Hey, everyone! Here is this week's column. It can also be viewed in print of course, in the Hastings Star Gazette. Please be sure to pick up a copy. Enjoy!
Amy
August 24th, 2009
The Mom Chronicles: Food For Thought
Welcome back, Chronicle Moms! I hope life has been less than exciting this past week, meaning no broken bones, no peeing in diapers (you, not your kids) and no embarrassing public outbursts (again by you, not your kids). For me I am happy to report this past week has been a little less exciting for once. Outside of a four day run of a GI flu which was just fabulous, trust me, life in the Peterson home was pretty uneventful for once. THANK GOD!
Needless to say this uneventful week left me scratching my head in all the spare time I had to myself, as I lounged on the couch watching Lifetime movies between mad dashes to the bathroom as to what to write this week’s column about. Normally, the week is so eventful I have a plethora of things to write about. Today, not so much. It is kind of, well, nice. When the most exciting thing you have to write about is what is coming out of which end of your body, that doesn’t seem so inspiring at all!
Seeing as I did have time to think, which isn’t always a good thing, I spent a lot of time thinking about how to make this column better. About what services I could further provide to you, and that made for a very exciting weekend!
The first “Aha” moment I had was while on a venture to the grocery store to get some saltine crackers and Gatorade. I am not sure whether it was because I couldn’t eat anything with out seeing it a second time in one form or another, or because everything just looked so good had I been feeling better, but whatever the case, the topic of food came to mind. I was prompted to think about these past weeks while I have been laid up and members from my church came by and provided meals to me and my family. The best part of that was that my kids were super excited to have something new to try. Not one meal was one I regularly, or in some cases, had ever made for my kids. As I watched them delight in the new dishes, I had thought about how I really needed to collect the recipes.
This same thought came to me at the grocery store, and it occurred to me that it was a service I would like to provide here as well. How often do we get in to a slump trying to come up with something different to make for supper? Granted if it were up to my son we would have “Macaronies” or hot dogs every night. But as a mom, I seek variety. I seek creative new ways of sneaking in the healthy things that my son other wise doesn’t always like, and that don’t take a lot to make. With so many moms around, why don’t we share our dinner secrets? We all have them, those dishes we make that the kids rave over, and satisfy our need for variety or a healthy twist. And so I put out a plug to all of my online mom friends and the result so far has been great. I have started a nice collection of easy to make, kid loved dinner ideas, and I will be publishing them in the weeks ahead. To that I also seek your suggestions. Do you have an incredible, super easy, kid approved meal you break out for your little (or big) ones? If so please email it to me at amyellamatthew@gmail.com and I will include it in a future column. I would love to collect several that you can keep in your back pockets for a rainy day. I don’t know about you, but I look forward to trying some of them out!
That brings me to my next “Aha” moment. Due to the positive feedback I have gotten regarding this column and the need for it, in an effort to further extend support to you moms, I have set up an online blog. It includes past columns, will include the recipes I get, the suggestions for other “cheap thrills” we discussed a few weeks ago, and so on. I hope you will take the time to venture and check it out. The goal is not to replace what is happening here, but rather, to offer a place for you to comment on the columns and give feedback to other moms in similar situations as you or I. I have learned as a mom, there is no such thing as too much support, and I would like to offer you one more place to go to find some. The blog address is www.hastingsmomchronicles.blogspot.com Please do pay the site a visit and let me know what you think, or what you would like to see included in future columns.
Finally, while I have craved an appetite for “real” food these past days, I also thought about mental food. It was the weekend which meant it was my husband’s time to take the kids. Our arrangement is that I have the kids during the week and when he is around on the weekends he takes them. That suddenly left me with a very empty, very quiet house to myself. Granted this was ok, considering my physical state, however, as the weekend went on and I found myself feeling better, I felt at a loss as to how to “fill my cup” before the kids came back. This made me wonder how many of you moms out there, in those rare kid free moments, know how to make the time count for you? So I thought of what sounded fun. Shopping? A movie? Finishing a couple books I have started? Going and sitting in the hot tub at the YMCA? All sounded great, but do you know what I ended up doing? Cleaning, and as my friend Christina says, I cleaned with purpose. I caught up on laundry. I washed my sink full of dishes in hopes of getting rid of the fruit flies once and for all (to no avail). I scrubbed my bathroom and bathtub and for the first time in like, a year, I think an average person off the street would actually be willing to take a bath in it. And all the while I thought, what am I doing? I could be out having fun. I could be soaking up the sun, working on my tan or catching some extra zzz’s before the kids come home. But why didn’t I? Is it because I truly don’t know HOW to let go and do these things or because I just didn’t want to?
Being given the opportunity to have time to myself this weekend and choosing to clean told me I have a lot to learn about how to pamper myself. While it was not without purpose that I chose to do that, I did decide that in future weekends, I would do at least one thing I would like to do, for me, and not feel guilty about it. I needed to clean this weekend as it just had to be done. Interestingly, though, perhaps it was personal insight that lead me to doing it. What do I really need in my life right now? A sense of accomplishment. What better way then the instant gratification that comes in cleaning? Ironically enough, being able to look around at a clean house by the end of the weekend did fill my cup. But it is far from the “ideal”. I have vowed in future weekends, to seek ways to fill my own cup, so that I can better fill my kids’. After all, what good are we to them, if we can’t take care of ourselves? So my challenge for you this week? Take time to indulge in some mental food for yourself. While thinking of recipes to share, think of what your own recipe for success would be. What are YOU craving? Is it time alone, or time with friends? Time to finish a good book, or to hit the mall or coffee shop with friends? Moreover, what is stopping you from cooking up those things for yourself? Then, just as you make picking up the things on your grocery list to cook physical meals a priority, make the ingredients for your mental “meals” a priority, too. It is not easy. It will take time and likely not feel natural. But each time you do, savor the flavor of what it is to feed yourself and your own soul. This weekend, I needed to clean. Next weekend, I have vowed to do something that doesn’t involve cleaning and I will share that thing with you next week. In the mean time, feed yourself in way that fills not just your belly up, but your soul as well. See you next week.
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