Kids and diet

As a kid I was a super fussy eater and would not have sauces, vegetables unless they were a pea, and when I ordered a burger in McDonalds I would have just the bun and the burger and wouldn’t stand it when food touched other food on the plate. If a pea, and had to be garden peas, touched a chip of example I wouldn’t eat the chip, but eat the pea.

Photo by August de Richelieu on Pexels.com

When I first weaned Henry I started with baby rice and porridge and Farley Rusks, and would make my own vegetable purees and he loved them, especially if it was sweet potato and carrots for example and cabbage soup and loved it. Yet now won’t touch a vegetable unless it is super hidden. He is not as fussy like I was, and will eat when he feels like it a banana, but won’t touch any other fruit.

A kids diet has to be nutritious and filling and avoiding too many snacks, but making sure they are hydrated especially in the summer and have a good breakfast, a good lunch and good dinner is important, but when they are fussy it is fish fingers or chicken nuggets and not anything else. So how to get them eat well?

if they can’t see it they can’t moan about it

So making meals that hides the vegetables is a must and Henry is given a multivitamin everyday in liquid form. I have avoided Henry from fizzy drinks and will only have milk or water. I make sure Henry has good amount of exercise and so after he has had his dinner we will go out into the garden to play some football, or I get him to run around a cone, just making sure he is active. I know some say that they shouldn’t exercise after they have eaten, but it is good for their digestion and it’s not fast, intense exercise just a jog and a kick about.

I don’t have it all sussed out. On the contrary, and do doubt myself as a parent at times, but if he has a good amount of energy, and does some form of physical activity, whether it is tennis or cricket, and a good night sleep then, we as a parent can relax too and helps with our wellbeing too. When it comes to activities it can be one child at a time or something the whole family can do. My son would often join in, when I exercise and dancing, like we did today, when he came home from school whilst his dinner was cooling down.

Life as a parent is not always straight forward, and there will be times where they’d rather watch a video on youtube than play football, but aren’t we all like that at times? I spend a lot of time at my desk, writing and not exercise, but I know I have to move in order to get to Epsom ready for when my son returns from school. Any forms of exercise is good, if you enjoy it and ready so they are properly hungry so they will eat and have them help make food. It is one of the best ways for them to try new foods. I want my son to learn how to cook, and grow his tastes so he is not be fussy and gets the nutrients he needs.

It can be hard work and like last week Henry moaned about having pasta, but he ate it as there was nothing else and is not going to have chips everyday or nuggets. I have worked on my taste buds too, and have controlled my eating. I am no longer super fussy and I now do eat my vegetables and so will your children. persevere, and if they don’t like it at first keep trying, and often if he sees us eat something he not ever had, he was often ask if he can have some. So moving on the right track. Well I hope so, and having a meal together has helped to. As a kid we always sat as a family eating our dinner and so important in their development.

I do write books on parenting on Amazon, under the name Carrie Challoner or Carrie Holmes.

Many thanks for reading,

Carrie X

Learning about your kids

So as you may follow me I have been updating a lot of blogs on this site, but then I saw this quote and wanted to use it to write a new post.

Being a parent is great but often they can drive you mad. The relationship I have with my son is funny, because he is very much the parent sometimes and I’m the child.

Just say I am not having a tantrum, and going to do what my son does when he doesn’t want to do something, crosses his arms and stamps his feet, and save it for later when we play football in the garden. This is not always the case as he never wants to get out of his uniform, but it is a rule that if he wants to play football in the garden he must change his clothes.

When I try he will say “I’ll wait until my daddy gets in” and this can make me feel a little bit like “Oh so what’s the matter with me then?”

A word of warning if in the future you may play football with my son, he is a diver. He asks me to tackle him so he can fall down. That this is the world we are living in and wants to play rugby too, and he doesn’t realise how heavy he is, and will wrestle and dive bombs me, and yes we are making him realise he isn’t a year old still, so trying to lean him off, from jumping on me can be a hard task.

He can lash out sometimes, because he gets upset if he doesn’t win at football for example, especially when I want to see if I can get a goal. Often I will stop if he does it, lash out, because it is important that he learns that we all have lost sometimes, and not be hurtful because it can effect his social skills.

They have to learn to take turns. Social skills are a must. My son does have ADHD and autistic, but I don’t use this as an excuse when he misbehaves and so we, his dad and I have made it clear when he does that, not good, and if he continues then we can’t play.

I do enjoy parenthood when my son is smiling and not being stroppy but that’s kids working out how what they want to do, from what they’ve got to do. Henry hates pressure, but he has to learn. Education is there for him to grow, but you can make the learning fun, by inventing games that will help with their learning. My son loves watching Blippe and likes to do experiments of what items sink and what items float, using different objects in water.

Today he reluctantly read his book, but when he got a well done, he smiled and went back to playing. I then had my son running in the garden, as he has Sports Day coming up and so did this to help him prepare, and then played football.

It is important to me that Henry has fun both at home and at school, but he needs to learn more about boundaries, as he can get very close to other children, and is affectionate, not to get on another child’s nerves , but because he likes to comfort other kids. This can be tricky, because he wants to be in every child he sees in the park game.

When the other children don’t want to, it does hit a nerve and feel bad for him. Kids are more switched on than what we think, and getting to know our kids is a hard task because they change all of the time, but then there have been times when he has made a friend, like when we would take him to see one of my auntie’s who live by the coast of England, loved playing with his cousins and a boy he met in a playground near the sea, who was there on holiday and so great to watch my son form relationships.

He loves one of my mum’s friends daughters and when they play it is so sweet and never squabble and have such fun. Every child has their own personality, and so rejection from other kids is part of being a kid, and growing up they will experience this. Also that child or children are learning about building relationships too, not just Henry and I feel you have to be respectful for that and kids have boundaries like us adults.

Kid will play up, and then the next day be the sweet like butter wouldn’t melt but again this is helping to form their own traits and you as the parent traits too.

Never give yourself as a parent a hard time, and enjoy your kids and watching them grow is amazing to see.

I do have many parenting books on amazon, under my name, Carrie Challoner and Carrie Holmes

Many thanks for reading,

Carrie X

Spending time with little man, Separation Anxiety

As I write this blog all I want to do is give my son a big hug, but he is now in school so I will need to wait for cuddles and I never knew about separation anxiety until I became a mum. I do get to see him everyday, as I wait for him to be come home from school and because it is Friday he stays with me and then goes back to be with his dad on Sunday.

The time I spend with my son, we will read a book, sit and watch a TV programme, play some games. He has a new game where by we have to try and get a ball into a dinosaur’s mouth. That is how it is described and was really good fun. Henry and his dad made it up. So we played that yesterday.

My son never stays sitting for too long and has to get up and play. He loves Tipping Point, as UK Quiz show and has his own machine and has a Countdown game too, and I am like that he is into these programmes, because they are educational. It has amazed me by how he has built up loving these, and decided to like these on his own.

We do play board games like Snakes and Ladders, he did have connect4 but not played that in a while, and he is really getting into dinosaurs. Again not influenced by me or his dad, or his grandparents, but on his own. I love the fact that the loves so much to do new games and we have played Dino Duo, which is stack of cards, where we can do matching pairs and snap.

I like to explore, and I do take him up London and have done a bus tour as he love busses and trains. I would like to take him on a plane and a helicopter, and I hope we get the chance to do those and finding new parks and walks.

By doing these different things it does help with my Separation anxiety and he gets it too, with me and his dad, and so to tackle this we count the sleeps and co-parent the best we can.

Many thanks for reading,

Carrie X

Creating Memories for your kids/Fantastic Jubilee Weekend

What a celebration we had this week, celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee and I hope you like me have filmed and taken photos of the celebrations, and what a lot of memories we have created for our children. I would love creating last-full memories for my son, so he can share them when he gets older and may have children of his own one day.

Today it is the Pageant and have this playing as I write this blog on my laptop ready for when it begins. With Kids it is good to keep a diary of this events, as they won’t happen very often not in many of our lifetimes.

The one ways you could do is what I have done for my son, is write him a letter to him to talk about it, and something to treasure and put them in a shoe box for them to keep ready for when they are able to read them.

With Henry I use journals to use to document happy memories, with writing and pictures of good memories and something he can keep and be passed to his children to keep too. If he decides he wants to. It will be my son’s choice.

A lot of schools were having kids paint picture of the Queen which was a fantastic , and why not do it for some else’s birthday party and use as gifts for other children to keep. I have made a scrapbook which included all of my sons’ first drawings and cards. These are keepsakes, and you can put them into a frame, and put on the wall to remember the occasion. Or the yearly celebration.

This weekend

With the technology we have now there are so many ways to print off photos, and why not teach kids how to arrange flowers and have them dress up the tables and take a photo of the kids who have helped you put the celebrations together and do a guest book. You don’t have to do this at a wedding, but for other occasions too.

Light a candle for those who are no longer here with us, and have the children help arrange a celebration, but have the write happy moments they had with that person, and have your children do a copy of different pictures redone as they get older, and do this with each age that each person has reached.

This weekend has been a blast and I want to see more street parties and celebrations, it just help mark the age of our ages we have all reached.

Many thanks for reading,

Carrie X