DCUM Weblog

Last night my family sat down around our dinner table and enjoyed a nourishing, home-cooked meal while we lovingly and supportively talked about our respective days. But then I woke up. As I rolled over in bed -- onto the soggy, half-eaten Teddy Graham that made up the “grains” portion of my four-year-old’s dinner -- I checked off yet another mark on my robust maternal guilt list:  Our family dinner hour masquerades as the family drive-thru 10 minutes.

I think I feel guilty because I grew up with an unrealistic model of domestic bliss, a family in which Mom served a piping hot meal every night out of a magically uncluttered kitchen and Dad eagerly cleared the table. No, not my parents: The Brady Bunch. Carol and Mike really screwed the rest of us -- no nut allergies or aversions to leafy greens in their perky little blended family. No one in the Brady family ever flung themselves to the kitchen floor in the throes of a tantrum, screaming, “Not grilled-cheese sandwiches again!” (Which, I confess, I did just the other night).

A mother’s prayer: Please, please, please let me get a good night’s sleep tonight. Please don’t let me wake up in a race car-shaped kiddie bed at 3 a.m. with my head wedged into a wheel well and a kid sprawled across my legs, like last night. Please don’t let a child crawl into bed with me and promptly pee on me. Just one good night’s sleep, that’s all I ask. Amen.

10 p.m. sharp:  Time to turn off the television and go straight to bed. Am so tired. Ooh, but an “American Idol” rerun is on! I’ll just watch for a minute.

11:00 p.m.  I’m so over Clay Aiken.  Anyway, off to bed.

11:03 p.m.  How can I be expected to sleep when a persistent voice is coming from the kitchen freezer, calling out, “Hellooooo? Anyone awake?”

"Can I have juice? Can I have juice?" This is the sound of our two children coming to dinner. We rarely have soft drinks around the house, we've explained that beer and wine are a few years off, we suggest a glass of milk or water, but none of it works. The boys want juice.

What is truly disconcerting, however, is what is more and more frequently occurring after dinner. Something akin to repeated renditions of "Mothra vs Godzilla" (albeit with a male Mothra) involving jumping on furniture, tumbling on the floor, knocking things over, and turning the most innocuous items into weapons. These epic battles leave our living room in a condition close to that of Nagoya after its destruction. The link between the sugar in juice and the havoc wrecked on our household seems clear.

I consider myself a lucky blogger. There’s so much to say about organics, going green, raising kids, and trying to make sense of healthy green living. And at OrganicMania, we've had some great discussions about organics versus conventional foods, like this one and this one.

As I look through some of the nearly 300 comments (!) you've left on OrganicMania, I’m struck by how many of us are struggling to make sense of our options in order to provide what’s best for our children. This morning I was struggling a bit, too, trying to choose from a myriad of possibilities for today's post.

But my mind kept wandering back to this story in yesterday’s Washington Post about the terrible impact of rising food prices on the world’s poor. Did you know that the UN’s World Food Program being forced to cut back on feeding programs that serve 20 million children?

This afternoon, the US National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, released a draft reportindicating that low dose exposure to BPA plastics may be linked tobreast cancer, prostate cancer, early puberty in girls and behavioralchanges such as hyperactivity. And it's rumored that the Canadiangovernment will take an even stronger step on Wednesday, naming BPA a"dangerous substance."

Many feel that this report is long overdue. The fact is, for yearsnow, early pioneers such as the Environmental Working Group and savvymedia outlets like The Wall Street Journal have been warning of the potential risks of BPA. Just last August, a group of 38 medical researchers warned again of the potential risks.

It all sounded so wholesome and Walton-esque at the time: Our family was not going to succumb to the lure of the built-in DVD player in our minivan. Instead of staring slack-jawed at Sponge Bob, our kids would talk to us for hours as we merrily traversed to our summer vacation destinations (their little jaws get ample resting time at home anyway). Perhaps we’d even break into spontaneous song as we created warm, fuzzy family memories. As we drove away from the Honda dealership in our new, DVD-less minivan, we felt proud, and almost Amish.

Then came the time for us to actually take a family vacation. Correction—not vacation. Vacations conjure notions of lazy afternoons spent napping, evenings sipping piña coladas and competing in limbo contests, and mornings that don’t begin until noon. Our first big family retreat was to Sesame Place in Pennsylvania, a 2 1/2-hour drive from Bethesda if you take the scenic, endlessly stretching, gray highway route. I can honestly report that Sponge Bob’s presence wasn’t missed in the slightest for the first 90 seconds.

Perhaps the easiest way to think about how to “go green” for Easter is to think back on how you celebrated as a child. Did you have zillions of plastic eggs and small trinkets made of Cheap Plastic Crap stuffed in your basket? It’s doubtful. Easter used to be a simple affair. A basket full of jelly beans and chocolate, and some colored (real) eggs was all it took to send a child into spasms of joy at the Easter Bunny’s bounty.

So why do we think kids have changed? Simply because the retailers now encourage us to buy Cheap Plastic Crap trinkets and plastic eggs for Easter? Think again. Try to remember how you celebrated as a child and what made you especially happy. Why not take your cues from that experience to continue your family traditions?

The other night, my husband and I were enjoying a quiet, romantic dinner at an Italian restaurant we love for very different reasons. Glenn loves it because the pasta sauce is hearty and spicy, the service is friendly, and the prices are reasonable. For me, it’s all about the generously-sized wine glasses (my needs simplify as I age). Unfortunately, our meal was marred by the antics of some ill-mannered kids who were wrestling under one of the tables. Even more inconveniently, they were our kids.

When our boys were babies, restaurant dining was so much simpler. We’d call ahead and ask one vital question. We didn’t care if the health department had recently condemned the place, or whether there was a two-hour wait for a table, or even if they had tables. A ceiling fan was all we required. We’d plop our kids under the fan and they’d stare at it, mesmerized, their little eyes rolling around in their heads, until they were drooling and nearly comatose. It probably cost them a few dozen I.Q. points, but hey – we got to eat!