Happy Hour Hack: Getting your kids to clean and drinking up strawberry season
The Kathryn Lewek edition
Welcome to the Happy Hour Hack, a weekly Friday post of tips and inspiration to take you into the weekend. I always share one thing from my interviewee of the week, along with any ideas I receive from readers, plus some things that are piquing my own interest.
Hacks
I talked this week with the opera singer Kathryn Lewek about mental health and being a traveling artist with a family in tow. Unsurprisingly, a couple of her tips had to do with travel. But the first is for all of us, no matter where you live. I am excited to give this a go this weekend. Here’s a trick to inspire your kids to pick up their messes:
This is how I get a four-year-old to clean up her toys. Play the typewriter song by Leroy Anderson all over the house, just blast it. And, I tell you, that lights a fire under a four-year-old’s butt. It’s really, really useful.
Kathryn’s second tip is a practical one to help bring a bit of home to wherever you may travel:
I buy a slow cooker wherever we go. You can get them for like 35 bucks. If you’re going to be there for more than three weeks, it is such a great investment to make because you can just throw all the ingredients in when the kids are napping earlier in the day. My husband did this so many times this season. We were first in Chicago for six weeks, and then we went to Germany for a month, and then we were in France for almost two months. And we bought slow cookers, and it was such a game changer for us because it makes it so much easier to have healthy meals and not to be spending tons of money going out, which is a headache with kids anyway.
And, finally, some great advice for before you travel:
Never feel like you are planning ahead too far. We’ve made some of our housing arrangements more than a year in advance sometimes because we do lots and lots of research about the cities if we haven’t been there before. We do tons of research about what that city has to offer and where we want to be located. It used to be that I just wanted to be as close to the opera house as possible because, as a single female, I felt the safest if I just had that very quick walk late at night, getting out from rehearsals or performances. But now my priorities are different. I want to be in a family-friendly neighborhood. I want to make sure that there’s not too much nighttime partying noise from tourists in Barcelona or something. We look at housing that is close to playgrounds, close to grocery stores. What’s going to be an enriching experience for the family and not just what is convenient for me as a traveling artist.
Household
I always feel like our household is holding on by a thread. We live on the verge of everything tipping into chaos and filth. I’m in awe when I walk into a house that seems together. While my husband and I do a pretty good job of splitting up the work, keeping the house tidy and clean mostly falls to me. And I’m not especially good at it. I know part of my problem is that I don’t require enough from my children. I don’t believe in paying to do chores (why should they receive money for helping their family?), and it often feels like more work to divvy up the chores and then enforce (i.e., nag) that they get done. So I often just do it myself, which I know is wrong, wrong, wrong.
I was very intrigued when a friend shared these videos with me. This lovely woman explains how her neurodiversity has helped her reframe the need for housework for her son in a way that is more positive and more likely to get him onboard—which will also help him not be a shitty partner someday. Check this out; she’s amazing:
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Perspectives
If you’re not able to travel all over the world with your kids as Kathryn does, you can at least live vicariously through stories. I have spent way too much of my life reading through Cup of Jo’s “Motherhood Around the World” series. If you’re not familiar, each one focuses on an American expat family in a different country. The mom talks about the differences and challenges and perks of raising children in that place. I invite you to go down the rabbit hole here.
Drink
As everyone wants you to remember: IT’S STRAWBERRY SEASON. If you are panicking that all those berries you picked or bought at the farmers market are going to go bad before you have time to make a pie or galette or whatever else kind of recipe you saw that looked amazing and you want to make but know that the weekend is going to get away from you and the berries are rapidly dying…
Don’t stress out! Wash and hull the strawberries and pop them in the freezer. Then you can enjoy frozen strawberry coolers over the whole summer.
Frozen Strawberry Cooler
Makes 2
4 oz vodka (you can sub for a liquor of your choice)
2 oz fresh lemon juice
2 oz simple syrup*
6 oz frozen strawberries**
Ice
Put everything but the ice in a blender and blend until smooth. Add ice until it has your desired consistency. Put your feet up and drink, ideally while the kids are splashing in a kiddie pool and leaving you alone.
*On the stovetop, melt equal parts sugar and water. Make a bunch and keep it in the fridge for quick drinks.
**Store-bought frozen strawberries often come in 12 oz bags, which makes the measuring easy. But you can always adapt this to taste.