For reasons I cannot truly explain, I found myself with several boxes Cheerios in the pantry this week. Cheerios are a classic breakfast cereal. It’s low in sugar, and kids often enjoy them with our without milk.
That doesn’t mean that I particularly enjoy Cheerios. I can choke down a bowl or two on occasion, but these grainy Os are hardly my first choice in the morning. The Honey Nut variety is a modest improvement. Still, even the sweetened version of this General Mills product doesn’t rank among my favorite breakfast cereals.
I turned to the Web looking for interesting recipes using Cheerios. I hoped this would help burn through a few boxes of the breakfast cereal taking up valuable real estate in my already over-stuffed pantry. A quick Google search sent me to the official Cheerios Web site where I found a recipe for Caramel Crisp Bars.
The recipe calls for SIX cups of Cheerios. That’s almost a whole box! It was exactly what I was looking for, so I went ahead and bought the other ingredients, mainly caramels, miniature marshmallows, chocolate chips and M&Ms.
The concept here is similar to Rice Krispies Treats, except caramel is used to hold the bars together rather than melted marshmallow. There’s a few more steps involved, but these things are delicious. I finally found a way to enjoy Cheerios - cover them in caramel and drizzle the gooey remains in chocolate and candy.
I ended up making three more batches of these Cheerio bars for various birthday parties and get-togethers over the weekend. They were a hit everywhere we went, and my pantry now has room for my favorite cereal, Golden Grahams.
It is good for kids to learn random trivia.
You never know when it will come in handy, like at a Scholastic Bowl meet or family game night.
With that in mind, what better time than Women’s History Month to learn about some women who have really made a difference in the world.
1. She amazed the world with her discovery that chimpanzees can not only use tools, but they can make them.
2. During her one semester at a college in Oklahoma prior to 1915, this minority woman read about the Wright Brothers and the idea of flying an airplane made a huge impression on her. She is from a family of 15 and eventually ended up in Chicago where she met some people who could help her reach her dreams.
3. She made the connection between flies and typhoid fever and her work led to the reorganization of the Chicago Health Department.
4. She obtained her degree in chemistry, but needed to earn some money before going on to medical school, so she went to work for DuPont where she invented high-strength polymer. The material is five times stronger than steel.
5. She can be credited with saving the lives of thousands of soldiers as a result of keeping something flammable from quickly getting to them during World War II.
6. She saw the hidden dangers of DDT on humans and the environment and was anxious to do something about it. Unfortunately, it was not banned until after her death.
7. She was stubborn at first (she was only 6 at the time) about learning a new language. Then, through the efforts of her teacher, the two brought light, sound and endless learning to many with disabilities for generations to come.
8. She didn’t need a GPS system to get where she needed to go. In fact, she could be called the woman who started mapping the other half of America.
Keep reading to find the answers and additional factoids.
I’m a card-carrying member of Generation X. I listened to grunge rock, wore flannel shirts with combat boots and blamed the ills of the world on my baby-boomer parents.
That being said, I was surprised to learn more babies were born in the United States in 2007 than any other year on record. Generation X is re-populating faster than the post-war “baby boom” of the 1950s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday.
We haven’t turned into our parents. Instead, we turned into our grandparents!
Birthrates for all ethnic groups and nearly all age groups increased in 2007, contributing to a record total of 4.3 million births, according to the CDC. That’s a lot of babies, particularly for a generation that never fought (or returned home from) a world war.
The reproductive statistics aren’t exactly a mirror image. Gen-Xer gals are having fewer children than the housedress-wearing moms of the 1950s, said Brady Hamilton, co-author of the CDC report and a statistician for the National Center for Health Statistics.
So our baby-boomer parents shouldn’t expect a whole herd of grandchildren. Still, I contend that they should be pleasantly surprised we decided to reproduce at all. Generation X was cast as a group of disaffected slackers. We grew up in our own little world of video games, cell phones and personal computers. Beck’s “Loser” was our high school anthem.
Back then, I doubt anyone thought we’d be motivated parents. I’m sure many of our moms, dads and teachers doubted we would bother to have babies with such a bleak outlook on life. But that’s exactly what we are doing and at a record pace. Now we just have to come up with a catchy name for this new generation, quickly approaching their terrible twos.
How about Generation Xplode?
As many of you know, our family has not had broadcast television in our house for many, many years. We do, however have some old television sets and DVD players and a good selection of DVD movies.
So when it comes to taking a spring break vacation in some tough economic times, the travel scenes we see in the movie “RV” (2006/rated PG) are the extent of it.
Maybe we’ll go to the ice cream shop one day.
I imagine many of you are planning to staycation, so here are some movie suggestions to tie in leisure, imagination and maybe to help you feel like you learned about another part of the country or world without actually leaving home.
Warning: Parents or baby sitters of young kids, make sure you view the videos beforehand. Every 5-year-old is different. Believe me, we team teach 15 or more of those precious little 4- and 5-year-olds every Wednesday night and they are each sooooo different.
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About three years ago, the daughter started saying the phrase, “I like pi.” Many of her friends and relatives heard it and thought she meant she liked the sweet treat she didn’t actually get to eat very often, pie.
Her parents heard it ad nauseam.
It became the reply to just about every question we asked the fourth-grader.
She would write 3.1415926535 and another one of her favorite answers to almost any question, “infinity,” on her notebooks, scrap pieces of paper and just about anything else she knew she was allowed to write on.
That fascination comes to the forefront around the world on Saturday, 3.14.
Barbie turned 50 yesterday. The iconic doll made her debut on March 9, 1959. The blonde beauty has had plenty of outfits, cars and careers since then. But one thing’s for certain, Barbie is nowhere near retirement.
Toy-maker, Mattel has sold more than 1 billion Barbies. Roughly 100 million of those dolls were purchased in the last year, according to Forbes.com.
I have no real connection to Barbie. I’m the oldest of four boys, and I have two sons. Thus, there has never been a Barbie in any of my toy boxes. Still, I’ve seen plenty of little girls carrying around a ratty-haired Barbie doll the way I used to carry around my G.I. Joe and He-Man dolls.
Of course, boys don’t call their muscled-up toys dolls. Boys have action figures. This was an important distinction that marketers successfully promoted in the early 1980s to make dolls…. errr I mean “action figures” an acceptable toy for young males.
Regardless, I have to hand it to Barbie for her staying power. The dolls of my youth - namely G.I. Joe and He-Man - vanished from shelves years ago. Barbie’s business cards and outfits may have changed, but she’s essentially the same gal from 50 years ago.
Perhaps part of Barbie’s staying power has been her ability to evolve. She was given a larger waist when folks complained about her unrealistic figure. Her “Dream House” was redesigned to accomodate the wheelchair of her friend Share a Smile Becky. And in recent years, she even dumped Ken.
One thing that hasn’t changed is Barbie’s youthful look. I suggest the next incarnation of Barbie shows her age. A 50-year-old Barbie with silver hair and a few wrinkles could be a big hit. Then again, what do I know?
As an unwritten rule, my husband and I have always tried to avoid talking politics with the kids.
That is, until the kid brings up the subject.
It started with a song, actually. A song the daughter and I stumbled across while scanning through radio stations on the way to violin lessons.
The first line we heard was the one that made us perk up our ears up and tune the radio in on whatever country station was playing it.
“In the real world they’re shuttin’ Detroit down.”
The daughter’s quick reply, “Wow, they really are shutting Detroit down like in real life, not just in this song.”
She did a double take and questioned if they had started to sing the radio news. I chuckled, then replied that may be where the news is headed, who knows?
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The maid of honor at my wedding has keen interest in all things “Green.” It’s not that she’s a fan of the color. She’s more of a fan of the movement. From time to time, she will email me with tips for parents looking to reduce their carbon footprint or ways to make an outdoor playhouse entirely out of recycled materials.
This week, she sent me a link to HandMeDowns.com. This online classified site advertises gently-used baby strollers, cribs, tiny clothes and a whole host of other kids’ stuff. The maid of honor’s motivation likely echos a catchphrase I’ve heard from other greenies: “The best possible form of recycling is reuse.”
I clicked onto the Web site shortly after receiving the message. It’s a national Web site with about 20 regions, including a page specific to Chicago. The local site didn’t have many listings but the potential is there. Click on “boys clothing/toddler” and you’ll be directed to a $5 pair of snowpants, a three-piece pajama set in size 3T for $5 and about four other items.
These postings were all from parents looking to sell their items, but there’s also the option to give stuff away for free. The Web site also promotes donating items to charities. However, the operators have yet to suggest a charitable recipient in the Chicago area.
I’ve purchased and sold a few items with the online classified site Craigslist in the past. I’ve also bought and sold baby items the old fashioned way - through newspaper classified ads and at garage sales. Craigslist has worked well, but it can be difficult to comb through the mountain of items listed on the popular site. While looking for maternity clothes on Craigslist, I had to sift through advertisements for Exercausers and kids’ clothes. It made my search that much more difficult.
I think HandMeDowns.com could carve itself out a niche by offering quality, gently-used kids’ stuff online. Of course, the site still needs to catch on a bit. But when it does, you can say you read about it first on the Daily Journal’s Parenting Blog!
