Living Nap to Nap

If you've ever lived paycheck to paycheck you know how stifling that can feel. The paychecks are often spent before they come in and then another week or two weeks or 15 days go by in anticipation of that next check. It is an awful and uneasy feeling - what if something goes wrong and the check is late or the wrong amount or *gulp* doesn't come at all?

Well, many a stay at home mom/dad/whomever primary caregiver know a similar feeling: Living Nap to Nap. And let me tell you, it is no way to live! The kids become greater and greater obstacles to what you really need to be getting done thus planting the seeds of irritation and annoyance, maybe even worst of all, resentment towards your child. No indeed, not a way to live.

In the beginning of Baby's life, say the first six months or so, Baby is so easy to care for and be with. Like a large hand bag you can carry from room to room, in the brief time spans of wakefulness, Baby is often a pleasant observer of your daily routine, whatever it may be. Then Baby becomes mobile, but is still pretty easy to manage. And it is so thrilling when Baby first becomes interactive. A few months later Baby becomes more demanding. The pack-n-play isn't enough anymore and the swing is so dull. Baby wants to explore and needs full supervision. That's when it is easy to slip into the Living Nap to Nap scenario because, really, the only time to get anything done is when Baby is sleeping. But its all good, its even smooth sailing! Baby takes two naps a day, like clock work. OK, it is not as much time as you really wish you could have but it is dependable and manageable. For, oh, maybe another 6 months if you're lucky. Then, Baby, who is now not only walking, but running and climbing on everything dangerous she can find, starts skipping naps, refusing to take them altogether or else going down for shorter periods of time each day. That's when you start freaking out because suddenly the paychecks aren't reliable, they're short or deposited into the wrong account or they just don't come in at all. And your time has already been spent! You have things planned for that naptime, important things to get done, like washing your hair or paying the bills.

Living paycheck to paycheck is a drag but you can get out of that cycle. You can increase income, lower expenses, get creative with your neighbors cast off roosters . . . you can change that scenario. And so can you change the nap to nap cycle. Not by forcing Baby down but by just changing your perspective and there are a number of ways to change it. Here are two specific ideas: 1. Stop getting things done, things will wait. 2. Start letting Baby be more independent while awake and try to get things done with her in the room but playing quietly on her own (LOL).

Personally I am not woman enough for the latter option. Baby can only give me about 4 minute intervals to do anything non-Baby related. Provided I can get my work done in 4 minute intervals, I'm golden. But the reality of it is I just don't try to do anything at all while Baby is awake. Then whenever I happen to get something accomplished its a real boon to my ego. I feel like a super mom who is on top of the world. Like if I get the toilet cleaned (Let me just interject and say that I am not a stickler on cleanliness and used to be fine by cleaning the toilet 3-4 times a month but now I have, in addition to Baby, a 3 year old son who insists on peeing standing up so that toilet needs cleaning every day but if I get to it every third day I am doing good, even though our bathroom smells like the 4/5/6 stop at 42nd street in mid July, but that's a tale for another tell and anyone who isn't a crazy cleaning lady with a little boy knows the story already.) I'm totally psyched. As I mentioned in my aside there, I do have a 3 year old and so I know that a nap-less future is coming but I am not too scared because as she grows older she will become more independent as well and the Living Nap to Nap time will be a distant, bittersweet memory.

And until then I continue through our days trying to keep the house in order without Living Nap to Nap as best as I can. But I must say, Baby is sleeping now and so I think I'll go clean the toilet.

Mistakes in Marriage

Love and marriage: two peas in a pod, like white on rice, tea for two, you for me, tra la la la la laa. They just go together, right? Maybe not always. Recently I received an e-mail request for stories from people who knew they were making a mistake as they walked down the aisle but went ahead with it anyway. These stories are for a book some friend of a friend is putting together. A book about people who knew they were making a mistake but got married anyway. I've sure done things I knew I'd regret - now that I think about it, I remember shoplifting as a teenager and just having a sinking pit in my stomach, my internal dialog screaming, "no! stop! you're going to get caught!" and then, of course, getting caught. But shoplifting lipstick as a 13 year old is not the same type of mistake as committing to stay with one person, love and honor them, cherish them in sickness and health, for the rest of your life. Who walks down that aisle knowing it is a mistake and then what happens to them? kids, home, family pets, all that good stuff? It'll be an interesting book.

It got me to thinking about the mistakes I've made in my marriage. Here's what I came up with (maybe there will be more after another cup of coffee) Being Disrespectful. You know, when people treat those they love the very most with the very least amount of respect. Well, I am guilty of that from time to time. I guess I have new gratitude today that, even though we may not always treat eachother with the respect we deserve (it goes both ways) at least we are both on the same page in wanting to be here, in this marriage, together. I wonder, can you fake that? Those people who married in error, can they fake it til it works? You know, "Fake it til you make it?" Or, like that old tune, "Love the one you're with," and have it work? I guess we'll just have to wait for that book to come out.

Heat + Meat = Food

It's that simple. Everything else is just extra. OK, OK, there is a little more to cooking than just taking raw food and applying heat to it. But that was the thought that changed my approach to the kitchen. The first "real meal" I made was a chicken in the oven of my little apartment in 83rd street on Manhattan's far east side. With great bravery I took a whole chicken, put salt and pepper on it, a sliced orange inside it, and stuck it in the oven until it was done. To test if food is done, simply cut it open and take a look - is it pink? Are the juices reddish in color? It's not fully cooked, which would be OK if you were checking a nice steak, but for a whole chicken you want the juices to be running clear when you slice into it.

In thinking of yesterday's post where I so flippantly encouraged my readers to cook a whole chicken for 2 meals plus stock for soup, it occurred to me some of you may not be comfortable cooking meat. So I want to take the smoke and mirrors away from the cooking process, because really it can be just so simple. My first meal was awesome and all my friends were wildly impressed. It was so much better (and less expensive) to eat that chicken then our normal fare of pizza or diner take-out, which back in those pre-marriage/pre-kiddo days were our basic staples.

So don't be scared, go buy some meat and stick it in the oven. The end result will be good food and a lesson learned. Approaching your first meals in this way will enable you to experience the true flavor of the dish. Heat + Meat = Food.

Economy of Time

Lately my mind and activities have been all awhirl with one theme - budget, budget, budget. Money, money, money. I fed my family for two weeks on what was in the pantry already plus a whopping $11.84 worth of white gold, aka: milk. In thinking about running my household effectively and efficiently I have also realized the importance of running it well. You know, with the ability to partake in life's finer pleasures while still being on a budget. I just hate the word "frugal." To me it connotes cheap polyester knits stretched over hips too big from eating too many tator tots and corn dogs. No, I don't want any part of cheap eating and yet I am on a tight budget. The solution has been to prepare a lot of simple but delicious meals and bake a lot of bread. Cooking from scratch is so much more affordable than buying anything prepared and a ton more nutritious, delicious and safe. Safe, as in, no preservatives, no fillers, no chemicals.

Cooking from scratch is so efficient and delicious it makes one wonder why doesn't everyone cook? Time is an answer. But a false one, I think, because really, with proper planning and preparation cooking wonderful meals from scratch can be done with economy of time, that precious commodity. A girl could write a whole book on the topic - and maybe I will - but in the meantime, my simple advice is - just think forward. Like with the awesome and amazing budget spreadsheet where you do not spend a dime without seeing its impact over the rest of the year, don't cook anything without thinking about the next week's menu. And a week is a lot easier to get your arms around than the whole year.

So, what am I talking about, exactly? Here is an example of what I mean - You're making mashed potatoes for dinner - boil an extra 4 or 5 potatoes and stick them in the fridge. Tomorrow morning for breakfast fry them up, throw in your leftover veggies and a pat of butter and there - wholesome homefries for breakfast. Your family will be dazzled. Or, make a light potato salad for lunch - the cooking is done already so you can have fresh food in a matter of minutes. Another example - Toss a whole chicken in the oven for dinner. Serve the breasts for dinner tonight, pick the dark meat for chicken quesadilla lunch tomorrow and then boil the carcass with some onion, carrot, celery and turnip for stock. The stock is great to keep around for almost every recipe, or just turn it into soup. You are in the kitchen anyway, pre-cook for multiple meals. Everyone is eating healthy food, you are saving money and you've got the time to sit and read this post, or clean something, or play dinosaurs with your kids. See? Economy of time.

Survival Week

This has been Survival Week for our family - an idea I picked up in one of the women's magazines I peruse while waiting online at the grocery store. Since I am too tight to buy them I like to pick the longest check out line, ignore my kids for 5 minutes and read through the catchiest headlines. I saw one promising thousands of dollars worth of grocery savings and picked it up. Among the many tips, I saw an idea called Survival Week where you simply do not go to the grocery store. As items run out, move to more creative food sources in the pantry. Like, that box of Cheerios that has been on the shelf for who knows how long, probably since the little one started first eating solids to baking my own bread. The Cheerios, well, I am glad they are gone and promise not to feed my family stale cereal again. And the bread baking turned out to be totally easy, thanks to the KitchenAid I got for Christmas, and totally delicious and probably more nutritious than the preservative laden breads in the grocery store. We learned a lot this week. We learned that the kids do not need juice and after a day of whining and crying drink water again and even see milk as a treat (in a moment of desperation we also learned that last New Year's unopened sparkling cider, and I mean New Year's Eve 2006, is still good).

Why would I do such a thing? Not grocery shop for, as of today, 13 days? Money, of course. We've been in a tight crunch and I just want to get back on top of the budget. For the weeks leading up to the holidays grocery shopping was getting out of hand. No lists. No menus. Just running in for milk or juice and coming out $80 later - 3 times a week! I needed to break the cycle. And I wanted to get my kids and myself off of some of our bad habits - like juice and deli meats.

This week has jump started my newest money saving plan - buy in bulk once a month and buy necessities once a week. And to bake and make things from scratch more. This last idea is more nutritious and healthy than buying a lot of preprocessed foods, besides being cheaper, because you know exactly what is on the food and that there are no chemicals or other preservatives with who knows what lasting effects for our children. And, it is tastier too.

So, Survival Week? A success and I'll do it again only next time I will have a plan going in (as well as a few bottles of merlot in the pantry) rather than just not having enough money for food shopping without a credit card because heating oil was $3.43 a gallon this week!! But that's another story.

My Awesome Budget Spreadheet

Two years ago I created a budget spreadsheet that I reconcile to my checking account on a weekly basis. We get paid weekly so the spreadhseet is set up with a column for each week of the year. It is really simple - it is the weeks income less the weeks expenses = amount in checking account (hopefully plus) which is then added to the income of the next week from which you take the expenses of that week resulting in the balance in the checking account on the last day of that week, again, hopefully plus . . . but sometimes it is a minus and thats where I can move numbers around. And so on, for the whole year. My budget spreadsheet has enabled us to buy a house. Our budget is so tight but I feel really empowered when I look at my spreadsheet. I can actually see how the menu I plan for my family this week will affect the bottom line in 1 week, 1 month or 1 year. Or, to put it another way, how buying chicken thighs this week instead of chicken breasts will enable me to get my son Thomas the Tank Engine napkins for his birthday in August, instead of plain red ones. Personally I'd like the red ones but not my boy and it's his party, right?