For some background on this post see the meme I did a few days ago (click here)– specifically numbers 10 & 11 on that meme.
Faithful readers know that I’m a WM (Working Mom). Faithful readers also know that my boys love to eat. And man, can they eat. If you’ve been reading awhile you also know that ‘Pre-K&O’ I loved cooking. And man, could I cook. Some of you may have even partaken of a meal or two from my kitchen. Those are lovely memories. But just that: memories. In the distant distant past. Anyhoo… life is different now. For the better. For sure. But in our life ‘Post-K&O’ cooking has, well, uh, it has certain challenges.
For one thing, I rarely have time to cook anything that I find interesting/creative/fun/enjoyable. I’m so limited by time constraints. And that’s not just time constraints on actually preparing the meal. I am time constrained in every aspect of food prep (menu-creating, meal-planning, recipe-finding, food-shopping, refrigerator-cleaning, dinner-making, kitchen-cleaning). In the precious family time that we have (evenings, weekends), the LAST thing I want to be doing is slaving over a hot stove — I want to be on the floor/in the pool/running in the yard with my boys (all three of them!). But eating a healthy well balanced diet is important to me. I don’t want to just buy a bunch of frozen junk and shove it into the microwave five minutes before I scream out “Dinner Time!!!” So, unfortunately, I spend a ridiculous amount of mental energy fretting and stressing over what the heck I’m going to try to get onto the table in record time each night. I’m seriously considering trying to figure out some sort of way to have someone else prepare some of our dinner meals (I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and have begun looking into it — it seems it might save me a lot of time and stress… and even save us a lot of money too). And today I was even having downright fabulously inspiring email correspondence about it with my new girlfriends (hi Rony and Cindy!).
And yet, when it goes well, I get great satisfaction from feeding my family. It is nights like this (see below — photos from last night’s dinner) that make me question how I could possibly even consider giving up the meal-making-role. I made the boys’ (all three of them) favorite dinner — fresh pasta and chicken with a pesto cream sauce, fresh parmesan sprinkled on top. All from scratch. Basil even from my own plant pots. No kidding. The boys go nuts over this meal. Kyle seriously must have told me at least a dozen times during dinner: “Mama, I love this! This is my favorite! Pesto pasta is my favorite!” And Owen just kept saying: “Mommy, thank you! Thank you mommy for making this delicious supper!!!” They each ate enough to easily make a grown man full. Literally, in fact. The same servings did, in fact, make Braydon full. All three of them were just ooohing and aaahhing and “thank you!”‘ing and “I love this!”‘ing all dinner long. O.k., really now… how could I not just love that???
Photos were taken Winter of 2006. The boys were in a terrible phase that lasted about six months where they just threw everything — including food — ALL. THE. TIME. I’d literally be crying many a night at the dinner table after getting home from a long day at work, struggling to get dinner on the table, and then watching them throw it all over the floor/walls/each other/us. As K & O “mature” (if you could call it that — golly knows we still have our ‘moments’), it is getting easier and easier all the time (note I am not saying it is easy now, just that it is easier). Anyway, I keep telling myself that if I just hang in there I can make this whole career-driven-working-mommy-of-twin-boys-healthy-eating-family thing work. And I also remind myself incessantly that the vast majority of working moms can’t even consider the idea of outsourcing the dinner cooking and therefore I shouldn’t either and I should just suck it up and quit complaining and just do it. But at the same time… I really really really hate to waste my time in the evenings frantically cooking when I could be playing/tickling/reading/running/chatting/just-plain-old-being with my bambinos. What’s a working mom who cares about nutrition to do?