Avivah Werner

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  • Homemade cough syrup

    Everyone around here still has that pesky cough – it seems that lots of people have gotten this now.  Dh went to the health food store a couple of days ago for the remedy that I wanted, but they didn’t carry it.  So he went to another store that sells homeopathics that we’ve never been to before – and they didn’t have it either! 

    Dh told the doctor (I don’t know what kind of doc, but not a homeopath) what we wanted, and he looked it up in his homeopathic reference book. He had never heard of it but when he saw what it was indicated for, he agreed it was the right thing for this kind of cough, and said he’s going to order it for the store since it seems it would be helpful for many people. 

    Then he recommended a homeopathic cough syrup (that we already have but dh didn’t know that), and told dh that to really help the baby, we should hold him upside down when he coughs – he said it would help him expel the phlegm.  Um – that might make sense but I’m really not going to try that.  I can just imagine how a little baby would feel to be held upside down when he’s already not feeling good. 

    Yesterday one of the major newspapers had an article in their online version (can’t remember which paper it was) and they said that recent studies have shown that honey is more effective in helping coughs than over the counter cough syrups (like Robutussin).  No surprise, is it?  It’s so interesting to see how so many things that past generations instinctively knew are being corroborated by science nowadays. 

    You can quickly make a cough syrup replacement using equal amounts of honey and lemon juice or raw apple cider vinegar (I like the taste of lemon juice better but the ACV is better for you).  Just stir it up and give your kids a spoonful.  Tastes lots better than cough syrups, too! However, raw honey isn’t safe for infants under the age of one.  Not that most people are using raw honey anyway since most of the honey sold is pasteurized, but it’s something to be aware of. 

    This is quicker than the natural cough syrup I made last winter – I sliced up a couple of onions and let them sit in honey for a week or so.  That released the antioxidants in the onions into the honey.  Once it was finished, I threw the onions away and used the remaining syrup by the teaspoonful for coughs. 

    Avivah

  • Is boarding school the answer?

    Recently I was out shopping and ran into a woman who called me three years ago asking about homeschooling, and has spoken to me a couple more times since then about the increasing difficulty with her son and asked for advice to handle him.  Though I spent a lot of time with her to understand the situtation and gave some clear suggestions regarding her son, she said my suggestions were too hard.  I pointed out a year ago that living with a volatile adolescent who was almost entirely out of control wasn’t easy, either, and would get much worse if it weren’t dealt with.  “Yes, but…..”

    This is the challenge of parenting – sometimes doing what we need to do is really hard.  We’re tired, worn out, and emotionally spent at the end of a day.  It’s hard to be proactive and implement new ways of doing things.  I think this is at the heart of why there are so many books about ‘how to parent’.  Many parents are looking for quick and easy tips, for quick fixes to big problems that don’t entail making any real changes to how they already are doing things.  And I don’t blame them – I myself would love a magic pill or to just use the right phrases and voila – perfect children!  But that’s not the reality of parenting.

    Back to the woman in the store.  I asked her how things were going with her almost 13 year old son (she called me initially when he was 10).  She said, “Better.”  Really, I asked, glad to hear it but surprised (surprised because I didn’t think she was going to make any changes in her approach to her son).  “Yes, he’s getting older, and soon he’ll be old enough to go to yeshiva out of town (boarding school) for high school, so he won’t be at home anymore.”  Oh.  I ask her if she thinks that sending him away for school is going to address his issues, and she says unconvincingly, “Maybe – sometimes it helps kids.”

    Sometimes, I think to myself, but not this time, when nothing that’s led to the situation developing has changed.  If the parents can’t positively influence him at home and encourage the behavior they want to see, how likely is it that in the 24/7 atmosphere of peer presence that he’s going to rise to actualize his higher self?  We all know how good an influence peers are on susceptible kids, don’t we?   (Yes, I’m being a bit sarcastic.)  This boy also has lots of friction in his interactions with his parents, as well as watching ongoing conflict between his parents.  How would going to a school far away change that?  I would be willing to bet money that this boy will probably be asked to leave at least the first school they send him to, and that the parents response is going to be to explain it away because it wasn’t the right kind of place.  And then their energies will go into finding a different school.  Sheesh.

    Avivah

  • Coughing and feeling yucky

    Everyone’s been under the weather here for the last few days, when the weather suddenly got very cold.  I always find that sudden weather changes result in the kids getting sick.  This time it’s a runny nose and chesty cough. 

    My very good friend organized our synagogue Chanuka party to encourage a sense of community among members, and my older girls are volunteering (they just left to take care of setting up and whatever else they need to do before it starts a little later today).  I’m sure it will be a lot of fun and a nice opportunity to spend time with people I don’t get to regularly see much of.  But I don’t think we’ll go, as much as all the kids are hoping that we will.  

    When my husband gets home, I think I’ll run out and buy a homeopathic remedy.  We have one remedy for coughing (spongia tosta), but it’s for a dry barking cough, and isn’t really a good fit for the kind of cough they have.   Homeopathics are very specific, and the best benefits come from accurately matching the symptoms and remedy.  I don’t know nearly enough about homeopathics, so I did research online.  (I just love the internet – it’s fantastic how much great and useful information you can get right away.) 

    I don’t take the kids to doctors unless they really get sick, which means they rarely go.  For something like this, the doctor would confirm that there’s some kind of virus going around and that there isn’t any medication that will help, that it will pass with time (I know this from experience, which is why I don’t bother going anymore).  Once when I went to the pediatrician with a child hit hard by a virus, she told me the above, and added that most parents want to leave the doctor’s office with a prescription, since that it makes them feel they are doing something to help their child.  

    Avivah

  • Yummy Cinnamon Rolls

    We made fresh cinnamon rolls for breakfast, along with eggs and rice.  They were delicious – isn’t everything especially good when it’s fresh from the oven?  I made this same recipe a week or so ago and wasn’t thrilled with it.  So I eliminated the overly sweet maple topping (I didn’t share that below), replaced the white flour with freshly ground white wheat, and used sucanat in place of the sugar.  Very yummy and it was fairly healthy!

    This makes a large recipe so be ready with about six pie pans, and you can pop them into the freezer for another day or can share them with someone else and brighten their day. So here it is:

    Yummy Cinnamon Rolls

    • 4 c. milk
    • 1 c. oil (I used coconut oil)
    • 1 c. sugar (I used sucanat)
    • 2 pkg. dried yeast (I think I used 2 T.)
    • 8 c. flour

    Mix all this up, let sit covered for an hour.  Then add:

    • 1 c. flour more (I had to add more than this to get it to a good consistency for rolling)
    • 1 t. baking powder
    • 1 t. baking soda
    • 1 T. salt

    Once all this is mixed, your dough is ready.  You can start to roll it out right away, or you can leave it covered in the fridge for a day or two. That’s what we did, which is why I had the dough ready to work with in time for breakfast.

    Okay, now roll it out on a floured surface into a huge rectangle.  On top of that spread 1 1/2 – 2 c. melted butter (I used coconut oil the first time but preferred the butter flavor), then 1 c. sugar, and last a nice big sprinkling of cinnamon.

    Roll up the dough so that you have a long skinny roll (not short and fat). Then cut through the dough at about 1 inch intervals.  Butter the pans, and place about seven rolls in each round pie sized pan in a circle, six around and one in the center.  (That’s not really important, it’s just how we do them and they look pretty.)

    Let them rise for 20 – 30 min (it was cold today so I put them in the oven on ‘warm’ to hasten the process), and then bake at 400 degrees for about 15 – 18 minutes.  It’s important that you take them out when they are light golden brown.  Another batch we made was taken out when they were golden, and they were good but on the dry side.

    These are especially good served warm, and if I hadn’t served them this morning, would have had some ready for the kids when they came in from playing in the snow.

    If you wanted to make this as a rich dessert, you could add a glazed topping, but as I said, we all felt that was way too sweet.

    Enjoy!

    Avivah

  • The first snow of this winter

    We had our first snow of the year last night, and it’s just beautiful out.  I got an early morning call from another mom asking me to take over carpool for our high school boys for her, since the school opening time was delayed to 10 am (because of the snow).  I said okay, but at 9 am, got another call saying that school was cancelled because of problems with the heating system.  Hooray – I didn’t have to do an extra carpool and most importantly, we get to have ds14 home with us today!

    The kids are building an igloo.  And I don’t mean an eentsy weentsy one, either – it will fit several children inside when they’re done (or one 6 ft adult lying down).  When the kids want to do something, they really do it!  They’re packing snow tightly down into a plastic box, then stacking the ‘snow’ blocks in a staggered pattern.  So far they’ve made three rows high.  I don’t know how they can stay outside for so many hours in the cold, but I guess it’s because they’re staying so active.  Bit by bit they’re trickling in – the third child has just come in, and each of them are soaked through.  Their coats and gloves are going directly from their hands into the dryer!

    I initially planned for everyone to follow our regular schedule, but after breakfast, I told them to just go out and enjoy the snow.  What’s the point of having the flexibility of homeschooling if I don’t take advantage of it sometimes?  Whatever work they have to do will wait, but the first snow of the year is only here once. 

    Avivah

  • Kids puppet show

    I decided recently to change the way I’m posting to make it easier to categorize and for people to find in the archives.  I often hesitated to post about things that were happening because it made for too long a post when I put a bunch of things together, and then I ended up not posting about lots of things that were on my mind.  So if you’re wondering why I’ve changed the format and there are now several short posts in one day, that’s your answer! 

    Tonight is the first night of Chanukah, and we’re having a homeschooling family of 10 that we met last year on a shopping trip to PA (we were both families of 9 then, and since had babies within three weeks of each other).  Since the first time we met (I mentioned it in passing the day we met them here on my blog), we’ve gotten together several times.  My kids are really looking forward to having them, and so am I, of course. 🙂 

    My kids built a beautiful wooden puppet theatre several weeks ago, and have been working intensely on writing a puppet show (Chanuka theme), making the puppets, decorating the theatre and this last week, practicing for the show.  When they began, I had no idea how much effort they would be putting into it, but they’ve all put in hours to get ready for it. 

    Tonight will be the first night they perform it, for our guests, and then tomorrow night my mom and dh’s parents will be here for the second show.  They want to invite another large family we’re friendly with to see it, so hopefully we can have them over for one afternoon this week.  I haven’t yet seen it – they expressly want me to be surprised, so they are practicing in the basement where I can’t hear them. They showed my husband the script and he thought it was great.  I’m looking forward to seeing the result of all their hard work!

    Avivah

  • Great kids storybook

    The kids picked up a picture book at the library that I took a quick glance at and approved, but didn’t get to read until yesterday –  Cinder Edna, by Ellen Jackson.  It didn’t look like much by the cover (and you know what they say about judging a book by its cover – but I do it anyway), and I personally wouldn’t have picked it up without knowing what it was.  Fortunately, one of my kids chose it, and wow, what a great book!  You know a book is good when everyone in the family, including the parents, enjoy reading it!

    It’s a modern day version of Cinderella; it portrays the typical Cinderella and simultaneously shows Cinder Edna, a spunky modern day girl who doesn’t complain about her life and instead uses her opportunities to better herself and takes responsibility for what she can.  I often tell my kids that they are the ones who choose their attitudes and thereby determine to a large degree how happy they are going to be in life, and this book highlights that message beautifully.  It’s very fun and had me laughing out loud when I read it to the kids.  Definitely put this on your list next time you’re at the library, and let me know if your family enjoys it as much as ours!

    Avivah

  • No bake cookie recipe

    I’ve had an ongoing challenge with mornings for months now – I wake up in the earlier hours of the morning, too early to feel like waking up, but feeling really awake.  I finally get back to sleep, and when I wake up again, it’s much later than I like.  This morning when I woke up the first time, I decided to just get up.  It’s not even so early, it was 5:30 when I fed the baby and it was after 6 by the time I got out of bed.  But since at this stage of my life I’ve become a night person, this is early for me!

     Last night ds8 and I made a no bake cookie recipe that we tried for the first time on the weekend.  I recently copied this one into my notebook, thinking it sounded vaguely familiar, and then found I had already copied the exact same recipe down another time from somewhere else!  I guess it shows that I have an idea of the kind of thing that I like, since I don’t copy large numbers of new recipes.  🙂   It’s a great recipe to make with your kids, and so I’m sharing it here with you:

    No Bake Oatmeal Cookies

    • 2/3 c. maple syrup (I used honey)
    • 1/4 c. coconut oil (butter would be fine, too)
    • 4 T. cocoa
    • 1 t. cinnamon
    • 1/2 c. peanut butter
    • 2 c. rolled oats (I used organic)
    • 1 t. vanilla

    Melt maple syrup with cocoa over low heat, then pour over other ingredients and mix well. Drop onto wax paper in small teaspoon size blobs.  Refrigerate 30 min.  Keep stored in fridge or freezer.

    This recipe was so delicious (and healthy!) that it immediately made it onto the list of ‘must make again very soon’.   Last night I decided on the spur of the moment (at 9:30 pm) to make them with ds8, who I decided needed some extra mommy time.  It’s a quick and easy recipe since there’s no baking and you basically just mix everything into the pot that you heat up the sweetener and cocoa.  Because I have a large container of blackstrap molasses, which is lots less expensive than honey, I decided to try substituting it for 3/4 the amount of honey, still using honey for the other 1/4.   It came out….well, they’re okay.  Blackstrap molasses has a strong and distinct flavor, so it didn’t add much to this recipe.  I won’t do it again next time (I will try using regular molasses, though), but I still think that the kids will be willing to eat it.  I’ll see when they wake up.  I’m having a few of these for breakfast while I write this; it’s a good high energy breakfast, with good healthy fat, fiber, and iron.  

    Avivah 

  • Rickets on the rise in US

    Do you remember years ago learning about rickets?  I seem to remember hearing that it was found most in children living in dreary tenement buildings in the early part of the last century who suffered from malnutrition because of poverty.

     Well, now it seems that rickets is on the rise right here in the US.  What causes rickets?  Lack of vitamin d, found in fortified milk but naturally absorbed by spending time in the sun.  We now have a generation of children who are spending most of their days inside on their computers, game boys, and watching tv.  They aren’t getting any sunlight and they aren’t getting exercise. There are plenty of concerns I’ve had about this, but the concern about rickets  is one that never occurred to me.

    What is even more concerning is that many children who aren’t in bad enough shape to be diagnosed with rickets are still suffering from softer than normal bones – hence the increase in broken bones among kids nowadays.  Since strong bones are formed as children and that’s what we take with us into our adult years, we should be concerned if a large number of children aren’t building their bones up when they are young. 

     Interestingly, I was just thinking about if broken bones are becoming more common last week – a 10th grader in my carpool just broke his foot playing basketball, and my son told me that it’s not uncommon in school for kids in his high school to break bones while playing.  As a parent, I found this very alarming. I don’t remember it being common at any point in my childhood for my agemates to break a bone.  In the article that I linked to, they state that exercise and good nutrition are strongly linked to strong bones (obvious, but a good point still), and that kids nowadays are significantly more likely to break a bone than in past generations.  This also points to why in some families breaking a bone is common while it others it rarely occurs – because the nutrition and lifestyle practices of the families are very different and thereby support different kind of outcomes.

    Check out this recent article on the topic of rickets.

    Avoiding rickets and building strong bones isn’t rocket science – give your kids good quality food to eat and make sure they get outside regularly for some sun and exercise – how much easier could it be?  Obviously for lots of parents, not easy enough.

    Avivah

  • Mom asking for help with anger

    A mom asked how to handle her anger when her 3 year old didn’t listen to what she said.  She said that she felt her problem was her anger, not the child’s behavior (though the 3yo was disobedient, threw tantrums, and ignored her mother whenever she told her to do something). 

    My response: Please, please look at the post I just wrote about sibling issues – you will see a loving, firm approach that will keep you from getting angry and ensure your daughter clearly gets a sense of her boundaries.  In my experience, I have seen that this is probably the most common issue for moms, not knowing how to effectively discipline, and then feeling guilty because they feel angry/hateful towards their child.  But it’s very exciting when you see what a major change it makes in the home environment to get this aspect of things under control; you’re happier, your child is happier, and you can enjoy each other lots more.

    I feel very passionately about this because I really struggled with this issue earlier on in my parenting. I’ve been very fortunate to learn better ways to deal with things, but have continued to see the same mistakes I was making be made all the time – and the same ineffective suggestions continue to be made to parents in how to deal with it.  I also see many people with older kids who have gotten out of control. Effective discipline is crucial to the short and long term relationship between the parent and child.  It’s interesting but sad to note that many of these parents were so concerned about gentle parenting that they didn’t want to even say ‘no’ to their children now have hostile and strained relations with their resistant teenagers.  It’s hard to enjoy being around undisciplined children, even (especially?) if they are your own.

    I’m not saying mine is the only approach that works well, and if someone finds something else that works for them, then that’s great. I haven’t, and I’d read just about every book out there at some point! But I do have enough years of parenting behind me (my oldest is 14) to really see the fruits of using an approach like this. I spend all day, every day with my kids (we homeschool) and love it. I rarely get angry (annoyed, yes, but angry, no) and it’s not because I’m super patient, because I’m not at all. I’ve just taught my kids that when I say something, I mean it, and I’ve invested the time and effort into really building relationships with them.

    It’s reasonable to get angry when what is important to you is regularly being trampled on. I really don’t think the answer to being a calmer parent is to try to understand your child more. Yes, it’s really important to be respectful of her and to think about her feelings, but at the same time, justifying her bad behavior isn’t helping either of you.  You should to respect your own boundaries and emotional needs as much as you respect your child’s!

    Avivah