I often find that I overestimate the amount of time and energy I will have to prepare meals during the week. With 4 kids, and the schedules that come along with them, and a hectic and often varied work schedule for me it means meal planning sometimes falls by the wayside.
I’ll let you in on a secret. Partly it’s because I loathe doing dishes. Seriously, is there an app for that yet?
I used to worry endlessly about providing the perfect meals for my kids. Healthy, full of nutrients, lovingly prepared, and pretty to boot. While I still love to do that I have to face the reality that I am not always going to want to cook, eat, negotiate table manners and conversations with the kids (some of these are more like ‘conversations’), and then clean up.
I’m tired just typing that.
My new outlook is to be more realistic about our meal plan, and let go of the meal planning guilt. With that in mind I made some rules for myself to help reduce my mom guilt.
5 Ways to reduce Menu Plan Guilt
- Dinner can be anything. Cereal on occasion, oatmeal, eggs, or sandwiches. It’s all good. Just add a veggie and fruit and you’re set.
- Make snacking healthy. That way the occasional Chik-Fil-A dinner isn’t going to mean their only veggie today was a fry.
- Don’t pander to the crowd. Don’t let the kids dictate what the meal is too often. Yes, I consider everyone’s picky palate, but I don’t make more than one meal.
- Two bites are ok. If someone hates chicken it’s ok. They only need to eat two bites to get it off their plate and get seconds of the healthy sides or another option (sandwiches usually).
- When necessary chocolate cake can act as dinner in a pinch. I’m kidding, but the classic Bill Cosby skit reminds us that everything is ok in moderation–even chocolate cake for breakfast. 😉
I like using the slow cooker I got. The night before I decide what I am going to make. Then the next morning I pop the ingredients in the slow cooker and although it means I have to get up a bit earlier, I am very happy to come home from work and not have to cook. There’s so many things I can make and it has saved me tons of time so far.
No app but the dishwasher is a wonderful thing. I have no qualms about dumping pots in there and running it more often if it saves me time washing dishes.
I often use leftovers as a way to keep certain kids happy at the dinner table. 2 of my kids don’t like sausage right now so last night when we had sausage, they had the leftover chicken. If someone doesn’t like potatoes, they’ll get leftover rice instead.
Thank you Kelly! I loved this post so much! I have served cereal for dinner. In fact, tonight I made healthy whole wheat bow tie in marinara with steamed broccoli….but 4 yo wanted a sandwich. I told her she had to make it herself, I only make one meal each time! LOL