7.12.2011

the easy way out adventures

as many of you would guess, time is hard commodity to come by in our house. i've definitely had to learn how to truly multi-task, plan ahead & time things out a little more in all areas of life. it's against the very core of my being to have a schedule to stick to, but i have learned how wonderful necessary it truly is to some degree. i never want to be the person that can't be flexible with their schedule or OCD about things that were planned to do & didn't get done. personally, i think it adds unnecessary stress when you could just be enjoying this ride we call life.

i'd say the number 1 question i get asked is "how do you do it?!" to which i usually respond, "by the grace of God and lots of prayers." which is totally true, but i've also figured out a few tricks to help ease the everyday needs.

food
i have toddlers & babies, so cooking & meal times are stressful! and i'm usually the only one home for most meals. so i, like most moms, try to makes as few arguments as possible & feed my kids what i know they will eat...which for us is protein. i've got boys, what can i say?! my meal rule...eat whatever for lunch, but you eat what mommy & daddy eat at dinner. and then i usually bribe them with dessert to finish dinner. :)
* i do my big trips of grocery shopping online. thankfully we have a store locally that for the small fee of $4.95 will shop for you, load the car & take your payment at the car when you come to pick it up. it's awesome! if you live in the mid-atlantic check to see if one near you does the same.
* i buy chicken tenderloins because they cook faster
* i use my crock pot year round! instead of boiling chicken on the stove, i'll stick it in the crock pot & pull it out & shred it at dinner. i always make extra because my boys tear through some chicken.
* i cook spaghetti or whatever other fun shaped whole wheat noodles by the box full & put them in the fridge.

around the house
* i use kitchen scissors to cut up food for my boys. much faster & easier than the standard fork & knife...we have 3 pairs :)
* we have mainly hard surfaces in the house, so we bought a vacuum/ hard floor cleaner. it's amazing! first i vacuum, and without getting anything else out, i clean & dry the floors. bonus: it's great for blocking out the sounds of extra whiny kiddos.
* i can't usually fold laundry right away, but need to keep things moving, so i will pull everything out of the dryer after the 2nd buzzer and make flat piles of clothes according to which room it's going to. babies, big boys, mine & {matt}'s and then i just have a massive folding session after dinner. sometimes not until after bed, which means i put them away the following morning.
* i store my sheet sets together. i stack the folded sheets & pillowcase for double beds & bigger and then put in a pillowcase in the closet.


and lately i've had a few of those "why didn't i think of that sooner" moments...

* like i moved the high chairs from the dining room into the kitchen. guess i thought they wouldn't fit over the counter...i was wrong. now clean up is a breeze!

* and thanks to my genius and gorgeous friend hannah, i put {sam} in his own "baby pool". it was a great containment for him while i was watering plants in the backyard. he could stand up in it, but because of the weight of the water, it won't tip over. score!




*and my awesome cousin just posted today on facebook that she had stuck some snowballs in their deep freezer from the plentiful snow that poured over the midwest last winter. brilliant & fun!

* and Jen over at Buried With Children gave a great how-to for dealing with a middle of the night bed wetting...and we all know

i'm sure that i've forgotten plenty but now i wanna know,what are your tried & true mommyhood survival tips?

4 comments:

  1. I'm so right there with you on doing whatever makes life easier! I do many of the same things you do, except I never even thought about using scissors to cut up their food...brilliant!!!

    Isn't it funny when people ask you how you do it? People ask me that all the time, too, and I honestly don't know what to say. I mean, really....I usually just smile politely and say, "I just do what I gotta do to get through each day!"

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  2. @Helene yes, totally try the scissors. It's so much faster!

    There really isn't a good response to that question. I think I will treat it as a rhetorical question from now on. :) I'm sure you get it even more often than I!

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  3. i'm going to come over and kiss you right now! i didn't even know ht did that and it's totally worth $5 to grocery shop from home. i have another baby on the way, so time is about to get even more stretched. thanks for the tip! one question: do you find your grocery bill to be higher shopping there, or lower because you can budget your meals better? also, do you shop for more than 1 week of food to make it worth it? i was thinking of shopping for 2 weeks and picking up perishables for the 2nd at some other point.

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  4. @melissa
    congrats to you guys!

    yes do it! and for the summer its only $1.95!

    i find i do a lot less impulse shopping & can budget to the dollar. in the end i find it saves us money. because i always end up going when i'm hungry or then it gets stressful and i forget something & have to go back.

    i shop for 2 weeks at a time & for the perishables run, i try to ask matt for do it. but i can do a quick run if i'm just getting a short list.

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