Well after one magical day back in school we returned to online learning for two weeks.

It was good for the kids to see their friends and especially for Belle to get a tiny taste of middle school, but gosh it’s a challenge.

With one parent away, this week I have been in the clinic in the mornings and working from home in the afternoons. The girls are pretty good unsupervised although I came home today to find that Chloe had dyed her hair purple. She swears this was during a class break. Hmmmm! On the upside, she did a pretty good job. On the downside, at some point she is supposed to return to normal school with naturally coloured hair. Fortunately the ocean seems to be an amazing remedy for removing home dye. Maybe we will just do bath time on the beach.

Another upside of online life is that the family WhatsApp chat is alive with recipe requests. The kids love finding recipes that they would like to make, which helps take some of the cooking off my hands. It generally leads to kitchen Armageddon but the only way that will get better is if the kids have practice clearing up.

It’s hard to stand back and let chaos ensue; it’s also hard to find the right balance between insisting they clean up responsibly and trying not to be so anal about it that I rain on their parade. It’s easy to over-focus about the crumbs they have missed or things they haven’t put away, but it’s important to recognise that they did a pretty good job generally and give them credit for that. Ahhhh, parenting is tricky.

I’ve also found I need to take it easy on the nutrition police side too. If I squash every baking request then it inhibits their curiosity.

Chloe follows a hilarious TikTok chef who cooks in a totally chaotic fashion with really random things. He made a batch of cookies using an entire bag of Lays potato chips (if you ever made cookies out of cornflakes, this is kind of the same). You can imagine how painful I found that process! But there have been some healthy discoveries too.

Belle recently made her own pita chips, which were amazingly easy and so delicious. Off the charts delicious! Here’s the recipe (a little edited) for you so you don’t have to dive into TikTok to find it. These are amazing by themselves or even better with hummus, salsa and guacamole. Enjoy! (PS she made me some with the B-Free gluten-free pita bread and it worked like a charm.)

Belle’s homemade pita chips

Ingredients

4 large pita breads (wholewheat or gluten-free)

3 tbsps extra virgin olive oil

1/4 tsp garlic powder

½ tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp dried basil

¼ tsp salt

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350F.

2. Cut up the pita bread into triangles with a knife or a pair of scissors. (Imagine slicing them like a cake into wedges.) You can halve them again if too large. Place them in a large bowl.

3. Whisk the other ingredients together, then pour the mixture over the pita.

4. Gently toss the pita until they are all lightly coated and then place in a single layer on a baking sheet covered in baking parchment.

5. Bake for eight to ten minutes, then allow to cool – although we did like them hot too!

Catherine Burns is a qualified nutritional therapist. For more details: www.natural.bm, 505-4725, Natural Nutrition Bermuda on Facebook and @naturalbda on Instagram