By Kate from ka-ka-ka-katy

When you are a full-time work-outside-the-home parent you give up control on a lot of things. If your child is in a formal daycare or day home setting you most likely have to relinquish your ideals of what the nap schedule should be, how exactly your child is disciplined and maybe even feeding times. For type-A personalities this can be very, very hard (just ask me how I know). However, I assume that every parent who has the need for full-time childcare has a provider they know, trust and respect which makes the situation a whole lot easier.

If there is one time that having a trusted provider – a childcare “expert” if you will – is absolutely beneficial it’s during potty training. For a control freak like me, it took a little while to come to this conclusion, but once I gave myself over to this idea it took the pressure off us at home. The fact is my daughter is in their care for most of her waking hours and 90% of the potty training would happen at school. Her teachers have helped dozens of children reach this milestone and they are the best resource a working parent has for helping a kid learn to use the toilet.

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I am hosting the first Passover Seder at our house tonight. 16 people for dinner means that a soup is in order because it’s something I can make ahead of time and something most people will probably enjoy (well, fingers crossed for that one.) This time I made a new soup - Roasted Fennel and Carrots - from a recipe a very good friend’s wife has kindly shared. It is insanely easy and really tasty and it inspired me to go and look for other things to do with fennel since it’s an ingredient I very rarely cook with.

Sweet Amandine: Roasted fennel and carrot soup

Simply Recipes: Roasted fennel

Bitten: Roasted fennel and chicken (yes, on a roasted fennel kick here)

Katie, aka motherbumper, is co-founder of The Bad Moms Club and Canada Moms Blog. With her friend, she recently drove from Toronto to Orlando with 3 kids under four and last year she travelled across Canada with the same circus, all in a vain attempt to prove she actually is insane. She succeeded admirably.

How does a parent actually survive a road trip with small kids? Because sometimes it really is survival. No matter how wonderful and well behaved the children are at home, when on a road trip with those same children there will be blood, I mean conflicts. Obviously it’s hard being strapped in a car seat just to go to the grocery store so it must royally suck to be strapped in there for hours on a road trip. I really do understand why small children voice so many travel frustrations while on route — I just wish they didn’t have to do it so loudly. Since tele-portation hasn’t happened yet and installing sound proof pexi-glass between the driver and passengers isn’t always an option, I try to adhere to these ideas when hitting the road with small children.

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 “Stone soup?” the villagers mumbled. “Never heard of such a thing. How could that be any good?”

Curiosity brought all of the villagers to watch the man prepare his stone soup. The wanderer leaned over the pot, sniffed the air appreciatively, and smacked his lips.

“Ahh,” the man quite loudly, “This is going to be a wonderful batch stone soup. Of course, a bit of carrot would make this stone soup even better.”

One villager approached, clutching a few carrots. “I could spare these,” the young man said. “Wonderful!” cried the traveler. “Now the soup will be even better. If only we had some onion, it would be spectacular.”

A woman disappeared into her house and returned with a few coarsely chopped onions. “I found these in my pantry,” she said sheepishly. “Well, thanks to you the soup is going to be splendid!” said the visitor, scooping them into the pot. Bit by by ingredients showed up:  some cabbage appeared, a few bits of beef, mushrooms, potatoes, a few handfuls of beans, and soon the pot was simmering away, and the aroma was making everyone’s stomachs growl.

The entire village gathered round with bowls, and shared a delicious meal of stone soup. They marveled at how such a magnificent meal could be made from just a stone, and they even offered to buy the stone from the traveler. He refused to sell it, and moved along the next day.

The moral of the story practically whacks you in the face: Working together, with everyone contributing what they can, great things can be achieved; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  Making stone soup with your kids is a lot of fun, and an excellent way to clean out your vegetable bin.  You can choose to hammer away at the moral of the story, or just make soup, that’s up to you.

How to

You can heat 4 quarts of water in a large soup pot over medium high heat, and add some or all of the following ingredients. Add the longer cooking ones at the beginning, and the shorter cooking ones towards the end, but don’t worry about this too much – it’s all going to some together as your very own Stone Soup.

Let the kids hunt for vegetables in the fridge, and items like canned corn or beans in the pantry. Depending on their ages and how hard or soft the vegetables are, they may be able to help with some of the prep work, like cutting leftover cooked vegetables with a table knife, supervised of course.   And be sure to watch them while they add the various ingredients to the pot. It’s so much fun for them to see how a bunch of individual ingredients come together into one great soup.

You might take photos of the process, the different ingredients, and then the homemade soup. It’s great for kids to document a process, and they will feel even prouder of what they have made and have a souvenir to remember the activity by.

The whole thing will take from 45 minutes to one hour.  Just keep tasting and when it tastes like soup, you’re done!  Season with salt and pepper, and ladle it up.  You can saute up the longer cooking veggies, and then add the water or broth, which adds dimension to the flavor, but if you were to just boil some water and start tossing stuff in your will still end up with soup.

Longer cooking ingredients to add at the beginning:

• Chopped onion
• Chopped shallots
• Broccoli, chopped or florets
• Cauliflower, chopped or florets
• Chopped cabbage
• Chicken, beef or vegetable bouillion cube(s) (optional, but adds flavor to the broth)
• Sliced or chopped carrots
• Sliced or chopped celery
• Chopped fennel
• Diced Turnip
• Diced winter squash or pumpkin
• Diced potatoes (white or sweet)
• Canned chopped or crushed tomatoes

Shorter cooking ingredients to add at during the last 15-20 minutes or so:

• Drained and rinsed canned beans
• Sliced or chopped zucchini
• Shredded or subbed cooked beef, pork, turkey or chicken
• Cooked rice, barley or orzo
• Peas
• Corn
• Any leftover cooked vegetables, chopped
• Any leftover cooked meat, such as chicken, beef or pork, chopped
• Chopped tomatoes
• Spinach

 Have fun!

By Tamara Walker of La Coquette Boutique

This is a decidedly non-girly confession for a beauty boutique owner, but I have never had a spa mani-pedi. I simply prefer to take care of my own hands and feet. It’s less expensive, I can do it whenever I want, and I don’t have to worry about whether or not my spa practitioner has properly sterilized all of the tools before my visit.

This is my method for a ten minute treatment that will leave your hands and feet feeling smooth, moisturized and perfectly pampered.

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By Kerri Anne from kerrianne.org

Wear feathers that don’t easily ruffle.

I’m not talking about dress code here, though if you want to wear feathers to work (and can pull it off with gusto), but all means, go for it! What I am talking about is erecting an emotional barrier in order to protect yourself from barbs, whether intentionally and unintentionally thrown in your direction. In a perfect world you would work hard at your job, enjoy what you’re doing, and your superiors and/or clients would appreciate everything you do on a daily basis. Unfortunately, while this Utopian workplace probably exists somewhere, it isn’t commonplace, so until you find it (or create it), you’re probably going to have to deal with people who don’t tell you what a great job you’re doing as quickly as they’ll tell you when they’re dissatisfied with something you did or didn’t do.

Rolling with the punches is one of the best ways to stay sane in any workplace. As soon as you can accept and acknowledge that not everything is about you, the better off you’ll be. Bosses and colleagues have bad days.
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Kids like chicken legs.  Now, that’s a stupid statement, because “kids” as a whole unit don’t like anything universally, but a simple roast chicken leg is definitely one of the things that most kids like as a universal whole, as far as that universal whole thing goes.

With dark meat, high heat won’t dry things out.  There is enough fat in the meat and the skin to keep things quite moist, and once you go high, you won’t go back down.  This is barely a recipe, more like a method, but please try it (thighs works just as well…just go for the ones with the skin).
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