Single Parents And Dating

September 28, 2008 at 10:01 pm · Comment
Wordcount: 260

It’s hard being a single dating parent. I know alot of single mothers out there don’t really go out on dates much because it’s more like a job than anything else. Besides, most single parents don’t have a lot of time to go “looking”. This makes it terribly difficult for us. Who wants to go out to bars and club hopping anyway? After a certain age, you kind of outgrow that stuff don’t you? I guess that’s what the internet is for, huh? My best friend and two of my aunts both met their current husbands via the internet on various different chat clients or dating sites. My next door neighbor is a single dad to two kids and he asked me the other day if I knew of a place online where he could go to meet Latina Women. This made me kind of chuckle because number one, I’m female. How would I know about finding women? The funny thing is I have a vast knowledge of the internet and was actually able to suggest to him a couple of places he might be interested in. Go figure. I told him to check out a couple of singles sites like latinaromance.com where membership doesn’t cost anything. You can chat with and meet people and get to know them without having to pay an arm and a leg for the services. I hope I was a help to him. I do know how difficult finding someone who shares your same interests can be, especially when you have children.

Commenters: None Yet

My Child And Chicken…

September 28, 2008 at 9:50 pm · Comments (2)
Wordcount: 348

That’s right, my child refuses to eat chicken. Okay, not totally. He’ll eat chicken mcnuggets from McDonald’s, but other than that I have the hardest time getting him to eat any type of chicken I cook at home. To be quite honest in all of his 8 years, I’ve only found one way that I can get him to actually eat chicken and like it. It’s the weirdest thing, too because it’s a simple recipe that takes hardly no time at all. It’s something I’ve adapted myself from a couple of various recipes that I’ve tried and thrown together to suit our taste. Anyway, I thought I’d share it not only because it’s one of the only ways my child will eat chicken, but because it’s an excellent recipe for busy parents or parents who just don’t want to spend alot of time cooking. I don’t quite have a name for this recipe yet, but here goes.

The Only Chicken Recipe My Son Will Eat

Ingredients:
4 bone-in chicken breasts
1 1/2 tablespoons virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons garlic salt (I prefer Lawry’s because it tastes fresh)
1 1/2 tablespoons Lawry’s blended pepper. (With the blue lid)
1 Gallon size ziplock baggy
Foil
(Remember this is just how we like it, if you want more or less garlic salt and/or pepper, then change it to suit your own taste.)

Heat your oven to 350 and cover a 13×9 baking pan with foil. (This makes clean up a breeze.) Set aside pan. Put olive oil, lemon juice, garlic salt, and pepper in the ziplock bag. Rinse chicken and place in the bag one piece at a time. Shake until chicken is evenly coated and place it in the baking pan. Repeat with the remaining 3 pieces of chicken and bake at 350 for about 50 minutes.

That’s basically it. There is very little clean up with this recipe and hardly no prep time. In the 50 minutes that it took for the chicken to cook in the oven, I made some veggies to go with it and then played a game of monopoly at pogo.com.

Commenters: Crispea, Julie

Healthy Eating Habits

September 28, 2008 at 9:03 pm · Comments (1)
Wordcount: 321

One of the most important things to learn as a parent is how to promote healthy eating habits to your child. To do this you must start as young as possible. It’s not easy, especially if you don’t know how or what needs to be done. One of easiest ways to promote healthier eating habits is to limit snacks during the day, especially sweet snacks. Sweets not only promote tooth decay, but they also contribute to loss of appetite. Encourage your child to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. Have apple slices, orange slices, baby carrots, and slices of celery on hand and ready.

Proportion is also very important. As a toddler, your child’s meals must have one tablespoon of food served for each year of age. Therefore, a one year old child would get one tablespoon of carrots, while a two year old would get two tablespoons of carrots.

There are dozens of ways to incorporate healthy eating into your child’s diet. Remember, though, children learn by example, so if you have older children in the home keep in mind that your younger children will want to eat what their big brother or sister is having. If your older child is eating something that you would prefer your toddler not to have, the best way around this is to feed the toddler seperately. Another way to show your child that his healthier foods are yummy would be to eat some of it yourself. Children generally want what mommy and daddy are having anyway. I learned this one first hand.

Although teaching and encouraging proper eating habits can be somewhat of a challenge, being prepared will help you instill the proper eating habits early and without too much complication. Good eating habits will grow with your child into adult hood, thus making it easier for your children to teach their own children how to eat healthy and grow up to be healthy adults.

Commenters: Julie