Chris, Author at GoodFitFam

Thirty Six Words for Butt – Lessons in Storytelling.

June 13, 2018 by Chris Leave a Comment

….Captain Tushii of the Hi-Knee City Police Department tracked Keister over five states and predicted he would target the Tokus National Bank. So, he and Detective Gloot E. Uss, waited in the bank’s posterior for Keith to arrive. Keith parked his horse, Duffy, and strode confidently into the bank…

That’s an excerpt from a short story I wrote with John and Julian, our 6-year twin sons. I hated potty talk before I had kids. Now I want to dig a deep hole and dump the words butt, fart, poop and fill it with concrete. With twins, potty words have legs.

The dilemma is how to blow up the potty talk echo chamber? The solution? Add more potty words. Lots more. How many words for butt do you know? Probably not as many as you think. We wrote down all the ones we knew and found dozens more online. It was a hilarious exercise and butt is mundane when you put it against tokus or badonkadok.

The next step was important. It’s to give those words life in a creatively way. We wrote a story – The Scary Derriery. In the story, we shoehorned a couple dozen ways of saying butt in fun ways. The kids and I mapped out the bones of the story around the ghost of a bank robber who uses too many potty words. We often write stories or make them up on walks and car rides as a way to discovery and understanding; when just reading about something doesn’t go deep enough.

Your stories don’t always need to be about potty words. They can be about how to be more grateful and optimistic, beat boredom or what bullying is. They can be poems, graphic novels or wordless cartoons. Pick a theme or a lesson and a learning moment will present itself. It’s also something you can return to as a reminder.

The point for us was to build something together, learn there are many ways to examine a similar thing while improving their reading and not pretending we are Ronald Dahl. If you would like to read The Scary Derriery in full click the link.

Family Films on Netflix and Amazon this June

June 5, 2018 by Chris Leave a Comment

Shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime for Kids

Our boys are six but think they’re sixteen. They are obsessed with Minecraft and Harry Potter. Both are amazing but include mature themes like death and zombies. I’m sure plenty of parents like us use Harry Potter as a measuring stick judging what’s appropriate for their kids. We’ve taken a pause at film four of the Potter series. It’s gotten a bit too dark and the stakes too dramatic.

Netflix

I wish I could recommend Netflix’s Original series tackling history The Who Was Show, but it’s a tough hang for kids and adults alike.

The Great British Baking Show – Netflix has a show called Nailed It in the kid section. We turned it on and it kicked-off with crude language and things I didn’t want to explain during a cooking show. We love the Great British Baking Show, it’s civil, educational and we all love it.

Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure – There is a huge catalog of 80s and 90s films I grew up with. For every new film we pick some older ones and most of the time the kids are into it. Pee-Wee was one.

Cool Runnings – I was surprised how much the kids loved this. I feel privileged to grow up watching John Candy films and hope my kids too.

Paddington – I genuinely love this movie and the sequel should be nominated for best picture 2018.

Miracle – Add this to a Cool Runnings double feature.

The Iron Giant – We own this one and it’s one of the top 4-5 animated movies in the last 25 years.

Ghostbusters – One my kids said there is a curse word that is the name of a person in this. Not sure how he figured that out as I had the close capturing on and coughed over it. Other than that and a few scary scenes this is a must.

Chasing Monsters – Monsters, in this case, are giant fish. This show is a part adventure, a part travel, and the rest – education. Nothing offensive except maybe a story of a legendary fish who may have eaten a pet.

Amazon

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. I can’t wait until I can watch Raiders of the Lost Ark with my kids but want to avoid melty face scene for another year or two. I enjoyed Young Indiana Jones and it’s a nice warm-up for the real deal. For the older kids, all of the Indy films are available on Amazon

Hugo – Super entertaining film.

Odd Squad – Best kids show on TV period. It’s not animated and the kid actors are incredible.

Zathura – We recently watched the original Jumanji and this is a fun watch with some dramatic moments and brotherly love

Nova – No matter what your children are into, Nova has covered it. We recently watched the ones on Petra and Machu Picchu and it was enthralling despite being geared for adults.

Getting Kids to Brush and Read

April 10, 2018 by Chris Leave a Comment

A couple quick recommendations of products we’ve been loving……

Brushing

Getting your kids to brush their teeth is not always an easy task. Well, then you need to convince them to do it correctly. Good luck. Our guys are okay brushers, but if we didn’t tell them they needed to, they’d skip it every time.

Check out Chompers. They describe it as a twice-daily tooth brushing show. The three-minute show features, jokes, stories, songs and fact sessions intercut with brushing reminders.

Staying on the Gimlet Site, I’m also recommending the Story Pirates Podcast. The Story Pirates are a talented and quick-witted troupe of improv artists who act out “original stories from real kids.”

We loved Story Pirates back when they were weekly feature son Kids Place Live; now they have their own podcast. We’ve seen them live it’s a fun afternoon.

Reading

Our guys have been reluctant readers. It takes persistence and they’d rather be inventing recipes, but that’s changed recently. They’ve become super motivated, and the book that has helped us reach their goals is Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Engelmann, Phyliss Haddox, and Elaine Bruner.

It’s beautiful watching the kids read on their own, and this book’s straightforward system, of layering sounds, words and eventually sentences is simple, exciting and effective. I can’t say enough good things about this book. The only negative is we should have started earlier.

Help Kitchen Visual Guides

March 26, 2018 by Chris Leave a Comment

Help Kitchen Visual Guides

Fire up the color printer because we have 16 of our favorite kitchen diagrams. We need these because we never have all the ingredients, always wonder if that’s still good to eat, and what is the best wine to pair with string cheese. In all seriousness, tape some of these up on the inside of your cabinets for a fast answer to simple kitchen questions.

1. Easy Soups

Hold up, you may not need to run to the store to pick up dinner. Here are 10 soups you can make combining an odd can of beans, the last veggies in your fridge and seasonings that may have expired.

2. Spice Pairings

Did you know you can use Caraway with Cottage cheese?

3. A Guide to Cooking and Baking Substitutions

This one is super useful. We have made entire recipes using only substitutions.

4. Cooking Methods

Disappointed the torch method can’t be used for Grilled Cheese.

5. Guide to Flavoring with Spices

Another spicy visualization.

6. Conversion Chart

For when you find a recipe on a British Blog… Or when you’re anywhere else in the world and need to know what the American’s are talking about.

7. Kitchen Volume Conversion Aid

When you need to turn the volume up in the kitchen…

8. Healthy Oil Cooking Guide

If you watch Food Network, you may not know you can’t use Olive Oil for everything.

9. The Onion Breakdown

This is helpful in some dishes but I normally ignore everything except the Red Onion bit.

10. Egg Substitutions

If I don’t have eggs, I normally have bananas. The PB substitution is mind-blowing.

11. How Much to Serve at a Party

Cupcake ratio seems a bit low.

12. Veggie Cooking Cheat Sheet

You can’t throw in all veggies at the same time and expect it to taste good.

13. Perfect Cookie

All look good to me, but 7,3,6,5,4,8,2,1

14. How to Store Your Groceries

Have you stored a peeled banana more than a day? I’d like to hear the story behind that.

15. Real Good Cheap Easy Food

Lots of good recipes and note the shopping list on the sides.

16. Wine & Cheese Pairing

Everyone knows Boursin and Gruner Veltliner pair well, but you may not know cheddar and merlot are BFF’s

Eggs – It’s What’s for Dinner

January 19, 2018 by Chris Leave a Comment

Dinner Eggs Recipes

Most families have pizza night or taco night, but no body has egg night. Recently I was at a farm to table restaurant and saw they have an Omelette of the day on the lunch menu. That day it was made with potatoes and chorizo and it looked beautiful. I make omelets everyday by 6 am but omelets would even be better at 6pm. The image of that beautiful omelet inspired me.

Eggs are cheap, easy and filling. They are digested slower than most foods you normally eat at night so you may make it to bed without pangs of hunger. Best of all it feels like you’re eating carbs

In the morning I tend to go with a simple, four-ingredient omelet with 5 whites and 2 whole; it takes all of 7 minutes and there’s no cleanup. At night when your taste buds are searching for more flavor, you can spice it up, dump some leftovers or go veggie crazy. There are no wrong answers.

Here are five eggcellent recipes to eggspire you. The best part is eggs will love you no matter how you vary the recipe.

All you need for survival is peppers and eggs.
C Dinner Eggs Recipes reamy Scrambled Egg Stuffed Bell Pepper with Veggies -Via FitMenCook

Easy Mediterranean Style Egg Casserole Recipe – via The Mediterranean Dish Egg Casserole Recipe for Brunch

Meal planning is a cinch. These taste decent cold so you can eat them on the go.

Mini Quiche with Sweet Potato Crust via Eating Well.

Mini Quiches with Sweet Potato Crust

This one is not as healthy as the others but your taste buds will thank you.

Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Breakfast Has – via Tasty

Tolkien said the most beautiful sounding phrase is cellar door, but I think it’s Huevos Rancheros. Via Serious Eats Quick and Easy Huevos Rancheros With Tomato-Chili Salsa Recipe

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