May 2010 Archives

It's hard to cook for a family of six, but it's even harder to cook for a family of five.

I'm saying that because I have a family of six, but one of us isn't eating at the table yet. So technically I'm cooking for a family of five, and that sixth person is complicating matters.

He won't let me prep, chop or saute. The best I can manage is leafing through a recipe book with one hand. Of all my babies, four-month-old Henry is the most demanding--he doesn't want to be put down long enough for me to go to the bathroom, let alone long enough to make a meal. Thank goodness I anticipated this and stocked up my freezer before he was born; I have enough frozen meals to last until he's six months old and hopefully a little more tolerant of his mother's need to do household chores.

All two under two parents-to-be should be stocking up the freezer, or planning on a few months worth of frozen lasagna, pizzas and ready-to-cook convenience foods. Even if your baby-to-be turns out to be tolerant, chances are you don't have a lot of time to spare between caring for him and caring for your toddler, so you're going to be thankful of a well-stocked freezer.

Visit my Freezer Cooking for Pregnant Moms blog for weekly recipes and tips for stocking your freezer before your baby arrives.

My husband and I took our family to a crowded event over the weekend. There was a bouncy house, go-kart racing, mini-golf and all kinds of fun kids stuff, but there was a crowd. At events like that, I am enormously thankful for my double stroller.

After letting Natalie, my overactive toddler, bounce off the walls of the mini-golf course for an hour or so, my husband and I decided to give the older kids a turn on the go-karts. He went down with them to the arcade to get tickets, and I put Natalie in the front seat of the stroller while Henry, my three month old, slept in the back.

Natalie was not having any of it. She's two years old, and all her little legs want to do is run. She doesn't care where I am, and she isn't afraid of anything. Cars. Strangers. Cliff edges (not that there were any at this event, but you get the idea). So she sat in the front of the stroller wailing, shrieking, and fighting the straps while I studiously ignored her.

A few minutes into the meltdown, I noticed a very crunchy looking lady with a four or five year old girl giving me a cold look. I studiously ignored her, too, but a few minutes later she approached me, smiling a fabricated smile, looking very crunchy indeed in her hemp vest and organic cotton beret.

"Why don't you let her out? She just wants to run." Then she added, broadly gesturing around the crowded park: "Because you know, that's what this is all about."

I looked at her and at her one child and saw red. First of all, she had no idea what Natalie was like. Second of all, she was talking to me as if she was a graduate of Dr. Excellent Mom's School of Being a Perfect Parent, and I but a lowly dropout from the Unenlightened Institute of Stupid Mothers.

"I would," I said, "but you see I have this baby here, and I can't watch him and a loose toddler at the same time."

"Well I'll watch her," she replied, like it was so obvious, like I should have pegged her right away as the free-nanny-to-total-strangers'-children type.

"Thanks, but my husband will be back in a minute." There was no way I was going to leave a stranger in charge of my child, especially one who was distracted by her own kid and had no idea what she was getting herself into when offering to watch Natalie the Hazard-Seeker. And also I thought she was a bitch, but there you go.

She persisted. At that point I really couldn't believe it, the persisting. I was doing my best to present an air of "get the hell out of here," but there she was. Still.

"I know what it's like," she continued. "I have two of them really close in age like you do." I looked over at her one child and wondered, if it was so easy, why the hell she'd only brought one of them with her, and why she had to have two girlfriends there to help her. But of course I didn't say that, dang it. In these situations, the clever comebacks don't occur to you until much later.

Here's what else I should have said:

"Well lady, since you too have two under two, why don't you tell me, which one of your children is least important to you? Would you leave your baby sleeping in a stroller in the middle of a crowded park while you ran off through the grass after your toddler, because you'd care less about losing him? Or would you rather let your toddler disappear into the crowd because she's less important than the baby? Please, help me decide, because silly, naive me, I love my children equally and I just can't seem to choose between them."

At that point my husband returned, and I steered away from the still-smiling crunchy lady and tried to stop feeling angry, lest it ruin the rest of my morning. (By the way, I really don't have anything against hemp and organic cotton, just that particular lady and the way she was wearing it).

I vented to my husband, who told me I shouldn't worry about what stupid people think. He's right, but as long as I live I will never understand why some people feel the need to parent other people's children. Most parents are doing what they think is right for their own children, and if you disagree, well, please keep it to yourself.