The end of 2010 was a little crazy for me. Marc went back to work full time in September (with a three-hour daily commute), plus I was pretty nauseous and tired almost all the time (the first trimester!). That, along with normal home management and homeschooling responsibilities, left me having to prioritize a little more strictly than usual. No one else can homeschool my children. No one else will love and disciple my children. And even in the area of housekeeping, there’s little wiggle-room. Even though my children do fairly well in the chore department, we are a lot of people and there tends to always be a mess. No matter how good their work is, it doesn’t always pass my quality control check. Not to mention, there still are some things that only “I” can do.
So as it turned out, one of the things I was most apt to give in on was meal planning and preparation.After all, one of the easiest things to do to save time is to pick up some fresh produce for a salad and throw a frozen loaf of garlic bread and a bag of ravioli in the shopping cart for dinner. (The guilt was somewhat lessened knowing that at least I still have some home-canned, garden tomato sauce on the pantry shelf.) Cereal or fried eggs with fresh fruit or child-prepared oatmeal were staples for breakfast. Lunch was anybody’s guess, but thankfully the children aren’t too picky.
Trouble is, relying on prepared foods tends to become a habit. I realized this when we finally hit a comfortable new routine and my morning sickness and tiredness had passed…and I was still buying some of the same packaged stuff. It’s easy. The kids like it. But, it’s not so good for you, nor so good on the budget.
I realized that part of my problem was that the dinner hour was overwhelming for me. I was trying to get the house picked up for when Marc came home from work (no one likes to come in to a mess, after all.) I liked to spend the half-hour or so before his arrival time reading aloud to the children, just to quiet things down. But that left little time for me to be standing at the stove. If I tried, the toddler would whine at my knees (she was hungry and really wanted to eat at 5:30, but we now didn’t eat for another hour!), the three year-old would find some trouble or another, and the older kids would end up horsing around and the noise level was absolutely irritating.
One of the things I’ve been trying to do to make the dinner hour less chaotic is to prepare dinner by lunch time–at least, that’s my goal. And even if I don’t have it 100% done, at least I’ve managed to have most of the components completed and ready to put together for later…vegetables cut, ingredients retrieved from pantry, fridge or freezer, and so on. I find that this is easy enough to do, since for the most part the children prefer to do their independent schooling around the kitchen table anyway and thus, I am pretty free to cook and yet also be available to them for questions/supervision, etc. So in the evening, I simply re-heat everything at a low temperature in the oven for 20-30 minutes or so…no stress, no mess to clean up before my husband gets in the door, and no child-related stir-craziness! Instead, we sit down and enjoy a good book or talk together on the couch.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you’ve successfully managed some of your greatest home-making challenges! Feel free to leave a comment…
After my third the Navy sent my husband on an unaccompanied tour. I had three, two 17 months apart both nursing. I was tired! I learned to cook the meat for dinner while making breakfast. Eventually I wrote out all the meals we liked for breakfasts lunches and dinners; creating a rotating menu then making a master grocery list
I learned to shop big once a month only having to pick up more produce and milk later in the month.
When I was very efficient I made two dinners on Sat and Sun. Then I had main dishes through Thursdays. All I had to do was make side dishes.
Little ones can help prep lunch quesadillas, make pb& j or meat/cheese sandwiches while you clean up after breakfast.
We only have four- but when I follow these strategies we set better spend less and catch much fewer virus etc
Hope that's helpful!
For us, my husband never knows exactly what time he'd come home from work (ranging anywhere from 5:30 to 9:30 at night) so it made planning dinners extremely difficult. The crock pot is my new best friend–I can have everything cooked and kept warm until hubby comes home or if we eat earlier without Dad due to bedtime it keeps the food warm for hubby when he gets home. And most crock pot meals have enough leftovers we have lunch for the next day or two. 🙂