Snacking… where’s the line?

By kate on January 23rd, 2008

I’ve been wondering about something lately and don’t really have an answer. Where do you draw the line to make sure that feeding your kids healthy snacks doesn’t turn them into adults with a life-long snacking habit?

As I am out and about with Ruby, visiting with friends, going to play centers, etc., I often see other parents giving their children snacks. It sometimes seems like a steady stream of food. Granted, it’s always something pretty healthy like Cheerios, but I still wonder what kind of habits are being developed.

Giving a toddler snacks is a natural step as they are being weaned. A baby is used to being fed every couple of hours, so they need some sustenance between meals at first. Eventually, though, as Ruby’s growth slowed, she stopped eating as ravenously all the time and I stopped giving her snacks. Now, she rarely has much between meals. An exception is if I know we’re going to have a late dinner, then I’ll give her a snack with her juice after naptime. But I don’t bring food with us when we go out, and she generally doesn’t ask for anything.

I know the other parents I see are nutrition-conscious and trying to do the best for their children. It may be that, at this age, it’s still good for them to have a snack or two a day. I’m not really sure, and parenting books are not unanimous on the subject. But one thing I try to be aware of is creating good habits, and I try to start those as young as possible. I wouldn’t want to have to wean Ruby off snacks after they’ve become an expected part of her day. It’s easier for me to skip them entirely.

Filed under: food, parenting | 5 Comments »

Plug for Community Fitness

By kate on January 14th, 2008

There’s a cool new place in my neighborhood, Community Fitness. Here’s the review I just wrote for Yelp! :

Community Fitness is a new exercise studio in the Ravenna neighborhood (open since November 2007). What makes it unique is that every class is $6, and it’s all drop-in. No commitment whatsoever. As soon as I found out about it, I went to check out a class. It’s in the daylight basement of a house that’s being used for offices, and the space is nice, clean, and new (and ventilated).

When you sign up, you need to either pre-pay cash for 10 classes (which is refundable) or give them your bank account info so they can do an EFT every month (for what you use). The point of this is so that they can efficiently collect money from people without holding up class. You really only pay for the classes you take, which amazes me.

I enjoyed the class I tried, Core Conditioning, and thought the instructor was good. They have classes every day of the week (on everything from cardio to dance to yoga to double-dutch) and I’ll probably try more before settling on which one I’ll take regularly. Because I’m definitely going back!

I highly recommend you give them a try. I want lots of people to go there so they stay afloat so I can keep going.

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We control the comfort food

By kate on December 28th, 2007

Ruby has had a bad cold for the last week (now on the mend), and it made me realize something heartening.

As parents, we worry about our children’s nutrition. Are they getting enough vitamins today? Did he eat enough protein this week? Will she develop healthy eating habits or turn easily to junk food when she’s older? Obviously, there’s no way to stop your child from downing burgers and soda as a teenager. And people’s adult food habits are pretty much their own decision, once they’re old enough to give it some thought.

However, we parents get to program one part: we control the comfort food. What a mother or father feeds a child when sick is a very sticky thing. We all find ourselves craving that same food (infused with parental love, of course) the rest of our lives when feeling ill.

I’m trying to keep that in mind. It’s tempting to let Ruby have treats when she’s sick because it will cheer her up short-term. But I remind myself that by making her oatmeal for breakfast and healthy soup for dinner, we’re imparting a legacy of health that is pretty much guaranteed to last her whole life. At least whenever she’s sick.

Filed under: food, parenting | 1 Comment »

A brief note on Facebook

By kate on December 15th, 2007

It seems that everyone is suddenly saying that Facebook is done. Whether they’re mad about Beacon, or just annoyed by all the zombie requests, the honeymoon is definitely over. Like everyone, I find I’m checking my news feed less frequently (not every day, but still several times a week).

There’s one point that I haven’t seen anyone make, and that’s that this is a normal phase that people go through when they adopt a new communication technology. Remember when email jumped from the techies to everyone else? It took a few years for users to get over the joke forwards and chain mail. I’m sure that when older things like telephones and fax machines hit the mainstream, people used them for frivolous things at first too.

There’s an etiquette learning curve, and I think we just need to wait for people to learn. Just as you needed to teach your Uncle Harry to use the BCC field in email, now you need to tell your friends not to invite everyone they know into their new Facebook application. Remember, it’s not the whole world you need to worry about – just your friends. Once your friends are Facebook-savvy, they won’t be polluting your account with Super Wall messages and personality quizzes.

I know it feels like we’re up to our ears in the crap right now, but it’s just a natural surge. It doesn’t change the fact that my Facebook account contains valuable assets: information and news about the people I know. I’ve taken the time to build a network of friends in Facebook, and I’m going to sit back and let the surge go by. When it recedes, my network will still be there, more communication-savvy than ever.

Filed under: technology | 2 Comments »

How and why I Twitter: Part 3

By kate on December 4th, 2007

Now, to the mechanics of it all. I mentioned using Facebook as well as Twitter. I also access them from my Blackberry (cell phone) as well as my computer. I’m the sort of lazy person who will go to a lot of effort up front to make things easier for myself down the line. I wanted to make it so that I could read and write status updates in only one service. And that’s how it works – very simple and efficient. Along the way, the setup got kind of complicated, though. Here’s how it looks (click for a larger version):

Basically, I enter twitters using my computer or Blackberry. They are then automatically synchronized with my Facebook status as well as sent to my blog sidebar (so that my friends can use their method of choice to keep up with me). Going the other direction, I get twitters from my Twitter friends on Twitter, obviously. I get my Facebook friends’ statuses by piping them into a new Twitter user I created, who I “follow” with Twitter, which puts the Facebook people right in the same list as everyone else. (This Twitter user is private and locked, so I’m not exposing anything publicly.)

I know it looks like spaghetti, but I diagrammed it in case anyone else is interested in setting it up the same way. If you’d like more information, leave a comment with your question. Here are links to the intermediate services I currently use:

Twitbin Firefox sidebar (update May ’08: I now use twhirl)
TinyTwitter mobile application
Twitter’s blog badge wizard
TwitterSync Facebook application
TwitterFeed automatic Twitter updater, using the RSS feed from Facebook

I’d like to conclude with a little advice if you’re considering trying out Twitter. I acknowledge that there are tens of thousands of boring twitters out there. But you don’t have to follow anyone who bores you – keep those banal “cleaning my room” and “picking my nose” people off your list and follow only interesting folks.

And don’t forget to be interesting yourself. Don’t twitter just for the sake of twittering – pause and be sure you have something to say. Remember you are broadcasting to a group. Find some witty twitterers among your friends and use them as role models (I don’t necessarily recommend myself). For example, I aspire to be as intriguing and observant as robby1066.

Over the past three blog posts, I have written the equivalent of more than 53 twitters on the subject of Twitter. As much as I enjoy twittering, I certainly believe there is still a place for long-format blog entries in the digital world.

UPDATE: Ariel has an interesting take on why she uses Twitter. I certainly share her frustration about friends who don’t twitter.

Filed under: meta, relationships, technology | 1 Comment »

How and why I Twitter: part 2

By kate on December 3rd, 2007

I’d like to try to explain, to those of you who don’t twitter, why it is so engaging.

I can look down the list of recent twitters and quickly absorb what everyone is saying (because twitters are so short). It is a very efficient way to keep up with a large number of people. When I check Twitter, I feel like I am laying my hands on the humming, vibrating threads of my network. I can palpably feel the buzz and my connection with everyone.

Imagine a conversation you might have if you ran into someone you used to work with. It would most likely cover very general subjects and vague feelings. Even if you like the person a lot, there is too much ground to cover to make for a meaningful conversation. On the other hand, when I run into my former colleagues (the ones who are on Twitter or Facebook), instead of blandly asking, “how are you?” I can ask, “did you ever get your scooter fixed?” or “how’s Timmy’s wrist?” or “tell me more about that new restaurant you tried last week.”

Paradoxically, it seems that it is the minutiae of life, the day-to-day details, that allow you to get to know someone better. They build up, one mundane detail at a time, into a multi-dimensional picture of someone that can’t be built any other way. Even if you don’t get the full picture from a twitter, you can see if someone is feeling up or down. (For example, if someone was dumped, they might just say “I’m bummed” or “having a tough night.”) You can twitter back to offer encouragement, commiseration, information, or celebration. If you feel so inclined, you can contact them in a longer format (email, phone call, etc.) to discuss something in more depth.

I also love the broadcast aspect of Twitter. For example, I can quickly send out a request for information to my network of friends. Once I had forgotten a word and it was driving me nuts, so I twittered, “what is the name of the area in a department store between the first set of doors and the second set of doors?” It wasn’t long before one of my friends reminded me it was called the vestibule.

Many times, Twitter is the first place I’ll hear about breaking news. I read the newspaper once a day, and keep up with a bunch of blogs when I can, but I check Twitter all day long, when I’m home and when I’m out, because it’s so fast to read.

It is possible to follow any number of celebrities (especially the internet ones) on Twitter, as well as non–human twitterers and other distractions, but just like the blogs I read, I generally keep it to the people I know in person. That’s partially because I don’t have a lot of time, but mainly because I use Twitter and blogs to enhance my personal relationships, the ones that exist outside of the computer as well as within. As a stay-at-home parent, nurturing my network is extra important because I don’t see people as often. And Twitter is an invaluable tool for enriching my friendships.