Do I mention a lack of time in all of my posts? When I was pregnant and dreamed of being a stay at home mom, I thought I’d have all this time to make dinner and when my husband got home from work I’d meet him at the door wearing my high heels and beautiful dress with my delicious meal waiting on the table for him. The baby would be peacefully napping and the dogs will have been fed and snoozing on the floor. But I don’t live in Stepford and I’m not perfect.
After we got married, we were pretty much on our own every night for supper. I got home a lot earlier than my husband did and I was usually ready to eat well before he ever came home. He’d come home around 8:00 p.m. and not be too hungry, so he’d eat a bowl of cereal. Unless we went to a restaurant, we usually weren’t eating together. But when the baby was born, I wanted to make family dinners a priority.
I have cooked one meal since the baby was born. One. To my credit, our friends brought meals to us for twenty days after the baby arrived. We didn’t have to think at all about what we were going to eat. It was just there.
Now that he is two months old, it’s about time I figured out this time management thing. Now, I’m not going to say anything to stir up a debate about who has more free time between stay at home moms or working moms, but I will say that I’m busier than I’ve ever been in my life. My free time happens when the baby takes a nap. I know it will get a little easier as he gets older and is able to play more and entertain himself for a few minutes, but right now he needs me every second of every day.
Meal planning is the answer to my Stepford dream. On Saturday, I make a list of the meals that I want to prepare during the week and the ingredients needed for each meal. On Sunday, I grocery shop for everything I need and on Sunday night, I begin the preparations for Monday night’s meal. Having the necessary ingredients at hand is essential. I definitely don’t have time to zip down the street to the grocery store to pick up the green onion that I forgot.
Because there are only two of us, we can eat leftovers for at least one day. There’s no need for any food to go to waste. I’ve got a stack of some good recipes that can be split into two casserole dishes so one can be frozen for a later date. So while the baby naps, I get dinner started and I finish up when my husband comes in from work. As he progresses with his milestones, I will have a little more time to get back into cooking and will be able to move away from casseroles and back into fixing delicious pork tenderloin and fresh vegetables.
How do you make it work for your family? Do you manage to get dinner on the table every night?
Twitter: @EthidiumBromide
I have to admit that your post kind of scares me for the future. Neither my husband or I will be giving up our careers when we have children — and in our chosen respective fields (he is a doctor, I am in my 5th year towards a Ph.D. in biochemistry/biophysics), we will each be clocking between 60-80 hours/week. On top of that, while we still lived together, I always, every night, had dinner on the table, cooked entirely from scratch, for us to eat together, and I cannot imagine not doing that when we do eventually have children. But I read posts by SAHMs who talk about how much harder it is than they anticipated… and I can’t fathom fitting it all in plus 60-80 hours/week in the lab, and on top of that all the journal reading and data analysis I do at home in the evenings. I do hear women I work with talk about how they actually are able to accomplish it — 10 hour days in the lab, 6 days a week, children in daycare so no nannying at home, freshly cooked meals every single night, all the housework done by themselves — is it really possible, or are they all just exaggerating?!
.-= Disgruntled Julie’s most recent blog post: Harumph =-.
Twitter: @purelyelegant
Mise en place definitely saves my sanity.
Twitter: @purelyelegant
To elaborate on my previous comment, I do a rough meal plan monthly, one bulk grocery shopping trip monthly, combined with small weekly grocery shopping for the fresh stuff. Mise en place is done for about an hour Sunday and it’s amazing how much more I feel like cooking when I know the vegetables are already chopped and ready to go…the lettuce is already washed, etc. I also do my best to double every meal, half of the meal is then frozen in individual-sized portions for future lunches or meals where we are not all home to eat.
Twitter: @cheesefiend
This is kind of random, but these have saved my butt so many trips to the store because of spoiled produce: http://www.amazon.com/Debbie-Meyer-20317-Green-Bags/dp/B0011TMP3Y
I know it sounds like a scam-as-seen-on-TV product, but they totally work! They’ve cut every other weekly trip to the grocery store in half for me b/c I only have to buy produce every other week!
.-= kate’s most recent blog post: friday porn =-.
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Twitter: @lauralpotter
I cook dinner every night for my husband and I but we don’t have kids. I do however work a very full time job usually 50 and sometimes 60 hours a week. The only way it works is meal plans. I make them every friday morning before work and go to the grocery store friday after work. This way I start the weekend with everything I need. I love to cook so I do my fun meals on the weekends when I have time and quicker meals weeknights. My most go-to cookbook for good quick dinners is Everyday Dinners from the Martha Stewart magazine. That book is amazing. Everything is good, quick and fairly inexpensive to make.
Twitter: @spiceandsass
I need to try meal plans- I have some great ones from Savingdinner.com. I work 50-60 hours a week, and my husband is gone 3 nights during the week. It makes it hard to plan ahead. How is it going for you?