raising boys

The day that I officially cannot wait for the start of school

by shaz on Tuesday, September 01, 2009 at 05:31 AM
read more about: raising boys. ramadan.

I am not sure what I was doing at the time, I think sitting at the table after dinner ready to give up on my day; somewhere far in the distance – ok, on the other side of the room, I heard words but didn’t really put them together until I saw the actions… “line them up over there”, “I’ll stand here”, “you should go over there”…

When I saw the almost 7 year old climbing on the couch poised to jump off and a line of stools in front, I finally caught on… they were all excited about setting up an “obstacle course” where then had to jump from the couch onto the stools – plastic stools on a laminate floor… And then I said a silent prayer for the one remaining week of vacation to be over very, very quickly.

Anyway, I don’t like to stereotype (well, usually) but seriously people, boys!!!… can surely make a person mental! /end rant.

So, you know how it’s Ramadan and everything right, well, it comes with this irresistible urge to cook stuff and make desserts, like, everyday almost. We’ve already made cake – twice, cookies, flan, and had kurma, cheesecake, lollies… not overeating though, just we never really make such things. Today I made polenta, which I never made before, or ever tasted for that matter, I was just fascinated by the name so I bought it! For reals.

Anyway, I never got around to cooking it until yesterday when I strangely felt like making Shepherd’s Pie but realized we had no potatoes, so I decided to make it with polenta instead (is that considered blasphemy??). It was ok – I can see why they call polenta comfort food, but I think potatoes are definitely a better choice for shepherd’s pie!

You guys making any ~~strange~~ new and interesting dishes these days?

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How to have a party for boys

by shaz on Monday, August 10, 2009 at 11:06 AM
read more about: parenting strategies. raising boys.

Firstly, and I cannot stress the importance of this step, enlist some guys to assist in the planning and execution! We got my cousins to help us out and they did a fantastic job…to be quite honest, I think they were also very excited for the party! Also, ensure you enlist enough help. We ended up having 2 kids per adult, which was probably a lot, but it worked out really well.

Secondly, timing is really important, we did 2pm to 5pm, because these are 5-7 year olds and it’s not a time that they should be super hungry or sleepy or really-parent-needy and 3 hours is a totally manageable amount of time.

Picking a theme

Initially we thought that it would be a boys-only type shindig, so we came up with the only natural theme for my boys and their friends – a Superhero party of course, but then we had a few girls who came as fairies and princesses, so in the end it was a superhero/dress-up party, but it all worked out.
We took suggestions from the kids for some other themes, and “pirates” was pretty much the unanimous response!

Choosing activities

Now, here is where things can fall apart…Sid and I thought we could do some crafts with the boys or coloring in their “downtime”, you know, it worked rather well for the tea party. My cousins laughed. Out loud, actually. And then, we decided to just pass over activity planning to them! In the end though, we had a bit of a compromise between crafts and running wild around the house shooting nerf guns at one another.

It was raining, so we had only indoor play… first we divided them into teams, which helped a lot to keep things under control, then they played some sort of made-up game resembling living room hockey, but not quite, then charades, then they had a lego-racers-build-off competition.

There was also “make your own sundae” and a pinata for good measure.

Food and snacks

We kept it super simple and fool-proof… cheese pizza! There were discussions about having healthy snack choices, like broccoli, cucumber and carrot sticks, but in the end, we had chips, cookies and juice. Kids don’t eat that much at parties evidently.

Loot bags

I don’t like loot bags that’s full or stuff that break after 5 seconds, so I totally avoided dollar-store stuff as much as possible. We put candy, of course… kit kats, twizzlers, nibs, smarties, lollipops, rockets (everything was nut-free, as well as in their original packaging), then pencil/sharpener and a hot wheels car. I think it was a good combination of goodies.

We served them the sundaes right at the end of the party! Just in time for their parents…