Guest Blog: Healthy Eating Habits in the Real World

Getting your boys to eat the good stuff

by Katie Suarez

Nutritionally speaking, we’ve raised our two boys and one girl exactly the same…but the outcomes have been disturbingly different.

Case in point: Halloween. We don’t let our kids have much food coloring. So after they came home from trick-or-treating this year, where do you think we found them? Well, my daughter (always the rule-follower) was next to the trash bin…systematically chucking every piece of candy that was tainted with food coloring.

And the boys? After searching the house over, I eventually heard voices in their room…from behind the bed. Already, there was a pile of wrappers on the floor. “Don’t go for the Jolly Ranchers,” advised the older one, “They take too long to eat. Here…have another box of Nerds.”

And when I ask the kids what they want for dinner, what do they say?

Child#3 (BOY): “Chocolate Ice Cream…he hit me.”

Child#2 (BOY): “McDonald’s Cheeseburger…he hit me first.”

Child # 1 (GIRL): “Greek Salad, with extra cucumbers…please Mommy.”

So, yeah...I know a little somethin’ about boys. And nutrition (or the lack there-of).

So I thought I’d share a few tips that I’ve picked up along the way…real-world ideas for getting the little darlings to open their traps and insert their dinner. Even if it’s green…and doesn’t come in a bag with a side of fries.

YOUR KIDS ARE WHAT YOU EAT

(Not to be confused with “Your kids are what YOU eat.”)

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t like broccoli when I was little. I’m pretty sure that’s because my Mom didn’t like broccoli. She NEVER served it. So when we went to a dinner party, and I saw the broccoli staring back at me from the plate, I was all like: “WEIRD FOREIGN GREEN STUFF! RETREAT RETREAT!”

However, I did enjoy Dr. Pepper quite a bit…which my mom drank and served in copious amounts every day at dinner (and breakfast). It’s true that we need to expose our kids to a food at least five times before they’ll consider eating it. But the question is…what KINDS of foods are we exposing them to?

I’ve been able to track our family’s progress in this area with a highly technical, scientific method—namely… by watching what our kids order at Subway.

When the kids were small, they would only ask for turkey and cheese on their sandwiches. But as the years went on, I guess they looked at our sandwiches, and figured they were missing out on something.

So now my daughter orders what she calls her “veggie delight” with turkey, spinach, tomatoes, green bell peppers, olives, pickles, red onions, salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar. (Yeah, I know).

And the boys? Initially, it was only pickles…but in the last year, they’ve added green bell peppers, olives, and red onions. I’m hoping they’ll add spinach soon…but I’m not holding my breath on that one.

My husband gets pretty pumped when he sees the kids eating vegetables, and he frequently makes REALLY loud, boisterous comments about it in public.

A typical family lunch at Subway:

Child number 2 takes a bite of his sandwich.

Hubby: “AWWW….YEAYA….that’s ma BOY!!

Please don’t do this…not today.

Hubby: “I can FEEEEEL da vegetables!” (Stands up in booth, flexing muscles).

Please sit down. Please sit down. Please sit down.

Hubby: “Come on, boy, show me the MUSCLES! (Child stands up to flex).

This can’t be happening.

Hubby: “THAT’S WHAT IIIIII’M TALKING ABOOOUUUT!!”

Show’s over people. Turn back around, and eat your sandwiches.

* * *

Right now, you and I are creating the eating habits that our kids will carry with them for the rest of their lives. We do this with:

· The foods we eat OURSELVES

· The things we say about food & our attitude towards food

· And here’s the big one: THE FOODS WE CHOOSE TO BUY AND KEEP IN OUR PANTRIES

If it’s important to us that our kids develop healthy eating habits…if it’s important to us that they avoid diseases down the road like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes…then we need to take some action now.

ROLL UP YOUR MENTAL SLEEVES

Yes, we need to respect our kids’ taste preferences. But I swear to you, it’s 100% mental. I believe we have more influence over their preferences than we think.

My kids LOVE hot dogs…and until recently, they could eat all the hot dogs their little child hearts desired (not at home, but other places). However, that quickly changed after I wrote an article last month called “The 5 Nastiest Foods in America.” In that article, we ranked hot dogs as the MOST heinous (and carcinogenic) food. Ironically, the article was to be published on our blog the same day that hot dogs were being served at the school cafeteria.

That morning, I showed my kids pictures of mechanically separated meat (one of the main ingredients in hot dogs). I explained that Mommy likes the taste of hot dogs too, but after seeing what goes into them, I don’t feel like eating them that much.

My kids actually agreed…they were so grossed out. I packed them an extra special lunch (banana/nut butter sandwich…their favorite), and gave them permission to get chocolate milk at the cafeteria, to offset their melancholy.

Of course, then they went to school and grossed out all their friends, and everyone went home hungry that day.

Diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease are rampant in this country…and science has spoken loud and clear on this issue: FOOD MATTERS, and it matters a lot.

We don’t raise our kids, never mentioning the risks of smoking, say a Hail Mary, and then just hope that they never smoke. We need to talk with them them about nutrition, too.

LYING, CHEATING, AND TRICKERY

The fact is that most kids are NOT going to be excited about vegetables. Our mission as parents is to get our kids to tolerate vegetables, until their taste buds mature enough that they actually like them.

So in my own home, I use a combination of lying, cheating, and trickery to accomplish this lofty goal. (Okay, the lying not so much).

CHEATING:

1. Make the foods they like, just with better ingredients.

· HAMBURGERS: Our family loves veggie burgers with cheese, and all the fixings. I usually serve them with whole grain buns (Nature’s Own) and a side of sweet potato fries. (Wal-mart has several good brands of veggie burgers in the frozen section. Try them out, to see which ones your family likes best).

· PIZZA: My mom and I like to make pizzas with whole grain pita bread, Heart Smart Prego (less sodium than most), and our favorite veggie toppings. (My kids like chicken, olives, and pineapple).

· CHICKEN NUGGETS: I love the chicken nugget recipe from Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook, “Deceptively Delicious.” She has lots of great recipes with hidden veggies, such as quesadillas with squash and burgers with zucchini.

2. Hide stuff in their food.

· When I make chicken noodle soup, I serve it in a flattish bowl, and mash up the carrots and celery with a fork so they’re undetectable.

· When I make banana-berry smoothies, I add a handful of kale (you can’t taste it, I promise. If you could taste it, there’s no way I would drink it myself).

TRICKERY:

1. Find ways to make dinner more fun.

· My four-year-old son wouldn’t touch his chicken the other night. Thirty minutes later, we had cleared the table, but he was still sitting there…having a standoff with the chicken. I gave him a toothpick, and he happily stabbed and ate the rest of it. Go figure.

· Last night, I served veggie burgers with tomatoes and butter lettuce. My boys don’t like lettuce at all. AND they had never tried this type… so the odds were against me big time. However, I picked up a piece of lettuce and said, “I bet I can crunch louder than you can.” And they both ate it. All of it.

GET THEM INVOLVED

Children live in a world of giants.

They walk around, navel-high to a sea of people who are all bigger, smarter, and more powerful than they are. All they want is a chance to contribute something…to add a bit of value…to be given a task that might *seem* a little too grown-up, then wrestle it to the ground, put their foot on it’s back, and say, “I did that.”

So let them help in the kitchen. Let them cut up some fruit. Let them pick blackberries on a farm. Find ways to help them take ownership of their nutrition.

And most importantly, we as parents need to let GO of the mess. (This has been hard for me…but I am slowly getting there). Twenty years from now, our kitchens will be perfect and spotless…but silent. Let’s enjoy our kids now, while we have them close.

Yesterday, I jokingly asked the kids, “SO….what are you making me for dinner tonight?”…which must have come out something like this: “kabuba snufer bezuma,” because they looked at me like I was speaking Swahili.

Although I was completely kidding, I guess they saw it as a challenge…because 30 minutes later, the kids pulled me to the kitchen table, sat me down, and served me dinner.

Each of them had designed and illustrated a different menu. They took my order, provided “musical” entertainment while I waited, then brought out my food. (Okay, so it was a tortilla with cheese that had been overly-nuked, with a side of Mott’s applesauce…but still…I think it was the best meal I’ve ever eaten).

My second favorite part of the evening was when I looked at the kids’ menus, and realized it was all nutritious stuff…soup, salad, wraps, yogurt, fruit, and milk. But hands-down, the best part of the evening was seeing the huge smiles on their faces as they watched me eat.

* * *

Katie Suarez’s blog, Eat for Your Life, has been nominated for an international weblog award. It’s the story of a mother’s battle with cancer, and a daughter’s fight to save her. Recipes, health, humor, and inspiration that might just change your life. eatforyourlifetoday.com

Parents Need to Eat Too

My boys, as I've mentioned before, are not adventurous eaters. And you know what? Neither am I. I've gotten better as I've gotten older: In the old days, I considered yogurt a scary food and refused to eat Chinese or Mexican food because I couldn't identify every single ingredient. Now, I eat yogurt (mostly vanilla, though; I'm still not a fan of fruit) and have recently begun considering the fact that I may be missing out on something truly fantastic due to the fact that I believe seafood to be yucky, even though I've never tasted it.

Is it any wonder that my boys are picky?

Parenting, though, has a way of bringing out the best in most of us. Because I love my boys, I want them to be as happy and healthy as possible, and I know that learning to enjoy a variety of foods is a big part of that. I also know that good nutrition is important for me. I want to be around as long as possible, and subsisting on a diet based on meat, grains and dairy won't cut it.

So I've tried to improve our diets, but...

Despite a myriad of excuses (I'm too busy; I don't have time; it's not a priority right now; the boys eat half their meals at their Dad's house anyway), I finally realized that our family faces two major obstacles to healthy eating:

1) I don't eat a particularly healthy diet

2) I don't know how to prepare healthy, interesting, good tasting foods

I eat -- and prepare -- the food I grew up with. I'm pretty good at making meat-potato-and frozen veggie meals. I can make spaghetti, pizza, burgers and all that. But when it comes to interesting, healthy meals and snacks? I'm lost.

Enter two new books, Elizabeth Pantley's The No-Cry Picky Eater Solution and Parents Need to Eat Too, by Debbie Koenig. Pantley sent me a copy of her book after I, uh, made fun of some of her suggestions in an earlier blog post. Koenig's publicist sent me her new book as part of a promotional tour to celebrate the release of Parents Need To Eat Too. (Full disclosure: If I manage to get this post up in time, I may be eligible to win some kind of cooking tool or appliance.)

I've been perusing both books for a couple weeks now, and you know what? They've affected my shopping, cooking and eating habits. Both books include plenty of recipes, and a number of them sound so yummy and easy that I tried them. Want proof? On a recent trip to the grocery store, I put brussel sprouts, asparagus AND sweet potatoes in my cart. Better yet -- I've used and enjoyed almost all of them! (The brussel sprouts are still in the fridge, but I really want to try the Leaf Us Alone Brussel Sprouts recipe in Pantley's book.)

Koenig's book is aimed at new parents. The book starts, "If you're holding this book, odds are congratulations are in order. Either you're a new parent yourself, or you know someone who is." Well, my baby just turned six, and although I know new parents, I have no intention of giving the book to any of them. That's because I want to keep it! My baby might be six, but I'm still strapped for time and struggling to figure out how to prepare nutritious, great tasting meals in little time. If you ask me, Parents Need to Eat Too is a great resource for all parents.

The book is chock-full of easy, delicious sounding recipes. I've already made Buckwheat Carrot Muffins and Baked Sweet Potato Chips. And despite the author's own full-disclosure warning about the muffins ("I'm not gonna lie: Thse are health-bomb-type muffins"), my sons gobbled them up. I think they think that anything that looks like a cupcake must be good.

I had some trouble with the Sweet Potato Chips -- they burned before they got thoroughly crisp -- but Koenig assured me in an email that slicing them thinner and taking them out sooner might resolve that problem. I hope so, because the ones that I managed to rescue from the oven were delicious! The kids didn't eat them, but they did try them because they smelled so good while baking, and I consider that a step in the right direction.

No book can solve my feeding frustrations, but with these books in the house, I feel as if I finally have resources to help me plan and prepare easy, healthy and appealing meals and snacks.

Is Your Son a Picky Eater?

None of my sons are a gourmand's dream. Each will hesitate at the sight of new food -- and by "hesitate," I mean "politely (or not-so-politely) refuse to try." None of them are big fans of mixed foods, like casserole, even if they like all of the individual ingredients. (My boys all like ham, cheese, noodles and broccoli -- but mix those basic ingredients up in a casserole, and none of the boys will do much more than take the requisite taste.) Their list of OK foods is pretty narrow: pizza, burgers, spaghetti, pork chops, chicken nuggets, sandwiches, cereal...you get the picture.

Part of it, I assume, is my fault. I'm not the most adventurous eater either. I was well into my twenties before I tried a non-Italian, non-Mexican ethnic food. Even then, I had to make a conscious effort to focus on the overall taste, and not think, "what is IN this thing?" (because God forbid if it contain an ingredient I didn't like!). To this day, I'm not a big fan of veggies and I really, really don't like fruit -- as in, I have a weird aversion to fresh fruit. If I actually force myself to eat fruit, I'm able to admit that the taste isn't so bad -- and may actually be good. But overcoming the mental hurdle is more effort than I'm usually willing to put in. Luckily, my boys haven't inherited my fruit aversion. All of them enjoy multiple fruits; my oldest, I think, could live on fruit.

The idea that my boys might have inherited some of my food quirks, though, is not so far-fetched. A 2007 New York Times article reported on a research study that indicated that 78% of kids' receptiveness to new foods appears to be genetic, while 22% is environmental.

Interesting, right? Yes. But ultimately, not helpful, because what we all want to know is how to a) make sure our kids get a balanced diet and b) help our kids enjoy food.

Techniques I've tried, with little to no success:

• Stocking the house with mostly good food and letting the boys eat what they want. The problem with this technique, at least at my house, is that there's so much junk food in the world! My boys have an amazing ability to hold out, and junk food has an amazing ability to show up just often enough to prevent the boys from ever getting hungry enough to eat the "good food." Case in point: My Mom loves to bring over donuts. She also keeps her house stocked with treats, and frankly, I don't want to be the mom who refuses to let Grandma give the boys treats.
• Insisting that the boys try at least one bite of every food on their plates. The big problem with this one? I don't want to have to police who eats what. Plus, my boys will eagerly watch each other for reaction. If one tries supper and makes a face, the others manage to gag or sit there stubbornly while the food remains on their plates.
• Letting the boys fix their own simple meal after trying the offered meal. I refuse to make multiple meals. Once I've cooked a meal, I want to sit down and eat it. I also recognize the fact that not every member of the family will like the meal. So if my boys at least try the food, I allow them to get up and make themselves a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich or bowl of cereal.
• Eliminating the distinctions between "good" and "bad" food. Essentially, this technique meant letting the boys eat whatever they wanted. They were happy. I was not. See bullet point #1. There's just too much non-nutritious food out there in the world, and I want to make sure my boys are getting the calories, protein, vitamins and minerals they need.

Now Elizabeth Pantley, author of the No-Cry Sleep Solution and other No-Cry parenting books, has published the No-Cry Picker Eater Solution. I appreciate her intent, as well as the fact that there's a huge audience for this book. I just don't think that most of her advice is going to work for my boys. Check out this excerpt:

~ Put vegetables on a pedestal.
It's an odd fact that while vegetables are a healthy cornerstone of any diet, they are usually relegated to a back corner side dish. While interesting recipes appear for main dishes, the vegetables are often steamed or boiled in a routinely boring presentation. Start treating vegetables as the star of the meal and your kids will too.

I doubt it.

~ Name the star of the show.
Vegetables rarely get the spotlight. When kids ask, "what's for dinner?" we name the meat and starch - "Chicken and rice" or "Steak and potatoes" and don't even mention the vegetables. From now on, name the veggies first. Create a fun name for the vegetable of the day you can help your children view them in a different light. So, what's for dinner? "We're having Brilliant Bunches of Broccoli along with chicken and rice."

Would your boys be tricked by "Brilliant Bunches of Broccoli?" I don't think mine would. Besides, my boys already like broccoli. I need help with the chicken! (For some reason, despite the fact that I serve it often in a variety of different ways, my boys tend to think of chicken as a "weird" food.)

~ Search out new recipes for veggies.
Try stir-frying a mix of veggies with olive oil to give them an attractive presentation and a unique flavor. Add a sprinkling of nuts or seeds or a dribble of sauce. Mix two or even three kinds of vegetables together for a colorful dish.

See blog post paragraph #1. My boys don't like (read: "won't touch") mixed-up foods.

~ Get artistic.
It can be fun to serve vegetables in interesting containers or arranged colorfully in patterns or shape.

It can be a lot of work to artfully cut up and arrange veggies that my boys aren't going to eat anyway.

~ Let them dip 'em.
Serve a platter of raw veggies with dipping sauce such as ranch dressing, yogurt or hummus Kids often prefer raw vegetables over cooked, especially if they can dip.

The only dip my boys like is ketchup. They still consider ranch dressing and hummus exotic, "weird" foods. Yogurt is OK, but the only thing they'll dip in it is fruit (after the yogurt has been mixed with peanut butter.) They do like raw veggies better than cooked veggies, though.

~ Give kids a choice.

Routinely serve two vegetables at dinner so that you double the chance your child will eat at least one. Plus, seeing two vegetables will build an expectation that vegetables are important.

Yep. It will also double the odds that I end up wasting twice as many veggies.

~ Get sneaky.
While you are teaching your child about nutrition, go ahead and hide some vegetables within other recipes to up your child's daily quota. It's easy to add chopped spinach to hamburgers, pureed squash into macaroni and cheese, crushed cauliflower into mashed potatoes, or bits of carrots and broccoli into spaghetti sauce. That way your kids get the benefits of vegetables no matter what.

Despite my boys' reluctance, I refuse to hide veggies. Isn't the point to teach them to enjoy multiple foods. Won't hiding the "good" foods just teach the kids that the food in question really is yucky? (I mean, do you traditionally hide your good china? Or good clothes?) And won't they just then be more suspicious of any food that you make? Because I'm sure that at least one of my boys would figure out what's up.

So parents -- How do you deal with picky eaters?

What Are Your Boys Into?

Ever notice how certain obsessions come and go?

For awhile, Boy #2 was obsessed with dinosaurs. Then he switched to butterflies. (Go figure.) Some days, the Tonka trucks are in style. Other days, they're not.

The latest obsessions at my house are Lincoln logs, sand and water. Let me explain.

The Lincoln logs are just, well, cool. We had some for years, but as you've probably already figured out, you can never have too many Lincoln logs. So when none of my brothers stepped up to claim the Lincoln logs at my parents' house last fall, I brought them home and added them to our stash.

For three days now, my youngest three boys have been creating elaborate constructions out of the notched wooden blocks. Garages seem to be their building-of-choice; miniature cars sit safely in the structures, guarded by the plastic figurines my boys so helpfully place on the roof.

Of course, no boy can stay inside forever, and lately when mine head outside, they head straight for the sandbox. They started digging last week, during a major rain storm. They dug out a pit, next to the sandbox. (WHY do they always have to dig next to the sandbox?) The pit filled with water, as intended. The boys joked that it would be funny to see a fish in the puddle, and Boy #1 happily agreed. He went fishing early the next morning with a friend and not-so-secretly planted three bullheads in the pit.

I may have been the only woman in the neighborhood with fish swimming at the bottom of her garage stairs. I'm pretty sure I'm the only woman in the neighborhood (in the town?) who ate a fish dinner today from her backyard. (Boy #1 fried us up a succulent fish dinner today after adding fish to the pond yesterday).

So the fish are gone -- but the boys' interest in sand and water has not abated. They were out there again this afternoon, re-shaping the pond and creating rivers, streams and dams.

What are your boys into these days?

Selling Unhealthy Food to Kids

Full disclosure: I have two boxes of Scooby Doo-themed Gogurt in my fridge right now. Actually, make that one-and-a-half boxes. The boys hit those pretty hard today.

According to a new study, it's quite possible that my boys chose that yogurt because Scooby Doo was on the box. Knowing my boys, I absolutely concur. They're good, price-conscious shoppers, but given the choice to choose their own yogurt, they choose the Scooby Doo version over tubs of Dannon every time. And if you read the small print on the side of those Gogurt boxes, you know that the wildly colored product inside is not exactly a health food, despite yogurt's healthy reputation.

My boys' ability to be swayed by cartoon packaging is, unfortunately, all too common and entirely known to marketers. It's also having a detrimental effect on our children's health. According to a Pediatrics study published online June 21, boys and girls ages four to six said food tasted better when it came from a cartoon-enhanced package. Is it any wonder our children are selecting Trix yogurt and SpongeBob Cheez-Its?

Some, including study author Christina Roberto, are drawing parallels between Joe Camel of the past and snack cartoons of the present. I think they've got a valid point.

I've expressed my concerns about McDonald's marketing tactics before. And while I'm not entirely sure about the tactics, I don't disagree with the sentiment behind the Center for Science in the Public Interest's threat to sue McDonald's if the fast food purveyor does not remove toys from all future Happy Meals. Let's face it: If not for those toys, my kids would have chosen Happy Meals far less often. Often, my kids ordered Happy Meals solely because they wanted the toy. And while McDonald's rightly claims to offer healthy choices, my kids, like most, are well aware that Happy Meals come with fries or apple slices -- and that fries are the preferable choice.

Yes, I could put my foot down. I could insist on apple slices. I could boycott McDonald's and I refuse to buy any food branded with a cartoon character. But that doesn't change the fact that there's something inherently wrong with a bunch of marketers strategizing ways to attract kids to unhealthy goods.

That's my opinion. What's yours?

Teen Boys Eat A Lot

That's the conclusion of a new scientific study. I know, right? Tell us something we don' t know!

But the study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, could be reassurance for parents and teen boys in this day and age of eating disorders. While we tend to associate eating disorders, dieting and poor body image with girls, boys are affected too. Just today, another mom told me that her 7-year-old son recently asked if he was fat. (He's not.) And my 12-year-old son, a growing boy if ever there was one, frequently expresses concern about the weight he's gaining. He's gotten the societal message that weight gain is bad -- at 12-years-old.

Teenage boys, though, need to eat. According to the study, prepubescent boys average nearly 1300 lunchtime calories, compared to girls' 900 calories. Boys in their mid-teens typically consume around 2000 calories at lunch. While that might sound like a lot (particularly to our weight-obsessed brains), boys need those calories to fuel their tremendous growth.

If you son starts obsessing about his weight, obsessively counting calories or exercising in the extreme, pay attention. As Adelaide Robb, an associate professor of psychiatry, said in a 2007 Washington Post article, "A teenage boy shouldn't be eating what his 110-pound, dieting mother would eat. It's normal for a half-gallon of milk and a loaf of bread to disapper every 48 hours if there's a teenage boy in the house."

Best of the Blogs

Parenthood is a full-time job (plus!). Picking up crackers, wiping snotty noses and reading All About Diggers for the 100th time doesn't exactly leave a lot of time for personal pursuits. And many, many parents, caught up in the whirlwind that is parenthood, let themselves go for a period of time. They push their dreams and passions aside while caring, exhaustively, for the needs of their children. But is that they way to go? Visit Boy Crazy to read a great post, On motherhood and art and our former selves. (You'll see a comment from me there as well.)

A lot of parents struggle with feeling of incompetence too. But as Jan Udlock learned, there's a big difference between "incompetent" and "learning." Read more at Imperfect Mom.

Interested in healthy, hearty, homegrown food for your family? Andrea at Say YES 2 Boys is busy reading about food, and she shares her favorites books with you in Books, Chickens and Boys.

Education Week has a great post about educational standards. No Child Left Behind may have been well-intentioned, but the standards generated in its wake are often nearly unobtainable, especially for many young boys.

Read anything else interesting this week? Send me a link!

Snapshot Sunday: Big Marshmallows

Snapshot Sunday: Halloween at Our House

Snapshot Sunday: The July 5th Edition

I call it: Tired Child Surrounded by Parade Candy.

The 4th of July

At this point, the fireworks are iffy.

It rained heavily a couple hours ago, so we're all waiting to see if the pyrotechnics will be shot off as usual. I hope so! There's something magical about snuggling on a blanket with a little boy, long after his bedtime, watching fireworks light up the sky.

The boys did, however, get candy -- and lots of it. A small town near here (and by "small town," I mean small. They've just revised their population sigh to read, "Not many.") that hosts an annual 4th of July parade. It's nothing fancy -- firetrucks, tractors, teenage beauty queens, a couple floats and a band -- but none of that matters to the boys. To the boys, the July 4th parade is all about candy.

By 8 am, they had their candy bags picked out: a paper grocery bag for Boy #4, double-bagged plastic grocery bags for Boy #3 ("in case one gets a hole") and a heavy-duty plastic library bag for Boy #2. Not that I blame them. The July 4th parade was always my favorite too.

Now, the candy has been sorted into little piles. Boy #3 has his candy in multiple plastic containers while Boy #2's bag is heavily guarded and ready to take up to the fireworks tonight. (This child was planning the snack menu by 9 am this morning.)

They boys are currently resting up and keeping their fingers crossed. (Thanks, uncles, for keeping the boys entertained at our afternoon cookout.) With any luck, the fireworks will proceed as scheduled and we'll oooh and aaaah surrounded by family -- and candy.

Enjoy your 4th!

Why Boys Love Candy

My boys love candy. They love Halloween, with loaded down plastic pumpkins. They love softball games, with concession stands full of treats and mad money jingling in their pockets. And they love parades, with the promise of candy littering the streets. (Yes, my children shoved Wal-Mart bags into their pockets before heading down the Memorial Day parade today, "just in case.")

Boy #3, in fact, can't wait for tomorrow to get here because he plan to call the Oriental Trading company and order 145 pieces of Warheads, an extremely sour candy.

Given that I have a sweet tooth myself, I can't entirely condemn their love of all things sweet (or sour). I've also made a conscious decision to let go, to not regulate their intake of cookies and cake and ice cream, because I believe that forbidding a food or artificially limiting it makes it more attractive. (For more, see Sandra Dodd's writings.)

Now a new study finds a biological basis to my sons' predilection for sweets. A study of 9000 children revealed that boys need 10 percent more sweetness and 20 percent more sourness than girls do to register "sweet" or "sour."

Interesting. We parents often comment about boys being "more" -- more active, more noisy, more intense. But consider the biology:

• Boys' hearing is less acute than girls' from day one
• Boys eyes are targeted to register movement, not subtle differences in color
• Boys have more dopamine in their bloodstream, which can increase impulsive behavior
• And now -- boys' taste buds are less refined than girls'

Is it any wonder our boys need More? Or even that their need for More sometimes, um, bugs their mothers just a tiny little bit? Boys NEED more noise, more taste and more action just to register the same sensations we might have felt, oh, 65 decibels ago.

It's a constant balancing act for me -- balancing my sons' need for stimulation with my need for peace and quiet. But at least now, I understand their need for More.

April Fools Day

If there ever was a holiday created for boys, this is it. I mean, what boy doesn't like silly, goofy fun -- or an excuse to pull pranks on his brothers?

My boys have been at it all day. Son #1 put hot sauce in Son #3's water glass. Son #2 was going to dump water all over Son #1 as he slept, but Mom caught him as he was tiptoeing up the stairs. Instead, he pulled what I think it the best prank of the day (so far).

He filled an old Mountain Dew bottle with bubble solution and placed it on his brother's dresser, along with a typed note:

"I got you this Mountain Dew so you can stay up and at 'em on April Fools Day. If you're wondering why I put it here, I knew your brothers would get jealous.
Love, Dad
P.S. Hope you don't mind I took a little slug"

So far, I haven't pulled any pranks of my own. But if you're looking for a little inspiration, head over to Family Fun.

My all-time favorite prank, pulled a few years ago, will long be remembered. I got the idea from Quick Cooking Magazine. It was an April Fools Day dinner, featuring meatloaf that was actually decorated to look like a layer cake (mashed potatoes served as the frosting) and taco cups that were really ice cream sundaes in disguise. Oh, and we have special, undrinkable berry sodas as well (think jello in a glass).

Problem is, that's a hard prank to top!

How 'bout you? I'd love to hear about some of the April Fools high-jinks at your home!

P.S. Thanks to Mandie at Life in the Craft Lane. She designed the royal jester you see above!