Leading Mama

Sunday Soapbox: Show Me the Rainbow

We don't eat out a lot. There aren't many restaurants near our house and driving 45 minutes to have an hour-long meal with two impatient kids isn't relaxing.  Plus, kids' menus make me a little bit crazy.

 

Choices include:

Macaroni and cheese (usually Kraft)

Chicken fingers

Hot dog or corn dog

Hamburger or cheeseburger

Grilled cheese sandwich

and

Pasta with marinara (if you're lucky!)

 

What's my beef, you ask?

 

Three issues for the soapbox: variety (none), portions (huge) and sidedishes (starchy).

 

No matter where you go, the kids' menu has the same options. If your child is a picky eater, this is probably a good thing. When you have the same options every time, choosing is simplified. If your 3-year-old will eat nothing but hotdogs, a kids' menu without hotdogs would be disastrous.

 

But Little Man is an adventurous eater. His tastes -- thanks to inspiration from the Food Network and my culinary experimentation -- are pretty sophisticated. If he has his way, Little Man orders clams in red sauce, grilled salmon, and chicken enchiladas. He dives right in to a plate of calamari, tentacles and all. I encourage it, even if it makes me cringe inside.

 

Sometimes we order an appetizer as his meal ($9.95 instead of $4.95) to give him access to better options. Sometimes I order what he wants and we share it: last night I ordered the sea bass to accompany his "pasta with butter sauce". Without the fish, his dinner would have consisted of the following:

 

Rolls with butter from the bread basket 

2 1/2 cups of ziti swimming in butter

A 16-ounce "kid's cup" of chocolate milk

 

It doesn't take a dietician to see that this is unhealthy. The portions are too large, even for an adult. There's no protein, no vegetables, and no fruit.

 

Why is it that restaurants serve adult entrees with appropriate side dishes but can't put a few broccoli bites and some melon onto a kid's plate?

 

Some kids may not eat the broccoli. I get that. But mine -- and many others -- will. And most would eat some fruit.

 

Restauranteurs hear this: when parents buy dinner out for our kids, we're feeding their brains, not just their bellies. Oversized greasy-starchy kids' meals skew kids' expectations about what makes a meal.

 

I shouldn't have to supplement a kid's "meal" with protein and veggies from my own meal to anchor the pyramid, round out the rainbow, or balance the plate. There is no nutritional model known to man that endorses macaroni and cheese with a side of french fries.

 

It may appear that my kids are making their own food choices in your restaurant, but I decide if and when we come back. If I can't score a reasonably balanced plate for under $8, chances aren't so good.

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That's what has me on my soapbox this week. If you've got an opinion to share, link up your post below and share your thoughts in the comments. Links are live all week. Please be respectful and don't link up posts that don't fit the Sunday Soapbox theme. They will be removed.

 

NOODLES PREPARED FOR BOILING
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Sunday Soapbox: Slow Down, Rite Aid

This morning, Leading Mama and the fam are sitting on a tropical island, where time passes so slowly it’s easy to lose track. At home, I’m not nearly this laid back. I value productivity; I’m happiest when I’m right on time or even early; In my professional life, deadlines are sacrosanct.

 

But today I’m up on my soapbox to say "slow down, people."

 

I’m not advocating you all take a long, leisurely tropical vacation (though I’m sure you could use one).

 

I’m asking you to think about the relative value of time and quality.

 

In the past few weeks, Rite Aid’s new “15 minutes or less” campaign caught my attention and kept it. The promise is simple: they fill your new prescription in 15 minutes or less. If not, you get a $5 gift card.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I value my time. This fall, while waiting for Rite Aid to fill a prescription for the kids, my 4-year-old vomited all over his car seat, his clothes, and my almost-new car. The cleanup cost me several hours. If a drug fairy dropped off prescriptions at the house and sweet-talked my kids into taking them without screaming, fighting, or a headlock, I’d be thrilled.

 

But the 15 minute guarantee makes me nervous. Dominoes Pizza eliminated its 30-minutes-or-less guarantee when it discovered the policy caused delivery drivers to have more traffic accidents (duh).

 

One of the best replicated findings in psychology is what we call the speed-accuracy tradeoff. The faster we work, the less precise the results.  When it comes to prescription medications, there’s no room for error. Speed simply isn’t as important as accuracy.

 

A report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found that errors involving prescription medications kill up to 7,000 Americans a year, and that the financial costs of drug-related morbidity and mortality may be as much as $77 billion a year.

 

So, Rite Aid, Leading Mama says slow down. I’ll gladly wait more than 15 minutes if it means my prescriptions will be accurate. Your $5 gift card won’t wash the vomit out of my back seat anyway. 

 

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If you've been up on your soapbox this week, link up an opinionated post below and share some comment love. I can't wait to hear what's got you fired up. But take your time, the linky is live all week. 

 

Balance is Relative

Time management gurus would freak out if they saw how I operate. I don't collect empty pizza boxes or tchochkes, but I'm surrounded by so many to-dos and wanna-learns I could star in a special episode of Hoarding: Buried Alive. I'd call it "the overachiever edition." Maybe I should pitch this idea to Oprah.

 

Here's my dirty little secret to getting it all done.

 

I let creative impulses, have-to's, want-to's  and deadlines determine what I do and when I do it.

 

Leading Man calls it "just-in-time excellence."

 

If the ideas are swimming in my head, I capture them on paper. I save files and add details as they come to me. When article is due, I write it. If Little Man is out of socks (again!), I do laundry. If the baby has a hacking cough -- right now she sounds like a 2-pack-a-day smoker -- I take her to the clinic. If I feel like Thai Chicken with Basil for dinner, I get busy in the kitchen. If I don't want to cook, I defrost and reheat.

 

When someone offers snuggle time, I drop everything and I "nuggle." I *do* have priorities, you know.

 

The old schedule that housewives perfected over a hundred years and embroidered on millions of flour-sack dish towels just wouldn't fly around here.  

  

Monday: Wash Day
Tuesday: Ironing Day
Wednesday: Sewing Day
Thursday: Market Day
Friday: Cleaning Day
Saturday: Baking Day
Sunday: Day of Rest

 

Spreading tasks over time would certainly make my life more manageable. But it doesn't fit with my personality. I love the pressure of a deadline. The thrill of keeping too many balls in the air is something I miss if my to-do list grows shorter than my arm. I get itchy to take on new tasks.

 

But -- even if it looks like I am in way over my head most days -- I manage to maintain a sense of balance in the longer term.

 

Right now I am working hard. I am overcommitted. I am struggling to stop myself from taking on more. And I am loving every minute of it.

 

I'm also anticipating a delicious change of pace when we go on a two-week vacation this spring. (Where? Turks and Caicos, thank you very much for asking. Super scuba, gorgeous lush tropical happiness, sandcastle making and shell-collecting. Mmmm. I can almost feel the sun on my face.)

 

For Leading Mama, balance is relative.

I know I can have it all, just not all at the same time.

 

This post inspired by a prompt from

 

 

 

 

 

Are You Linked In?

Are you LinkedIn? Is your face in the “book?” (FaceBook, that is.)  Do you Yahoo!? Got space on MySpace? Blogspot? CafeMom?

  

 

As I’ve been updating my networking site profiles and website information, I find myself waxing a bit nostalgic. Wasn’t business better when we stopped by colleagues’ or competitors’ offices, made phone calls, had lunch? Weren’t families better when we lived up the road from Grandma’s house and she didn’t have to watch the kiddos grow up via webcam?

 

 

  

Business banter loves the global marketplace. You can work on both coasts simultaneously, outsource your IT operations to Asia, and sell to multiple markets without leaving your home office. Suddenly suppliers’ competition skyrockets and it feels like everyone is a potential customer.

 

As families become more mobile and move further from their extended kin, moms and dads go global, too. We join parenting groups (I love mine!), make playdates, search for sitters online using giant databases of profiles (check out sittercity.com to see what I mean). Perhaps it has always been the case that “It Takes a Village” to raise a child, but the village is virtual these days.

 

  

I can’t help but wonder if all this social networking hasn’t had a paradoxical effect. We’re more connected than ever and yet we’re lonelier. We spend increasing amounts of time crafting our “selves” online (personal or professional profiles, websites, blogs). Yet our identities feel less authentic, our brands less compelling. It’s hard to tell what is real and what is creative fiction.

 

  

Interviewers for the General Social Survey asked people the following question:

 

  

“From time to time, most people discuss important matters with other people. Looking back over the last six months, who are the people with whom you have discussed matters important to you?” List their first names or initials.

 

 

Stop and answer this on scratch paper before you read on…

Come on, humor me and answer it.

 

The result? The number of close confidants reported has dropped nearly one third, from 2.94 to 2.08 in the last 20 years. The drop is depressing, but the absolute number is sadder still. In the year 2004, the average person said they discussed important matters with only 2 people?! What kind of social networking is that?

 

Social connections are important stress busters and they’re still the way business gets done. So before you update that profile, take a few minutes to invite a friend or coworker to lunch. Oh, and don’t forget to call your mom.