Lunchtime!

[conuly]

The girls are having fluffernutters for lunch. On wonderbread, no less! (Well, it's whole wheat....) This makes me...

[Poll #1443022]

They can't have seconds, though. Because I am STRICT. (And because I'm saving the rest to make fudge.)

[Poll #1443023]

Comments

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

Mint? Whyever would you say I would say Mint?!?!
I AM INSULTED, MISS.

*said mint*

[conuly]

I don't know. Gee. Maybe because I know you? Sheesh, wasn't I there the first time you made Never Fail Fudge? (I remember. We didn't spread it out and had to cut out chunks from the bowl instead.)

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

Yep, you were there. We also used the whole can of Evap. Milk and had to pour most of it out.

And we made it in a wok. It like, never hardened! lol

[conuly]

But it was super yummy.

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

It was.

And a good lesson that very deep fudge doesn't harden in the dead of summer. Lesson learned. :)

[conuly]

It was winter. You slept up in the attic. With, like, a zillion blankets over.

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

Was it?!?! I thought we did the fudge during summer break. Hunh.

[conuly]

Definitely winter break. I mean, maybe we made fudge in summer too, fudge is delicious, but the first time was winter.

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

Oh. Blahhh, it was 10+ (scary thought!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) years ago. My memory has turned to mush. :-p

God, I've know you since I was 12. I'm 25. Cripes. That's a Baker's Dozen of years.


Edit: Oh Gosh. A Baker's Dozen. Of course. *devolves into giggles*

[conuly]

That's more than half your life. Isn't that the scariest thought?

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

Ah, crap.

[velvetchamber.livejournal.com]

I beg your pardon, but what exactly is it that you are feeding the young and has these peculiar names?

[conuly]

Fluffernutters! A peanut butter sandwich, but with marshmallow fluff instead of jelly. If you want, when I get a real job I can send you a small thing of fluff (and peanut butter if you don't have it up there) so you can make yourself one.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't know what it was either! I bet Kira would LOVE that. I should get some for her next time I go to the store. A special treat for her Friday sandwich.

[conuly]

You never had a fluffernutter?

Be warned - they can get super messy. I have a picture I just snapped, I'll upload it later, of the girls with fluff all over their mouths. (And in Ana's case, the nose. She put it there on purpose after I ran down to fetch a camera. LOL.)

[velvetchamber.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. I have seen jars labelled Fluff here in Swedish stores, and it does look like it is your kind of fluff. The real problem would be my reluctance to consume bread, and not lack of peanut butter. Although I haven't consciously seen it here in Sweden, I'd be extremely surprised if it weren't available. We certainly have it at home in Iceland.

It does sound like an interesting combination : )

[conuly]

Well, you can take a spoonful of fluff and peanut butter and eat them together. Then you can make fudge with the rest.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Well... it's not a 'healthy lunch' by any stretch of the imagination, but neither will they die of metabolic syndrome before reaching puberty from the occasional fluffernutter.

You're an awesome aunt, Connie, and it's because you work hard at keeping that delicate balance between adult values such as good nutrition, and child values such as gooey sweetness. Also you recognize that the childly delight of a rarely-occasional fluffernutter is far sweeter than the delight of a routine everyday fluffernutter.

I always let my kid eat as much of her Halloween, Xmas and Easter candy as she wanted, giving fair warning that too much of it would make her sick. Of course this fair warning was ignored, but it was her candy and her stomach, and after all, experience is the best teacher. LOL, the Xmas she was four, she turned positively green from too much chocolate, and ever after, has been reasonably moderate about sweets.

That's a thing to consider about being STRICT: If you say "No, you can't have a second fluffernutter because it's bad for you", you leave the child-mind CRAVING that second fluffernutter the more because it's been forbidden. If you say "I'll make you a second one if you're sure you can eat that much, but I think it's likely to make you feel sick, so maybe it would be smarter to quit while you're ahead", one of two things will happen. Either the child will be 'full' before the second fluffernutter is half gone, whereat you can complain about wasting food, and justify all your future denials of second fluffernutters on the grounds of "Last time I made it, you didn't eat it".... or.... the child will manage to finish it, and will heartily wish she hadn't. Then all future requests for a second fluffernutter may be answered with "Remember how you felt last time when you ate two? Surely you don't want that again!"

The denial of second fluffernutters on the grounds that then there wouldn't be enough fluff left to make fudge with is clear and reasonable to most children old enough to ask Why?, and doesn't carry any suspicious taint of ForYourOwnGoodism (as long as they're reasonably certain of getting a fair share of the subsequent fudge.) They still don't much like it, and who can blame them? In an ideal world, the jar of marshmallow fluff would never run out, and neither would one's capacity to enjoy the stuff, but alas, that isn't the world we live in.

For myself, OMG no thank you, I do not want a fluffernutter. I didn't even want a fluffernutter when I was the age of your little girlies, because the combination of two different types of sticky sloppiness was revoilting to me. I'm still adamantly opposed to peanut butter combined with anything - I like it well enough eaten with a spoon from the jar, but mixing it with other foods ruins both it and the other foods. Same with marshmallows - I can happily eat half a dozen roasted marshmallows by themselves, but if they've got to be glopped up with chocolate on a graham cracker, then never mind.

In my book, fudge is fudge, and adding anything to it only turns it into second-rate, adulterated fudge. Make that third-rate adulterated fudge if the superfluous additive is anything crunchy such as bits of nuts. Of course, being now at an age where dying of metabolic syndrome is a clear and present danger, I find that the appeal of any kind of processed carbs grows less all the time.

Therefore I say, Gather ye fluffernutters while ye may, and the same for your little nieces. They're not spoiled; what they are is loved.

Something to be STRICT about...

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

...This doesn't just apply to days upon which fluffernutters happen, of course, but they're what has brought it to my mind: the issue of toothbrushing. One of the most important things you can do to ensure the lifelong future health of your girlies is to teach them to floss and brush correctly after every meal, enforce their doing so (and set them an example) whenever they are with you, and explain to them the reasons why.

Proper oral hygeine is right up there with handwashing and not smoking as a cheap and easy way, available to everyone, to avoid hideously expensive, painful, and all-too-frequently fatal disease. All it takes is making it an unfailing habit, and to that end, you could even use fluffernutters as an incentive, saying (for example) that you'd like to be able to give them fluffernutters more often, but fluffernutters are sweet and sticky, bad for teeth, and you're afraid they haven't been taking good enough care of their teeth. LOL, the logic is slightly fallacious, but it will still work if you play your cards right, because children tend to take umbrage at implications that they aren't doing something well enough, and want to prove you wrong.

Re: Something to be STRICT about...

[conuly]

Mmm, they do brush their teeth, but I've noticed when I floss their teeth randomly during the day (whenever I get itchy flossing fingers, which is about once every day or two days) that Ana's bottom teeth (which are quite crooked at the moment) have a LOT of gunk in between them. I've told her, and I told my sister when I realized the other day, that she has to be Very Careful (and maybe have more grown-up assistance) with those bottom teeth because they're hard to brush by nature of being crooked.

I have that same problem, and that's what the dentist told me. My top teeth are more-or-less straight now, but the bottom ones were always more crooked and after my father died we never kept up with the braces. Things really fell apart for a while, I don't blame my mother. But those teeth are still really crooked and taking care of them is hard.

[conuly]

Yes, they get a fair share of fudge. Mind, I'm careful to share the fudge out with anybody in the neighborhood or playground who wants (and whose grown-ups say okay, of course), but I try not to obviously eat a lot more than they do at a sitting :)

And thank you for your thought-out comment, btw.

I always let my kid eat as much of her Halloween, Xmas and Easter candy as she wanted, giving fair warning that too much of it would make her sick.

My nieces often ask for cotton candy if we're out and about and see a cotton candy seller, and I usually refuse on the grounds that it's cutprice cotton candy and not as good as the good stuff. The few times we get some, though (one bag shared three ways goes a lot further than you'd think) I always tell them the story of my mother and why she will never eat cotton candy. You cannot make her, she simply will not, because when she was a kid she went to a company picnic with her family and gorged on the free cotton candy, and after six big things of it and a (special treat!) car ride home she was very sick indeed.

[conuly]

Well... it's not a 'healthy lunch' by any stretch of the imagination, but neither will they die of metabolic syndrome before reaching puberty from the occasional fluffernutter.

Also, to be fair, I made them eat fruit as well. I always put fruit on the plate during lunch, and this time I just said they had to eat at least a *few* bites so I'd feel better about the "treat lunch".

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

You're an awesome aunt, Connie, and it's because you work hard at keeping that delicate balance between adult values such as good nutrition, and child values such as gooey sweetness.

Yes, this exactly. I had an adult friend as a child who used to sneak me brownies behind my mother's all-healthfood back. She also taught me the phrase "everything in moderation, including moderation." And how to knit.