for the drumsticks, but I watched CS Dad make the marinade. (Ordinarily, I'm not allowed in the kitchen during the cooking process, much less without my helmet. ;)) Orange blossom honey, a smokey local wildflower honey, clover honey, soy sauce, minced garlic, and ketchup. He offered me a taste and I suggested a little acid, maybe some OJ. IT WAS AWESOME!!! Orange-honey-tastic. =D

Chrissi, Cyber School Mom

What's for School Lunch?

Anybody else school lunch-crazed thanks to Jamie Oliver's new show "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution"? I'm lovin' it! (No, the irony that "I'm lovin' it!" is McD's slogan is not lost on me. ;)) We watched it on the big screen at my BFF's place last Friday and by the end of the second hour, all four of us parents were hooked. Have you signed Jamie's petition to improve school food, include cooking skills in elementary education programs, and increase funding for healh and food education?

My BFF is sending her son to a public school this fall that uses Aramark foods, so I've been doing some research and I'm not loving what I'm hearing about Aramark...like not disclosing ingredients...?!?! :o Spawn has to avoid red and yellow dye due to his ADHD, but companies like Aramark are not required by the USDA to disclose the entire contents due to the need to keep proprietary recipes a secret because some other company might steal them?!?! Honestly, who's going to steal a recipe for a food item sold in a school cafeteria? :p Bizarre reasoning if you ask me. :p And parents should KNOW what their kids are eating at school!!!

I find it fascinating what kids all around the world are eating for lunch. The USA school lunches tend to be the saddest, grossest, most nutritionally deficient, and wasteful and I wonder why when so many schools are funded by gov't programs to provide balanced meals. Why can't those meals be delicious as well as healthy? Who decided pizza constitutes two different servings of grains? And what child needs two servings of grains in one meal? We know too many carbs aren't good for small children. Those guidelines were set in 1973, for goodness sake! It's time for the lunch program to catch up! 

"Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet." Anne Shirley, Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery. Forget what you packed or planned for lunch today. Tomorrow is a fresh start. What can you do to make your child's school lunch better? Do you pack, buy, or eat at home? How about your own lunch at work or home? Do you pick and graze or plan lunch daily? What works for you and how can you improve on it?

Chrissi, Cyber School Mom

Happy Birthday to CS Dad!

Monday was CS Dad's big 38th birthday! We were understandably proccupied celebrating, so here's to you, belatedly, honey!

If I were a better baker, I'd have made you a lovely Steal Your Face or Dancing Bear cake like this one. ;) Count your blessings and consider it a gift that I didn't bake you anything and saved you a trip to the ER in the process. =D

Chrissi, Cyber School Mom and Devoted, Loving Wife (Mwahaha! CS Dad is waiting for the other shoe to drop as we speak. Paranoid, Tater? ;))

Spring has Sprung!

Yes, yes, of course, it says "First Day of Spring" on your calendar, but have you seen any real signs of spring yet? We did yesterday and there's just no better way to start the season of renewal and rebirth than with some of this most auspicious first sign of spring...

Thankfully, they did have one flavor without red or yellow dye at the location we went to yesterday (not the same location as the one we went to last year that had blueberry AND cookies and cream available that day). Spawn enjoyed his coconut italian ice very much! The parking lot was a madhouse and there wasn't a bench to be had anywhere, so we slurped ours down in the car with the windows down and Jimmy Buffett on the stereo. =D

But not before we took this pic of Spawn in front of his Aunt Dani's favorite and long-lamented A-Treat soda machine. A-Treat is, apparently, something you can't get outside the Lehigh Valley and Aunt Dani lurves the grapefruit-flavored A-Treat, so we took this pic in her honor in front of the beer distributor next door to Rita's. ;)

CS Dad was diggin' the rootbeer italian ice he ordered. He got a huge italian ice compared to Spawn and I. Don't know what that was about. Spawn and I were both served ours in tiny little 10 oz. cups and CS Dad's was served in a big 12 oz. cup. :p

On a personal note, thank the powers that be that CS Dad's birthday is tomorrow (the 22nd). He'll be shaving off that nasty Grizzly Adams beard for the year finally. Woot! I don't care how soft and furry you think it looks, this does not make my heart go pitty-pat:

It's pokey and scratchy and it smells like everything that's fallen into it and gotten stuck this winter. :p And he washes it with my pricey Garnier Fructis shampoo. Yuck. :p Boys are gross. :p

Anywho, I LOVED my wild black cherry italian ice. CS Dad snapped this pic of me digging in before we'd even rolled the windows down all the way. I was having a pretty hardcore Rita's craving all winter. What can I say? ;)

Mine and Spawn's both had real fruit in it. I had nice big pieces of juicy cherries and Spawn's had slivers of real coconut in it.

Did you get your free Rita's on the first day of spring? What's your flavor of choice? They introduced a new flavor here yesterday - Peeps. Blech. Not interested. None of us were even willing to try it.

This doesn't even scratch the surface of how we spent our first day of spring and Ostara. More to come on that later this week, but rest assured it was a busy day and I took tons of pictures!!! =D

Chrissi, Cyber School Mom

Sir Ken Robinson is on to something...

It occured to me recently that not only are we still relying on an outdated agrarian school calendar created in the 1940's, but the entire existing school system was originally designed to prepare children for a manufacturing job in the 1940's. That would have been an advancement from a potential life of drudgery as a farmhand to a manufacturing job with set hours and guaranteed pay. Everything we did in school from the 50's to the 90's prepared us for the next step - away from the farms. But few of us live on farms any longer. The school system is lagging behind and failing children by not finding their strengths and applying their education to the area of intelligence/interest/skill of each individual child. Sir Ken Robinson touches on it just briefly on today's Bonnie Hunt Show: 

Sir Ken Robinson on The Bonnie Hunt Show

How do you feel about the education your child is getting today? Are you pleased with the offerings at your child's school? Do you know what the education they're getting today is preparing them for? Is it a manufacturing job? Is it college? Is it a trade? What additional skills are they learning to feed their creativity when art and music are being pulled from curriculums to save money? Does your child's teacher know your child at all? Are they trying to tailor their curriculum to each child in their classroom by focusing on each child's individual interests? If you went to your child's school superintendent, could you ask those questions and expect an answer in person or any answer at all?

Chrissi, Cyber School Mom