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Birthday cupcakes and soccer snack schedules


Really, do we need all the snacks during and after every sports event and mid-day during school on every birthday? I'm just plain sick of it. Today's locker room discussion after the swim was centered around the fact that one parent's school had decided that all birthdays during September should be celebrated on a single day. Therefore, all the moms of September birthday kids had to organize which day to bring all the junk to school, and who would make it. Of course, scheduling issues and food-related bickering ensued. I don't understand the teacher-directed "parents, you organize and bring treats for your child's birthday" behavior. Do we really need to have ANYTHING brought to school for a kid's birthday? No. I never did it growing up, and I have never done it for my child at their school. It's ridiculous. And I applaud my kids' school for banning all birthday food as of last year. Hurrah!

And don't even get me started on the sports snack schedules. I believe this snack schedule thing was created by some evil-doer non-parent who decided to screw the rest of us with one extra duty, generally on the weekend, to add to getting the kids and all their gear to their respective games on time with the correct uniform on. So that's number one. Number two, handing out crap after a simple sporting event just makes no sense to me. What are we teaching our children? Go run around for an hour and then I'll give you some food IMMEDIATELY because you can't survive until we have a meal? Do we really want to feed our kids more calories than they've just burned off, as a treat for being active? No wonder more kids have weight problems than ever before. I may not have reduced the calories much, because I do give my soccer team Gatorade after a game to appease the snack-obsessed kids and parents - and that stuff has unneccesary syrup in it as well (hey, what's wrong with water!?!?!) - but at least it's hydrating. And at least none of the parents has to worry about their DREADED SNACK DAY!

Speaking of burning calories, here was today's workout. I also have decided to do 5 minutes of abs and 5 minutes of lunges before most swims, because I think meneeds some major strength training for soccer season, which began yesterday!

warmup: 100 free, 50 stroke
repeat 5x

50 technique, 100 aerobic, 200 threshold, 100 technique, 50 sprint
repeat 3x

250 done as 5x50's straight in above pattern
repeat 3x
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Unknown said…
I'm with you on the snack front. I ended up banning them as a basketball coach because everyone was bringing Krispy Kreme donuts and other junk. Parents complained, and snacks were reinstated (though they were healthier after that). I just don't get it.

Now, I volunteer to be the "snack mom" for teams I don't coach and just try to get coach's buy-in on what's acceptable and not -- and on backing me up if I send someone home with the donuts they brought. It's worked pretty well. I suggest not bringing drinks (the kids have water bottles) and propose whole fruit, cheese sticks, yogurt tubes, granola bars -- and make a list of what's not allowed, like donuts, potato chips, and cookies. But most importantly, I've taught my kids about healthy choices, and they know that just because the snack is there, they don't have to eat it; they often save it for later.

BTW, birthday treats are banned at my kids' school. Every so often, there will be a mom at pick-up offering kids popsicles or cookies anyway. Funny how the kids let it go, but the parents don't...
September 13, 2010 at 8:40 AM
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