Parenting in the Valley

This season of life has been such a mixture of emotions.  While I am relishing in the joy of being Cooper's Mama, I am feeling more defeated than ever when it comes to giving the proper attention to my other children.  Especially my third little love, who admittedly has been always my biggest parenting challenge.

I see the sadness in her eyes daily when she has to crawl out of my lap so Cooper can crawl in.  I feel her heartbreak when I'm too quick in snapping at her for not being careful enough around the baby.  I sense her desire to find her place, to please me, and most of all have my full and undivided attention.  And my heart is breaking too... Knowing I'm failing her every single day, seeing the hurt in her beautiful blue eyes.

I know God gave me these particular children with these particular needs and personalities, yet I'm not meeting those needs or nurturing those little personalities the way I should be.  And the worst part is I feel like I'm drowning trying to make it all happen and run smoothly.  No matter what I do someone gets the short end of the stick.  There is just not enough Mama to fill everyone's cup.

I would never wish away my time in the valley because I know it is there that growth happens.  I can only hope that when this season is over and we are back on the mountain tops, no damage has been done and most of all... I hope my baby girl knows how very much I love her.

Breakfast & Dinner Calendars

One of my goals this year was to really organize our family.  We have a pretty crazy schedule in this season of our lives, and I want to spend less time being frazzeled and more time basking in the beauty of the chaos!  

My first step was to change from doing monthly meal planning to quarterly meal planning.  It was a little bit of a process (as meal planning always is for me), but I think it definitely helped to do it in a bigger chunk like this.  Once my brain was going it was much easier, and I can definitely tell that I saved time.  I feel certain the next three quarters will go even faster because I'll reuse a lot of what I have.  Plus, we are a grilling family.  Once the weather gets nice again so many of our meals are thrown on the grill.  (I can't wait for the warm!!!)

I know it seems strange that we plan breakfast.  Here's the thing... I'm not a morning person AT ALL!  When I do not have a plan I honestly have no idea what my kids are scrounging up for breakfast.  It makes the morning feel stressed, and I start the day feeling like a bad mom.  And trust me, there's enough hours in the day to feel like that (bedtime for instance...).  It doesn't need to start first thing.  

Anyway, breakfast is easy to plan.  It just repeats over and over.  Can't really screw that up.  I don't always eat what the kids are eating for breakfast.  Sometimes I just make a Profit and fruit smoothie.  Like I said... not a morning person.  So I'm not always ready to interact with my people eat that early.  The kids love smoothies too (yep, even the baby)!  So there are a lot of mornings they have one with their breakfast, at lunch, for a snack, etc.  They put their Greens in their smoothie or they will drink them with 8 oz of orange juice with their breakfast.

Lunch is weird in our family.  If you go to school, you take your lunch or eat there.  Simple enough, I suppose.  The rest of us each do something different.  Our homeschooler fixes whatever she wants.  This ranges from Chinese, to pizza, to a smoothie, to sharing my freezer lunches.  Not a super great system, but it works.  The Husband isn't a big lunch eater unless things are prepared for him (leftovers, I make him something, etc.)  I actually plan on trying some freezer items for him to eat for lunches similar to what I do for myself.  Heck, maybe we'll just share items.  My plan is to replace one of my meals with a smoothie so my lunch will be dependent on my breakfast.  I will continue to make freezer meals for my lunches though because when I don't have them I don't eat then I over eat at dinner.  Ugh!  #noselfcontrol

Our dinner menu is a variety of things my people will eat.  If they decide on Wednesday when I'm fixing chicken that they stopped liking chicken last Friday, then they can fix PB&J or cereal.  I don't cater to these types of things.  I fix one meal.  Always have.  Always will.  I ask for ten submissions from each child.  I generally am able to use all of their submissions.  

Because our life is what it is, I will make anything that I can ahead of time.  In fact, all of Thursday's meals are pretty much freezer or crockpot type things.  Wednesday's meals are things I can do super quick.  Tuesday is always Italian food of some type.  Most of it will be made ahead of time.  I'll make up the chicken we use for nachos and tacos and freeze that.  Same with anything that needs ground beef.  I'd say that the majority of our menus can be prepped in someway ahead of time.  

I like to shop two weeks at a time.  I generally have a better idea of any changes to the calendar by this time.  Also, I'll decide which sides I want to do.  Most of them I already have planned in my head.  I don't list them on the calendar because it takes up so much space.  And sometimes I get a wild hair and want to try something new.  So I only put down the main dish.

After I shop, I like to spend one day doing any preparations.  Since I have done three months worth of planning, I may shop a little differently this time.  For instance, if I'm making one meal in January and the same in March, then I'll just go ahead and make them both now.  No reason to do more work than necesarry!

If you've continued reading all this non-sense... kudos and THANK YOU!  I appreciate you taking the time to see the method to our madness.  I'd love to hear how you organize your family's meal times.  I'm always willing to try something new.  And fortunately, my family is just as nuts as I am, and they love to have a good system in place.