The Easy Button

Sometimes there are days where you just want life to be a little simpler.  In those times, I press my imaginary "easy" button.  Most often times this refers to meals and cooking.  Usually when Mark comes home I have dinner cooked and ready for him when he walks in the door.  Before we had Alex, I loved cooking big and elaborate meals.  I like to experiment and go all out.  Most of the time, it turns out pretty good if I do say so myself, I think I'm a pretty good cook.  Minus the Fish stew debacle of '04 (I'm so sorry honey), most of my creations have been winners or at least good.

Yum Yum

Fast forward 5 1/2 months post Alex.  Cooking and getting meals ready is much more difficult now.  I have a little one that requires lots of attention now that she's getting bigger, and she's not even moving yet! That'll be a whole new set of obstacles when that happens.  I usually start getting dinner ready when she takes her short 30-40 min afternoon nap.  When she's awake, I can usually put her in her bouncer or on her mat for 10-15 min. by herself before life is not happy and she wants attention.  That doesn't allow for a lot of cooking time.  I used to cook fancier meals, but now it's usually something quick like chicken wraps, spaghetti, or frozen fish.  I can honestly say that those frozen steamed veggie packets are probably one of my favorite inventions ever!  It's been even more difficult since Mark and I have been eating better because it's tough to find really good meals that are frozen and healthy.

Anyways, this week I've just pressed the "easy" button pretty much constantly which usually means frozen pizza, or ordering out.  I don't love doing it a lot, but there are weeks like this one where you're so tired and drained and cooking is the last thing on your mind, and I've learned that pushing the easy button is ok.

So many smiles and giggles

The other area where I struggle at times is the cloth vs. disposable diapers.  We've been doing cloth diapers since Alex was about 2 weeks old.  For the most part I've been pretty happy with them.  We've already paid the cost off what we would pay for disposables, they're better for the environment and really cute!  However, they are a lot more work.  I have to do double the laundry, which is already a lot, and now that she's on formula, and no longer has those runny breast milk poop, we now have to hose off the diapers, and yes, it's a gross as it sounds.  We have one of those attachments to the toilet, and yeah, it's a life saver.  Anyways, sometimes like this week when Alex was sick and having G.I issues, we did disposables since it was just gross.  Doing disposables reminded me how easy they are, but alas, we'll go back to the cloth.

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Sometimes it's just easier to make those little compromises like not doing the dishes, or doing disposable diapers to maintain some sanity.  It's hard since I want to be super mom and do everything, but it's just not possible all of the time.  It's funny when people ask, don't you get bored at home?  Right now I just laugh, because I haven't had time to be bored, I'm too tired :).  Maybe at some point I might, but not if I can help it, and I'm doing my job right!