So tonight (mostly joking) I asked my kids: “So… are you going to make dinner tonight or should I?”

The answer I got was somewhat unexpected: “Seriously? Can we?”

“Err…. Um…. Sure. But it has to be a meal of healthy choices.”

Your Kids Will Be Tested In Life

So you might as well make it on your terms. In this case, the test was not dangerous (well, I had to eat it too and I have to say I was a bit nervous). So the questions were: can they make the right choices? Do they know the requirements of a healthy meal in the first place? Sure, we’ve tried to instil an understanding of protein, carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables, etc. But the real bottom-of-the-line-question: did they hear it?

It was better to find out tonight than years from now. Then when they ignore the advice sometime later in college you can hope they’ll pick it back up again a few years later.

The Happy Meal

I wasn’t allowed into the kitchen while the meal was being prepared. About a half-an-hour in (which was right about our normal dinner time) I was asked if I would authorize the use of cookie cutters. My first sign that maybe our little whispers of health had not been heard. It took another half an hour before I was allowed to come to the table.

The results would take a lot of words to describe, so I’ll use pictures instead:

Cheese, Apples and Ghrams

Peanut Butter Animal Shapes

Buttered Animal Shaped Bread

Apples, Celery, and Carrots

I think they passed! They had representations of pretty much everything important. Now, mind you I don’t know how old the celery was that they found (but I ate it anyway). And they had actually gotten the single, very-small, carrot from the garden. I am hoping it was washed well. All said and done, my kids get an A+ for effort, an A+ for presentation and an A+ for content.

Dinner Conversation

“What did you cut up the fruit and vegetables with?”

“A knife”

“errr…. a sharp knife?”

“No, a normal one” (pointing to a butter knife).

“You cut up a raw carrot and celery with a butter knife???” (they were thin slices!)

“Yep”

Grade Change: A++ for effort!

I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of the bowl of “left over bread pieces” though. Picture it in your mind: take a piece of bread, cut an animal-shape out of it using a cookie cutter… What do you do with the rest? Put it in a bowl of course!

I find it funny that so many people have been upset by President Obama having been given the Nobel Peace Prize. Somehow, everyone (myself included) seem to miss one vital point: he didn’t ask for it. There he was, simply sleeping the night away (probably with nightmares because of all the trials he’s undergoing) and it was handed to him. Regardless of whether or not we think he deserved it (as I have talked about before), we have to remember that he wasn’t campaigning for it and has simply been doing his job.

Michael Moore (yes that one), wrote an excellent article on the subject on why he deserves it.: Get Off Obama’s Back: Second Thoughts From Michael Moore. An important paragraph (if you don’t want to read the whole thing):

And my favorite single sentence from it:

That’s exactly what I was trying to refer to in my previous post. Imagine how difficult it would be to turn the world’s general attitude from a very negative and pessimistic one to a positive attitude full of hope and nearly-world-wide belief that a common good might just be achievable Now imagine trying to do that in the time span of an election. I’m not sure this has EVER happened so quickly before.

Don’t get me wrong, his work is far from over. It’s certainly not time to start slacking. But he’s already achieved a task you couldn’t possibly wish on anyone. Somehow I don’t think he’s the type of person to start just kicking back and enjoying the ride.

I’ve been up for an hour, pondering the first bit of news I read for the day: President Obama has been given the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. I’m now sitting and waiting for his speech on the subject and pondering my opinion on the subject.

The oddity of the prize comes from the fact that he’s not even a full year into his first term. In fact, he had to be nominated by February at which point he had only been in his post for a little over a month. He has certainly worked very hard during that 9 months and has a huge amount on his plate, both internally and externally to the U.S. Has he done enough to warrant an award yet? I’m left with many questions and few answers. I’m really only going to be documenting my questions here, since I’m neither a politics nor a Nobel prize expert.

The one thing I realized as the election was coming to a head in November 2008 was that Mr. Obama had the attention of the world in the way that hasn’t happened in a long time. Probably since the time frame of Mikhail Gorbachev’s work. He has a huge level of world-wide attention. Not just any-old attention, but positive attention.

I’ll pause now, because he’s started speaking and I’m going to listen…
(It was a good speech, but not one of his best. That being said, it was far better than I could have done after only being awake for a few hours after being told he won the prize!)

Before the election, as I was saying, I was watching TV one day and whatever I was watching was showing clips of people around the world saying how excited they were at the prospect of Mr. Obama being the next President of the United States. Coming from a point in history where there was practically world-wide disdain for recent United States actions, this was a huge change in viewpoint.

Think about it. Think about what the U.S. popularity was in October of last year compared to October of this year. Now, of course, the Peace Prize isn’t given because of how the world looks at the U.S. But it is given to people that can have a profound effect toward world harmony. I do think he has achieved that by just “being him” and winning the election.

But is that enough? Is it enough to just “be someone” with such extreme charisma that he should win a prize? Why this year? Certainly, he would have a longer track record to consider and judge. Or is now the right time in order to help him achieve even greater good by attracting even more world-wide attention. Should the peace prize be awarded as a flag to rally under?

I don’t have answers, but as the day goes on and I’ve had more time to think about it, I at least understand the reasons behind the decision more. And if I was going to award someone a prize for achieving world wide recognition as a positive person to rally, it would certainly be to him. he’s long since did that even before taking to office.

We all get mind-blocks from time to time. Sometimes it’s just from sleep deprivation where we can’t think any longer. Sometimes it’s from a lack of creativity (e.g. “writers block”). Sometimes it’s from simple lack of will to do something tedious (“procrastinator’s block”).

But with children (and admittedly some adults) there is also the “Stubborn Block”. This block occurs frequently with homework and house-hold chores. This one takes hours out of your child’s life because they simply because they’d rather be doing something else. The problem, though, is that with a child who is rebelling against the very notion of doing something you want “simply because” there is no logic that will prevail. Statements like “if you would just buckle down and do it it would only take 10 minutes” has no effect and the stubborn block will instead result in a 70 minute ordeal to get the 10 minute task done.

I have no solution to this one. I surely wish I did. I simply don’t know how to function when logic stops having any effect at all. When a “stubbon block” appears within the confines of my house, I end up in a “frustration block”.