When Rabbit said, “Honey or condensed milk with your bread?” he was so excited that he said, “Both,” and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, “But don’t bother about the bread, please.”
-A.A. Milne, of silly Pooh bear
Observations about today’s Easter celebration:
This may be the most exhausted I have ever felt. Yesterday I fell asleep multiple times while having my hair colored— suggesting I already had sleep-deprivation issues— but I still stayed up with the boys to watch The Ten Commandments on TV all the way to the end. And then of course someone had to let the Easter Bunny in after the boys (finally) went to bed.
Therefore, this is the laziest blog post I have ever written. These photos are from last year; I am too tired to go get my camera out of my bag to download today’s pictures. (Mental note: need new Eye-Fi wireless card for camera.)
Maverick somehow never got told the whole Moses story, so The Ten Commandments was fairly interesting but confusing for him. 1) It’s a good story, as bible stories often are, but sounds a little silly when you give the condensed version. 2) The idea of Moses leading all those people into the desert not knowing how he would find food & water for them is overwhelming. 3) Why do they show it Easter weekend? Shouldn’t it have aired for Passover?
It doesn’t matter what time they went to bed or how old they are, kids will be up & ready for easter baskets and egg hunts at 7am.
Perhaps sensing that I might feel left out, Cassidy fashioned an easter basket for me. In it: 3D construction paper renderings of a bunny, a carrot, a toothbrush and toothpaste. Apparently this is what the easter bunny leaves for grown-ups.
We drove through Lancaster County to get to our Easter festivities and as usual it inspired rampant farm envy. I need some baby lambs, horsies, goats, cows, and oxen, STAT! Please and thank you.
Easter, Halloween and Christmas are days that I let the sugar consumption happen without comment. The kids paced themselves but still ate a greedily ridic amount of candy. By 7:30ish pm they had all officially crashed and were in the depths of a sugar hangover: headache, tummyache, overwhelming sleepiness and overall crankiness. When they asked me why I didn’t feel yucky I pointed out that I hadn’t eaten myself into a sugar coma, which really seemed to click this time. They all opted for big glasses of water and bed, but then had a terrible time actually falling asleep.
Really, I don’t know how people can say sugar doesn’t adversely affect their kids’ behavior. Did you notice a difference?
Any interesting Easter observations?
C’mon, I set the bar low. I know you’ve got something.
Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.
-Helen Keller
I skipped the local-things-to-do rundown since I figure people have enough to do, it being Easter weekend and all. But I can’t resist sharing my top picks for the week’s reading…
State bureaucrats have identified a potentially deadly hazard facing our children this summer – freeze tag. That’s right, officials have decided the age-old street game – along with Wiffle Ball, kickball and dodgeball – poses a “significant risk of injury.” Also labeled dangerous: Capture the Flag, Steal the Bacon and Red Rover; along with the more obvious archery, scuba and horseback riding.
Basically, if a program offers any “risky” activities it’s required to register as a summer camp (which carries a $200 fee) and is then subject to regulation, including having a plan for medical emergencies. That sort of makes sense, until you remember that this would apply to, say, the nice lady down the street who watches neighborhood kids while their parents are at work. And that a kid is more likely to be hurt while riding in a car. What this comes down to is how ridiculously litigious our society is, because if a kid did get hurt playing freeze tag at the nice lady’s house? No one would be shocked if his parents sued her. Mean people suck and ruin it for everybody.
“For the first time, we proposed you should never make unsubstantiated claims,” says Kohm, who expects the revisions to be finished by year’s end. The agency is warning marketers not to make blanket claims such as “eco-friendly” but to be specific.
It’s about dang time. Organic, natural, environmentally-friendly, earth-friendly materials: there’s tons of “green” labels that consumers don’t necessarily understand, so greenwashing runs rampant. But… this is the first time they’ve proposed this? Seriously?
OK, case in point. Federal standards for “organic” require “year-round access for all animals to the outdoors.” These chicken were in open-air screened porches and not able to forage freely in the sun— but that’s an allowed exception in California, due to practices intended to prevent the spread of Avian influenza. Obviously these chickens are doing better than factory-farmed chickens who are crammed in together and never see the light of day, but is that enough? There was no willful misleading, so are they at fault for carrying the label? Should there be middle ground, or is it important to keep standards tight?
FDA is cracking down on companies that break federal law by promoting their products as preventing MRSA infections and other diseases without agency review and approval. “Consumers are being misled if they think these products you can buy in a drug store or from other places will protect them from a potentially deadly infection,” says Deborah Autor, compliance director at FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
The companies who make the products pictured have been officially warned to relabel or risk seizure or legal action. Soap and water, folks. Wash your hands thoroughly and often. It’s cheap and it works.
This article is mostly about how we’re spending more and more money on our kitchens and kitchen appliances/utensils even though we spend little time in them. It’s an interesting read, and speaks to the divide between our desires and our skill set, but this was what blew me away:
in the 1920s, the average woman spent about 30 hours a week preparing food and cleaning up. By the 1950s, when she was raising her family, that number had fallen to about 20 hours a week. Now, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, women average just 5.5 hours—and those who are employed, like me, spend less than 4.4 hours a week. And that’s not because men are picking up the slack; they log a paltry 15 minutes a day doing kitchen work.
I just don’t understand how that’s possible? Five hours a week? Talk to me, Goose. How many hours a week do you spend in the kitchen?
6. Obesity and Food Marketing to Children
…is it reasonable for food and beverage companies to spend hundreds of millions of dollars targeting children with marketing, mostly for obesogenic foods, placed literally everywhere and anywhere a child might eat, study, or play, and then demand that parents run interference against them?
I am continually shocked by the backlash when it’s suggested that certain establishments shouldn’t provide toys with their kids’ meals until the the meal is made healthier, and by the rancor of the people that Jamie Oliver attempts to help on Food Revolution. This article is a good roundup of all the ways marketers target our children; are we OK with this? Should advertising to kids be restricted, or is it solely up to us as parents to just say no?
The sheer number of sales messages launched at my kids was enough to qualify as brainwashing. In fact, studies have shown that the less healthy the food product, the greater the marketing assault. Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity discovered that cereal having the least nutritional value and highest sugar content was marketed the most aggressively.
“But, Fruit Loops have fruit,” my son said.
One mom applies aggressive marketing methods to good foods. I don’t know how effective this would be for everyone but it’s a fun read.
This is the one I tried to link to last week, but the site was down due to heavy volume. The author noted the words used in TV ads during prime cartoon blocks and shows them in word clouds (the more frequently the word is used, the bigger it appears). “…[the] boys’ list included 658 words from 27 commercials… By way of comparison, I also looked at girls’ toys. The girls’ list had 432 words from 32 commercials.”
Does anyone else find it irritating that even the vocabulary used for girls’ toys is limiting? Anyway, check it out & make sure to read the comments too.
Video: Ticklish Penguin
Yeah, you’ve seen it already, I’m sure. Does it matter? THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER.
Happy weekend! What good reads did you see this week?
Torrential downpours mean no games today… good day for science experiments and baking (which is really, in its own way, a series of science experiments). And catching up on my reading! 🙂
“…a group of researchers in San Diego have developed a system that allows users to dial a phone number on a cellphone using only their thoughts. The method is surprisingly accurate and would be a huge advantage for people with disabilities or anyone who needs a more hands-free experience or who regularly performs tasks that require a high degree of mental focus.”
“Sugar is not just an empty calorie, [Lustig] says; its effect on us is much more insidious. “It’s not about the calories,” he says. “It has nothing to do with the calories. It’s a poison by itself.”
If Lustig is right, then our excessive consumption of sugar is the primary reason that the numbers of obese and diabetic Americans have skyrocketed in the past 30 years. But his argument implies more than that. If Lustig is right, it would mean that sugar is also the likely dietary cause of several other chronic ailments widely considered to be diseases of Western lifestyles — heart disease, hypertension and many common cancers among them.”
I’m still thinking this one through, but the most immediate takeaway is the fact that HFCS is bad, but regular old sugar is also bad. Eat a wide variety of (healthy) foods and do everything in moderation.
“While the product label says “formaldehyde free,” authorities say the formula is anything but. Regulators in several states have found levels of the cancer-causing substance in excess of a range of standards.”
My feeling about this is similar to my feeling about pesticides on our produce and lead in our children’s toys: don’t buy these products for your own health & your family’s health, BUT ALSO ESPECIALLY for the health of the people who have to work with these products all day. My own hair stylist is pregnant. I hope they don’t have her doing any Brazilian blowouts on people with more money than they have sense.
“Mindapples is a social enterprise that encourages everyone to take better care of their minds through simple daily activities, and is building a popular culture of good habits and self-care for mental wellbeing. We want to make looking after our minds as natural as brushing our teeth, by asking everyone: “What’s the 5-a-day for your mind?”
Love this idea of preventative mental health care. So much effort is put into educating us about taking care of our bodies, but our state of mind— not so much. (How much might a healthy mindset affect our physical health? Food for thought.) Determine five acts a day you can perform for your own peace of mind (it’s going to be different for everyone).
“I wouldn’t change anything about my life if I could,” he said. “As crazy as this may sound, going to prison really changed my life. I was able to go in and come out with a plan.”
I was not happy when the Eagles signed Vick. Sports are a big deal around here, and we love our teams, and the thought of all those kids rocking Vick jerseys made me ill. I didn’t want my kids cheering on someone who had deliberately tortured animals under his care, end of story. I thought maybe he could use his influence for good— raising money for animal shelters, for instance— but outside some token appearances at area high schools I haven’t seen a lot. I was looking forward to his Oprah appearance, to really hear his story and how he has learned from it, but then his handlers decided he wasn’t up to the task (some other excuse was given, but I think we can all read between the lines there).
This feels like one of the more honest things I’ve heard from him. I feel that everything happens for a reason, and that the very worst experiences and mistakes in your life are the most important. This was a risky, easily misinterpreted thing for him to say, and I’m not sure if he’s being insightful or a damned idiot. I’m curious to see if the Eagles will let Vick speak for himself more this year… and if he has anything to say worth listening to.
“…our work-from-home lifestyle was packing on some unintended negative side effects. Like, I don’t know, this weight gain. Or the fact that I was becoming a hermit. And that I was never wearing pants.”
I didn’t write this… but I could have. Hey everybody, this is why I haven’t called. Or hung out in forever. And why the only pants I wear anymore are crankypants.
Er, it appears that high demand has caused the site to crash. Basically, these are the words being used to market toys to your girls (the bigger the font, the more often it’s used):
And to your boys:
If that seems like something you want to check out, you can like Achilles Effect on Facebook and I’m sure they’ll update when the site is live again. (I’ll link to this again next week as well.)
This is not news, actually, I’ve read this before. It’s why they say to make sure you cook the living hell out of everything, because then the onus is on you.
I have more to say on this in a dedicated blog post, but for now just remember—
