keeping the kids cool… with pomegranate popsicles

In the heat of summer it’s sometimes a struggle to keep the kids hydrated and cool. Kye has always loved drinking water and won’t go to sleep at night without his water bottle on the stool next to his bed. But Ada on the other hand, will try to get away with drinking as little as possible during the day, only to be dying of thirst right before bed when it will keep her up all night, needing to pee. It’s a constant issue, and one that I’m always trying to keep on top of. I refuse to get trapped into giving her juice all the time; I really don’t think kids need all that sugar. Water is ideal, but she just won’t drink enough of it by itself to do any good. Here are a few little tricks I’ve come up with over the years to keep her hydrated that I thought I’d share with you today…

* Fill a glass with fresh filtered water and pop in a few frozen berries. They cool the water down, and as they start to defrost they colour the water and give a slight berry flavour which kids love. And then once the water is all gone, they get to eat the now defrosted berries as a bonus!

* Fill up their drink bottle with filtered water just before heading out in the car. I’ve found that if I give Ada her drink bottle in the car, she will happily drink water while we are driving along. Weird I know, but it seems to work!

* Brew up a pot of fruity herbal tea. Anything with hibiscus in it is nice. Cool and give this as a drink with fresh fruit chopped up in it. Or freeze in ice-block (icy-pole’s for you Aussies, or Popsicles for everyone else) tray.

* Add a dash of pure fruit juice to just colour a glass of filtered water. If you are going to give juice, it really doesn’t need to be a full glass of juice. At the most, I give my kids 50/50 pure juice/water (this is the ratio I use to make ice-blocks too), but mostly just a dash to colour the water.

* Make vegetable juice with your kids. Ada absolutely loves it when we juice. And will happily down a glass or two of freshly juiced carrot, apple and beetroot.

* Have a couple of different drink bottles available for your kids to drink from. Again, weird. I know. But kids seem to just love new drink bottles. Give them one and keep the other one in the cupboard. Rotate them once a week. My kids both have stainless steel ecotankers as I don’t like for them to drink from plastic bottles. There is the odd occasion we have brought plastic pump-style bottles when out, and the kids just love them and surprise me with how much water they want to drink from them. Sometimes I just have to weigh up the possibly nasty chemicals (BPA) they may be getting from the plastic bottles with their actual need for water and just give in.

* I also like to freeze long pieces of fruit such as watermelon or rock melons, for the kids to have as a afternoon cool-down treat. When the kids were babies I would freeze small pieces of fruit and tie them up in muslin for them to suck on.

I been wondering for weeks what I was going to call these, here in New Zealand we call these ice-blocks. My partner Si who’s Vietnamese/Australian thinks it is the weirdest name. In Australia they call these icy-poles, an equally weird name if you ask me 😉 so I’ve gone for something in between… Popsicle, the more widely recognised term.

pomegranate and watermelon popsicle recipe
I know I mentioned above that I would usually only put 50/50 juice to water. But here I have made an exception. Pomegranate juice is so good for you, and if you make sure you buy 100% pure pomegranate juice, free from preservatives and colourings, I feel it is not a bad thing to use less water. Any fruit can be used in place of the watermelon. I had intended to use slices of peach, but we ate them all! Pieces of fresh strawberries would be delicious too. If making these for adults I’d just use straight pomegranate juice, no need to thin down with water. Makes 8 popsicles.

• 200ml 100% pure pomegranate juice
• 100ml filtered water
• 1/2-1 cup of peeled, chopped watermelon

Combine the juice and water. Place a few chunks of watermelon at the bottom of each ice-block mould. Fill to the top with the thinned juice, pop in the ice-block tops (or if you prefer to use wooden sticks like I have here, leave in freezer a few hours before pushing sticks in) and freeze overnight. Run a little warm water over the mould to release popsicles and enjoy!