Wednesday 7 September 2011

Suppertime Stress

Last year, I was a part-time worker, full-time Mom. That was actually a pretty sweet schedule because it meant I was done work by 3pm everyday. I would often stop at the grocery store on my way home, start supper, and then pick up Brent and the girls by 4:30. This worked fabulously. The girls were always starving by 5:00, and I avoided meltdowns daily.

This year however is quite different. Everyday I am so excited to pick the girls up and chat about our day, but this year I am working until suppertime. I really look forward to that quality time together since I have the Mommy-guilt about working. I try to cram a day's worth of quality-time into the 5:00-7:30 time slot. And the girls always have different plans. "I'm hunnnngryyyy! ", is often heard. It is turning out to be quite a cranky, whiny, non-fun-filled time of the day. I have really being racking my brain with ideas on how to make our precious evening time together more pleasant.

Ideas I have come up with so far, and feel free to make suggestions. I am really open at this stage in the game:
  1. Slow-cooker. Enough said.
  2. Bring a small snack for the girls to eat after I pick them up. It will tide them over until we eat supper at around 6:00.
  3. Rediscover your love of grilled-cheese sandwiches.
  4. Do all my next-day supper-prep the night before, which sounds easy, but God it is the last thing I want to do at 9:00.
  5. Save the big meals for the weekend. This is also hard to do, given my love of cooking.
  6. Stick with what you know. Don't try new, elaborate recipes during the week. The better I know a recipe, the faster I can make it.
  7. Have a well-stocked pantry. There is nothing worse than thinking you have a much-needed ingredient for supper only to remember you finished it off last week.
  8. Double-up on recipes that freeze well, and serve one portion tonight, and freeze the other one for another day.
  9. Sneak-out of work early..........this one is a questionable suggestion.
Stay tuned for recipes that are targeted for us working Moms out there.
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2 comments:

  1. Sarah RodgersonThursday, September 08, 2011 10:59:00 am

    I feel ya here...supper time stress is awful. Lincoln pretty much melts down if supper is not on the table, well cooled, when we walk in the door...pretty much impossible! I do the night before prep work that you suggested. It sucks but at least the worst of it is done, and I can usually whip supper up in 10 min when I get home if the prep work is done.

    Also, we developed a meal plan, which includes one night every week of slow cooker food, one night every week of "easy" - sandwiches or the premade "not good for you" food. I leave Monday's and week ends for the hard to do stuff, like you also suggested (so I can do lots of prep work on Sunday for Monday)

    Oh one other thing that probably does not work for you with Brent doing shift work - whichever one of us is not getting the kids goes home first and starts preparing for when the rest of the clan arrives!

    Wow, that got really long, I am having a sleeping day at work and needed a break! ha

    Sarah

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  2. angelamacdougaldFriday, September 09, 2011 8:39:00 am

    I wish one of us could go home and start supper before the other, but we all travel together! But Brent does a great job of entertaining the girls while I fly around the kitchen.

    You should get as much at-work sleep as you can prior to January!!!

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