Knee Deep Blog

Floods and High Water Kids Jeans: When are they too short?

Eli is one of those tall and thin kids which means he often wears flood aka high water jeans. It's not because we don't care rather he doesn't like when the waist band of the pants is higher which is what happens when they are kids slims with the additional elastic pull tab.

Routinely my eyes are rolling to the top of my head when I try my best to get him to wear pants that fits and he refuses, throws a fit, grabs his favorites which he says are extra comfy.  Unfortunately they are also 2 to 3 inches above the ground and known and floods and high waters. Trust me I'm always secretly giving away clothes - and kids continue to grow so it's always an issue.

About a month ago he asked me what it means when someone says you have "floods" - at seven this isn't in your vocabulary.  I explained the concept of high water pants and floods.  He nodded, to indicate he understood and it was the end of the story.  He didn't ask if he wore floods or even notice that he was wearing them at the time.

Learning to Cook - Eli's Kid Friendly Sushi Dinner

Learning to cook could really be learning to cut - Eli's Kid Friendly Sushi Dinner.  Last week was the very first dinner that Eli has come up with the idea, prepped and gloated over.  It cracks me up that for him sushi has nothing to do with raw fish, but I took care of that for the adults.

Eli and Olivia are still on their learning to cook energy which I rather enjoy.  The night before the dinner we talked about what we would have, made a shopping list, and brought Curran (age 5) to help Eli (age 7) shop.  I "simply" monitored the list and all that entered the cart.

Curran was clear he wanted tapioca for dessert, but I couldn't find it so strawberry mochi balls and lime popsicals did the trick.

Our Kid Friendly Sushi Dinner Menu Included

  Salmon (baked for the kids)

Yellow fin tuna (sashimi for the adults)

Unagi (cooked eel with sauce it is in the bottom left of the picture)

sushi rice (with mirin, rice vinegar and a bit of sugar)

cucumbers

avocado

roe (the bright orange in the center of the picture)

Miso soup (with seaweed, green onions, and tofu or smashed brains according to curran and Eli)

lots of seaweed (both large sheets to be rolled and small 2 X 2 inch which I made "sushi taco rolls" and expertly popped into my mouth.

wasabi and soy

  The best part of this is prep was really simply - Eli did most of the chopping and put the ingredients in small bowls - so all was perfect.  I have to admit that at times Eli's knife weilding ways scared me so I opted for a less sharp knife and delighted that each piece of cucumber had it's own shape and size.

The toughest part for Eli is that Curran who is usually a master of the kitchen only wanted to play with legos - so Eli spent 20 minutes of prepping coming up with ways to entice him into the kitchen.  He finally did it when he said that we had "brains to smash" and Curran came running in.

When Curran entered the kitchen to "smash the brains" (aka cut the tofu into a million little pieces) they used butter knives as two small boys "smashing" with knives was way too much for my comfort level.  So they got to have fun and I got to drink more wine before adding the tofu to the miso soup.

When it comes to creating the actual pieces of sushi and rolls that were consumed - all was perfect.  Nothing was premade - rather all ingredients were put on the table as pictured above.  In our house any way it's rolled or looks is perfect - as long as it's consumed.  As you can see from Eli's "sushi" it's really a big piece of cooked salmon, avocado, rice, and a little roe wrapped in a big piece of seaweed. 

Hope this gives you some ideas for your own kids "cooked" meals.