With a forward by the author of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” This delightful book is a shot in the arm for parents and caretakers of our youth. Plenty of lists give us options for remembering to be positive and constructive with our children. Preview before you buy on Google Books.

If I had my child to raise all over again,I’d build self-esteem first, and the house later.I’d finger-paint more, and point the finger less.I would do less correcting and more connecting.I’d take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.I’d take more hikes and fly more kites.I’d stop playing serious, and seriously play.I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars.I’d do more hugging and less tugging.
–Diane Loomans, “If I Had My Child To Raise Over Again”

Must see lists include:

10 Ways to Connect with Children Every Day

24 Ideas for creating a Happy Home (Hug more. Cook something together!)

9 Ways to make One Minute Connections.

While we see an absence of emphasis on true consequences, this read is a great reminder that the softer side of parenting can be effective and worth practicing.

The funny thing about being a parent? You never know what the next challenge will be. One day you’re baking cookies for a school bake sale, the next day you’re telling your preschooler to stop chasing the dog with the shopping cart. A week later, you might find yourself removing stickers from the INSIDE of your sock and wondering how the heck that’s even possible.

This week? Well, this week I was faced with a 5 year old who decided she did NOT want the princess cake I’d been planning and instead would rather have donuts.

“I don’t like cake, can I please, please, PLEASE have donuts for my birthday?”

Yes, I could have just stuck a candle in the top of a glazed donut, but where’s the fun in that? So I sat myself down at the computer and started hunting ideas for a cake made of donuts. Unfortunately, the only thing I really found was the donut equivalent of a “cupcake cake” with tiers of donuts stacked together and some decorations added.

No thanks.

Behold…the Delight of the Donut Cake!

So I made it up on my own and while it wasn’t exactly what I’d envisioned, it was still pretty darn cool.

Elnora and her donut cake

Everyone else seemed to like it as well. It took about 20 minutes of thinking to figure out a strategy and then about 15 minutes to actually assemble it. All in all, way less work than the tiered princess dress cake I’d planned on making.

That said, donuts aren’t cheap around here, so the darn thing still cost me $14. The princess cake would have been a fraction of that.

Interested in how I made it? It’s super simple.

How Many Donuts Does it Take to Make A Donut Cake?

Answer:  More than they have at Giant Eagle.

My kids love donuts from Giant Eagle, one of our local supermarkets, so when I picked them up from preschool we headed that way to pick out donuts for the cake. Unfortunately I walked up to the bakery counter a half step behind a woman who literally cleaned out their inventory.

Nice.

So we piled back into the car and headed to Mary Anne donuts, maker of some of the best (and most expensive) donuts I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating.  I stood in front of their glass cases trying to calculate dimensions in my head on how I’d assemble this pastry puzzle.

A few minutes and a $5 coupon later, I walked out the door with half a dozen cream sticks, half a dozen large glazed donuts and a dozen assorted small cake donuts.

6 Cream Sticks, 6 Glazed and 12 Cake donuts

In looking at my donuts, I knew the glazed were my most logical choice for a central stacking point and I’d already decided I wanted to build outward to create a bit of a visual pattern. So I stood up a cream stick to measure height and found that three glazed donuts was just right for creating the center.

Use your largest width donut to create your central base.

Initially I was just stacking the cream sticks up against the donuts, but it quickly became clear that wasn’t going to cut it. They kept falling over. Nothing a few toothpicks wouldn’t solve…so I ran some toothpicks through the cream sticks and into the glazed donuts to hold them upright.

Use toothpicks to secure the outer donuts to your central base.

For the size glazed donuts I was using, it took six cream sticks. I could have fit seven, but I wanted to leave some space between them so I could work some of the other donuts into the design. That said, the cream sticks and the glazed donuts really looked nice on their own. I think if I was doing a larger donut cake, I might have used this as the top tier. (Keep in mind, you could also use vanilla or maple frosted cream sticks…or even ones with colored drizzle. I think I could have fun with a multi-tiered donut cake done with different flavors of frosting.)

The intial base for the donut cake.

This is when things got kind of challening… I stood at the counter for a good ten minutes just staring at the cake donuts…

Different color and flavor cake donuts so I could have some color variety.

My initial thought was to cut them all in half. Just seemed like I could get a better type of design going on that way. I wanted to add some additional “color” to the cake, so I pulled out the toothpicks again and stood them up between the cream sticks the whole way around.

Use toothpicks to secure half cake donuts to the central stacked donuts.

I was thinking variety, so I alternated three different types of donuts as  I went around the cake. Once I was done, I wished I hadn’t. If  I was building one again, I’d stick with a single color/flavor choice to build a more consistent look.

Next I added another ring of cake donuts along the outside, because everything was just looking far too vertical.

Adding a ring of cake donuts around the donut cake

Next I took the powdered sugar donuts and inserted them between the cream sticks at an angle onto the top of the donut cake. I had to use toothpicks again here to hold them in place, but honestly, once they were all tucked in with the cream sticks, they kind of all worked together to keep things in place anyway.

Adding the powdered sugar donuts. The consistent color of the white made me wish I'd only used the chocolate on the bottom and the cinnamon to ring the cake.

I added one final glazed donut to the top so you couldn’t see all the toothpicks, but if I was doing it again, I’d probably have used a chocolate frosted glazed donut with sprinkles, just to give it more color and personality.  Either way, the glazed donut worked well because I could stick a votive candle right down in it.

Blowing out the candle on the donut cake

We had five adults and two kids at this party and to be honest…we decimated the cake. Sure, it was a bit piggy of us, but seriously folks, it was a donut cake! What do you expect?

The Destruction of the Donut Cake

And there you have it folks. The making of a donut cake.

Elnora went nuts over it, so it accomplished it’s purpose…but it was alot a lot of fun to make and generated a lot of conversation at the dinner table. If you’ve got a donut lover in your family, surprise them for their next birthday!

My friends in elementary school got white bread sandwiches, fruit in a cup, and a candy bar in their lunches. Let’ just say that when my lunch box opened, no one was interested in trading. My friends also got paid for good grades. I didn’t.  And frankly, we all turned out just fine.

We never paid our kids for good grades. Yep, we stuck to the “Success is its own reward” paradigm. Our twins are slogging their way through college with better- than-average results.

If I had it to do over again?

I’d pay.

Why? Because an extra incentive can establish a vision — an understanding of what they are capable of — that they can draw from forever.

My cross country coach helped me trim a few minutes by kicking my heels on the course. Brutal, but I never forgot that I had some extra “juice” when I needed it. I placed 3rd in the central state finals.

Our daughter hesitated to play drums in front of a large crowd. I pressured her into it and she flourished.

The bird gets pushed from the nest. They learn to fly.

A little nudge.

You get the idea.

Success is its own reward. But sometimes it can use a little bump.

Few things are as rewarding as looking at your children and honestly believing that they were raised well. That happened to me for a moment the other day.

Of course the other 95% of the time, we parents worry that we’ve done something, if not everything, wrong. So, in our worst moments, like when we’re seriously considering disowning our kids, don’t worry. We’re just like the other 150 million parents here in the US.

in our worst moments, we can all take a lesson from “The Sound of Music” and think of our favorite moments in parenting. Go ahead and write ‘em down (or share them here). By the time you’re done, you’ll be calmer and thinking ahead to when it won’t be so crazy.

Here’s what I came up with today:

1. First eye to eye look (at birth)
2. Her first reach to grasp a leaf
3. All of us in a giggling, wrestling pile
4. Their faces the first time at Disneyland
5. Smiles at the first award, championship or published work
6. All five of us performing music together
7. Intense discussions until the small hours of the morning
8. A call to mom after biology class, thanking her for going through birth (specifically a C-Section)
9. A letter from overseas listing how we’re so similar, so different, and celebrating both.
10. Unsolicited confirmation from all three that we’ve achieved our family motto: To inspire.

What’s your list? Share it and you’ll feel better.

Fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise. Specialized competence and success are all that they can imagine. — Allan Bloom, Philosopher 1930-1992

Kids in Soccer? A recent study suggests that sports can be too much of a good thing.

Sports = Bullies?

In a research study published in Developmental Psychology, Richard Lerner, Ph.D., professor of child development at Tufts’ School of Arts and Sciences reported that kids who “participate exclusively in sports have among the lowest scores on competence, confidence, character, connection, and caring, and a related positive quality, contribution. They also have the highest scores on behaviors such as bullying, substance use and depression.”

Substance Abuse?

Just Add 4-H to Reverse Detrimental Effects

The same study found that out of school programs that involve adult mentorship, life skills training, and opportunities for youth leadership can reverse any detrimental effects from a sports-only focus.

“…youth who combine sports with participation in a youth development program have the highest scores for positive development and contribution and the lowest scores for risk and problem behavior. Youth development programs are out-of-school-time activities that involve adult mentorship, life skills training, and opportunities for youth leadership. They include programs such as Boys & Girls Clubs, 4-H, Scouts and The First Tee.”

It should be noted that the researchers were paid by 4-H to develop a prior report.

We’ve all seen the parents who shuttle kids from swim practice to soccer to dance and to camps covering the same in the summer. These must be the exception in order to stand out. My guess is that most of us have good balance in our children’s activities.

The H1N1 Flu Virus might have a good side. Parents are spending more time with kids.

Several trends indicate that the threat of infection tips the scales towards homeschooling as an increasing number of children are forced to stay home to avoid infection.

Increases of sales of Educational Toys and Homeschooling Items are partially attributed to the virus.

Over six million kids in the US lack sufficient levels of Vitamin D, according to a Harvard Medical School study.

Early indications of vitamin D deficiency are profuse sweating, restlessness, and irritability. Of course, these are also indications of parenting. But seriously, long term deficiency can increase risk of heart disease, rickets, and weak bones.

After studying a bit, we learned that Vitamin D is stored mainly in the liver. It must be processed (metabolized) by the liver and kidneys into an active form called calcitriol This active form promotes absorption of calcium and phosphorus from the intestine. Calcium and phosphorus, which are minerals, are incorporated into bones to make them strong and dense (a process called mineralization). So, the vitamin is necessary for the formation, growth, and repair of bones. Good for us. Good for our kids.

Vitamin D also enhances immune function and improves muscle strength.

Requirements for vitamin D increase as people age, but the recommended amount for our kids was updated in 2008:

“The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) updated their guidelines in 2008 for vitamin D intake in infants, children, and teens. Their latest guidelines increased the recommended minimum daily intake from 200 IUs to 400 IUs per day of vitamin D for all infants, children, and adolescents beginning in the first few days of life.”

For the study, reported in the November issue of Pediatrics, Dr. Mansbach and colleagues collected data on about 5,000 children under age 12 who participated in the 2001-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

Based on the data, the researchers found that 6.3 million U.S. children — almost one in 5 — were at less than the recommended 50 nmol/L level of vitamin D.

How to Boost Vitamin D

Sun exposure is best for obtaining vitamin D, because the skin manufactures the nutrient upon exposure to sunlight. However, during the winter, UVB rays in Northern states can be insufficient for vitamin D production, experts say, and sunscreen use in summer can also reduce the skin’s ability to produce vitamin D. Only a few foods contain vitamin D naturally, namely fatty fish such as salmon, egg yolks, some cheese and some meats, including liver. Milk and some cereals are fortified with vitamin D.

Mansbach recommends vitamin D supplements, especially for those living in areas where the sun is scarce in the winter. Here again, the authors say more research is needed to determine the appropriate dosage.

“Summer sunlight exposure is the major source of vitamin D for most people,” he said. “But [too much] sun exposure can cause sunburns and eventually skin cancer. Until more research is performed, we think the safest bet is to take vitamin D supplements,” he said.

Some experts argue that more foods, such as pasta and bread, should be fortified with vitamin D.

What’s the take away? Outdoor time has more value than just fresh air and physical exercise. It can help maintain a healthy balance of vitamin D. If you live in an area without much sun, a healthy diet will help,and vitamin supplements that include vitamin D can make a difference in the health of your child.

For more information on vitamin D, check out the Nemours Foundation.