First of all, plan ahead. The more you plan ahead the less stressed out you will get. Sit down as a family and plan a month worth of dinners. Let each person in your family pick a meal each week. Make sure you are keeping a variety. On nights you know things will be the most insane make sure you have the least amount of prep work. Here is our menu for September...
As you can see, it doesn't have to be written on a cute chalkboard with pretty artistic lettering. It is just a plain blank menu with scribbled ideas. You will also see on Saturdays and Sunday I have nothing planned. These are nights I do one of a few different options. 1st option, dinner date with family, 2nd option, fill in something from a night we skipped earlier in the month, 3rd option, frozen pizza or 4th option, I just make up something totally different and see what happens. Mostly, it is options 3 or 4. Sundays I do not cook. If I do cook it is box mac&cheese. Fancy, I know. My mom cooks Sunday lunch each week so I don't see the need for two full sit down meals in one day. For some of y'all, you may want this to be a time your family all eats together. I will admit, this month I did not ask for input but I did put in each week something each child would love. That way when we have a night where they just don't like what I've cooked they can look forward to another night they will love. I do my absolute best for us all to eat together. I know those days are probably coming to an end as my oldest two get older. We may eat at 8:00 but I prefer us to eat together. This is when the,"how was your day" conversations go on. My kids without prompting will even say, "how was your day, daddy?" or "what did you do today, mommy?" It is amazing what a 9th grader will tell you if you just ask.
I cooked/prepped ahead of time almost every meal we will eat in September and October. It took me 2 full days, tons of dishes and 6 Tylenol. I labeled each bag with a date and instructions. I froze things flat and spread out and when it froze I filed them away. My next blog will give more details on how to do this. Here is a picture of some of my freezer stash. This isn't all of it of course. As you could see from the menu above, there are nights of chicken nuggets and frozen pizza!
Another way to survive is divide and conquer or as I like to call it, delegate. I couldn't write this blog about soccer season and not add in a quote from one of the best coaches to coach any sport. "Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." That is from Vince Lombardi, I know he was a Packers coach but when you look up "Bill Cower quotes" there aren't any! Sorry Rusty. OK, back to my point. The whole family has to help. The whole family has to take on responsibility at the house. I don't care what the normal family dynamics are, during a busy time in the family's life everyone MUST chip in. Each person must take their job and commit to it each day. A group effort will help everyone be a little more stress free. Whether it is putting shoes in proper homes (we call this shoe patrol), unloading the dishwasher or helping little sisters put their clothes away, they must do it completely. Don't be afraid husbands to load or unload the dishwasher when you see the need. Rusty cleans up dishes every night after dinner. EVERY NIGHT! A different daughter each night helps him get the dirty dishes to the sink. That leaves me available to help someone study, bathe babies, take a shower for the first time in 2 days, or even watch Project Runway. Husbands, don't be afraid to fold some towels. I don't care if you worked all day, help anyway. I will add here too, many weeks Rusty gets more laundry done than I do. Don't feel bad about asking your kids to vacuum the den or straighten their bathroom so you can disinfect clean it the next day. So delegate some jobs mamas. There is nothing wrong with your kids doing some chores, for free even.
One other way to help survive soccer (or whatever your kids are involved in)season is to make a home for uniforms and other items that they need for the sport. We put in our laundry room a bench that has cubbies for each child. In that cubby goes their cleats, shin guards (glove in t-ball season) and uniform. I do not allow clean uniforms to ever leave the laundry room, otherwise they are lost forever. As soon as they come out of the dryer I fold them and put them in the cubbies behind me. When they come in from a game have them take the stuff off right then and make sure they put things away. Before we had the cubbies I put the whole uniform, socks and all, on a hanger in the laundry room and hung it up in there. Here is a picture of one of our cubbies...
During the summer, this is actually where each kid stores their bathing suits.
Make no mistake, we have Saturday mornings where we are screaming, "WHERE ARE YOUR SHIN GUARDS!" Many Tuesday evenings where I say, "Forget it, let's get some Hot & Ready!" And some nights where I'm not really sure what they eat. There are nights where we eat in shifts too. I find though, the more I plan ahead, prep ahead of time and organize the smoother our afternoons go. Each day it is like a roller coaster ticking up the slope and when 2:24 hits it is all crazy twist and turns and loop-de-loops until 9pm. Hit the hay and rest for the roller coaster ride the next day. I love this life and I am so thankful for the chaos. One day it is going to be too quiet around here and I will miss cooking for so many mouths.
I hope this has helped some of y'all not pull your hair out this soccer season. Stay tuned next week for a How-To on freezer meal planning.
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