Eating in Survival Mode

 Buttons is now a month old and it feels like she has always been with us. We are deep in the dark of living on very fractured sleep and are learning how to operate as a family of four with two little girls.

You may have noticed I haven't written for a week- I gave myself a wee break as I inched towards meltdown zone, holding everything together. 

One thing that we ARE managing to do well is eating proper dinners. While I was pregnant, I made it my mission to fill the freezer with as many home cooked meals as possible. It was actually a lot easier than I expected- I just did double batches of dinners that we were eating and immediately froze half in tinfoil containers!  I am a big fan of Pintrest and like to try new recipes so trawled through there to find lots of tasty meals, trying to avoid having lasagna every night for a month! I also asked advice from the awesome mummies on a Facebook mummy forum I belong to, and got some great ideas. 

I really like using recipes from 

www.carlsbadcravings.com and from www.skinnytaste.com. Both are American sites, with fab crockpot recipes and a lot do Asian, Thai and Mexican inspired meals- yum! We have been enjoying sweet chilli Asian chicken wraps, baked sweet and sour chicken, tortilla soup and lots more.

I also went to one of my favourite NZ chefs- Chelsea Winter , and stocked up on her recipes- so far we have been loving her sneaky rissoles, satay chicken and glorious sausage quiche. 

Combined with our amazing Bellyful meals and meals that wonderful  family have made, we probably have amassed about 20 frozen meals. In the four weeks since Buttons came home, we have been heavily relying on these meals to keep us going- each morning I grab a meal from the freezer to defrost and then Action Dad is in charge of preparing it as Buttons cluster feeds from 4-7ish.  To keep our supply going, I have been cooking meals in the weekend to keep the stock pile full. This has meant that we have only had to resort to takeaways once!!! 

A couple of tips for those of you who want to make your own freezer full of meals-

- Double up your weekly meals and freeze half. 

- Make sure you have a variety and don't end up with all pasta- I did soups, casseroles, curries, quiches, burger patties, meat balls, stir fries etc. 

-  As you package up your meals, write the cooking instructions on the lid! Nothing worse than trying to find the right recipe at 5.00 at night when you are hungry and tired! 

- Keep a list of what your freezer contains on your fridge so you know what you have and what you need to buy to accompany it. Eg salad, buns, etc 

My mum keeps telling me that at six weeks things will get easier and we will fall into a routine. Right now, I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel but every night that we grab another frozen meal, I am so thankful to pregnant organised Me for thinking ahead! 

On another note- VERY excited to have my first official follower who is not family and therefore forced to read my writing! Blogging takes on a whole new level when you realise people are reading!! Xxx

Letting go

 

I am sitting on my couch, nursing my week old baby, watching Miss Muffet tear around the house and trying to avoid looking at all the chaos and mess around me. 

The pile of washing to be folded keeps catching my eye. The washing in the machine keeps nagging at me to go and hang it on the line. I can see every crumb and speck on the carpet. The breakfast dishes and empty milk jug are calling to me from the kitchen bench. It feels like Miss Muffet has strewn every single toy she owns from one end of the house to the other. 

I would turn around and hop back into bed, if only they didn't need changing! 

I hear you laughing and saying how I need to just focus on looking after my two girls and that the housework will always be there.... But it's hard. 

For the last ten or so years ( coincidentally since I have known Action Dad!) I have become increasingly organised and routined.  It brings me a huge amount of peace and satisfaction to know that every Tuesday the bathrooms will be cleaned and that every single pair of brightly coloured tights can be found in their drawer in Miss Muffet's room next to her little singlets. I am one of those people who writes a weekly agenda and knows exactly when I can fit in grocery shopping, visits to the park and mopping the floor.

Whenever life intervenes and reminds me that actually no, I am not in control of everything, and the proverbial poo hits the fan, I don't cope all that well. 

Everything piles up around me and becomes unmanageable and I find myself lying on the couch watching Toddlers and Tiaras marathons and hoping I can create a dinner out of the half pumpkin, oven chips and relish floating around in the fridge. It literally feels like everything is too hard and I can't find a place to even start. Once Miss Muffet arrived, I really couldn't cope with feeling out of control, so employed my control freak cleaning schedule, weekly routine and meal planning missions. 

My cleaning schedule is based off of the one below, just rearranged to suit our week and adapted to fit our house's needs.

 

Credit: www.bonfiresandwine.com

I like doing half an hour or so  of cleaning each week day as opposed to doing a total clean, one day a week. And I know that even though Miss Muffet is actually moonlighting as a professional house demolition crew, the major jobs are done each week. 

But now we have welcomed Buttons into our family and we are all shifting and readjusting our lives. We have chosen to breastfeed which means a lot of couch time and when I am not feeding, I am changing kids clothes, making snacks and dinners and making sure that I spend some time with Miss Muffet. Poor wee thing is used to Mumma being available to her nearly all of the time and has not really cottoned on this whole sharing palaver. 

So, I am having to turn off my inner control freak and ignore the fact that our house is not as clean as I would like. Life will eventually settle into a routine, albeit new, and I will find new ways to juggle a busy house and home. 

Because what is really important at the end of the day, and what my family will remember, is the cuddles and love and fun that we share. There are no awards for having the cleanest home and no one is going to report me for feeding my family cheese on toast and the odd takeaway over the coming weeks. What really matters is the time spent together.