Thursday 11 March 2010

I Love My Little Chefs


I have come to the realisation that I need to engage in more fun activities with my boys while they are home during the day. My friend, Julie, recently went from being a work-outside-the-home mom to being a stay at home mom. She has been dreaming of this forever and circumstances with her job enabled her to finally do this and she is taking full advantage of this precious time with her daughter.

I've had it easier in a way, when the older girls were young, I worked part-time (about 20 hours a week) and still was able to spend most days with them. Then about 10 years ago, a work induced chronic tendonitis forced me to quit my job of 9 years and I stayed home full time. At this point, I volunteered regularly at the school and enjoyed a nice life despite my unhappiness with their father. I was happy as a mom and proud of myself for being a good mom.

When the older girls and I moved into our own home, I treasured my time with them and we had fun. I missed them terribly on the weekends when they visited their dad, but treasured the rest of the time.

Then came Terry and our whirlwind romance. Everything happened very fast and we were so happy. After a year together we decided to try and have a baby. A month later I was pregnant. Within 3 years and 2 months of Miss Hollywood's birth, I had not only had her, but her 2 younger brothers. I worked it out to over 6 years of the 8 years that Terry and I have been together, I was either pregnant or breastfeeding. It really did take its toll. Talk about feeling constantly drained!

I suppose it doesn't help that I have always gotten easily exhausted..my whole life I have been this way. I just don't seem to have the same amount of energy as most other people. I have no idea why. Regardless of the reason for my exhaustion, it has left me at times feeling like less of a mother, because I don't have the energy to do the things that I want to do with my children.

Add to that one crazy ass neighbour that makes me feel like a prisoner in my own home and my life certainly is not what I want it to be. I only have a year and a half until my O-Bear goes to school and I need to start treasuring that time a bit more.

Back to Julie........her blog shows her fascination and pure happiness at being able to share this time with her daughter. She keeps giving me ideas of ways that I can enjoy my children a bit more. Today, Screamy helped me to get supper prepped and into the crockpot. He just loves helping in the kitchen and I really don't know why we don't cook together more often. O-Bear joined in as soon as he saw what we were up to. I really hope that they like it, so that they can feel pride in the great meal that they helped make. I think we will try baking tomorrow.

March Break is coming up next week and I haven't even made my usual plan for the week. I have to set the tent up tomorrow, as they always sleep in the tent in the living room on the first night (then I argue with them about taking it down for the next 8 days!). I have some can/vases to paint and some seeds to start inside, but I am really very unprepared compared to years past.

Given my boys' love of cooking, I really want to get them each an apron as well. Forever, I have been wanting to get them personalised ones that I saw on etsy. Plus I just found this new etsy store today called Bloom Woosie .

Here are some of the personalised ones:




The first two are from an etsy store called firefly63.









The black one with the rocket is from an etsy store called tinygreenapples. I am undecided on which apron to go for. If I go with the rocket one (there are also dinosaur ones), I will have to have one of my American friends order it for me as tinygreenapples does not ship to Canada. Mind you firefly63 does ship here, but it is $10.95 PER item. Hmmmmmm......


**Update** I searched around the tinygreenapples shop a bit more and discovered that they do offer shipping to Canada. WOOT! The shipping is less expensive and they offer discounts on shipping other items. Looking like tinygreenapples is winning this competition!


Here is a picture of a Mommy/Son Set that I'm sure would be a hit around here:



1 comment:

BusyBs said...

Those aprons are adorable! I get inspired to cook by my apron collection, too. I'm finding that if I add about 30 min to the prep time of a recipe, then we have plenty of time for Homey to help. Yay for cooking with kids!