Which Room in Your Home Deserves the Most Attention a Couple of Months Post-Partum?

There is one room in the home that gives away the fact that you’ve had a baby much more than the living/family room full of baby toys and baby items. The answer may surprise others but it certainly shouldn’t surprise you. You think you have the answer? It’s the kitchen! Why? Because is it just me or can you relate to any of the bullets below?

• you feel as though your desire to cook went down
• you don’t remember when the last time you cooked to impress was
• you think that having the time, energy and above focus to cook, let alone bake, would be a total treat
• your fridge doesn’t have many things that appetite desires because lately, you are not the one who does most of the grocery shopping, for a change
• the kitchen staples that were your best buds and had your back when you wanted to cook something in a pinch or better yet, give that extra “something- something” to your elaborate meal are now hanging out in other people’s pantries where they feel appreciated instead of neglected
• your years (hmm-hmm decades) of cooking and/or baking have gone to the dogs since you’ve made more mistakes in the kitchen (despite the little quality time you spend there) since your children were born

This last bullet was one of the two hardest realizations for me post-pregnancy. Truth be told, it has hurt my ego to forget to add baking powder to the pancakes I prepared… (cough)…. Twice. Where was my mind? Tending to my baby of course! And wanting to be superwoman…. everything to everyone (except to me and my needs) all the time. I really miss having that cathartic experiences in the kitchen, in which I had the luxury of being immersed into measuring everything precisely and leveling every single dry ingredient with the edge of a butter knife. Ahhh! Those were the days!

What’s the Use of Realizing that the Kitchen is Neglected?

While this seems like a huge complaint blog post, what I’m trying to accomplish is to vent… in your honor and despite my once-classified-a-chef honor. 😉 For people who say that parenting is not hard… I’d like to invite you over to a microwave dinner so that I can at least try to further explain how not being able to feed oneself appropriately and consistently gives any impression that parenting is easy. And that’s just the beginning of what we can’t do well even though we thought (and so did the world) that we were excellent multi-taskers before having kids.

What New Moms Crave For

There have been a couple of times that I’ve daydreamed about going alone to one of my two favorite restaurants to eat a meal that will be deliciously cooked and to spend some quality time with my friend, “delicious food.” But, no matter what the little mush I eat, (often cold, often frantically and most likely out of the container), being able to have a baby to tend to, to the point that my cookbooks are jealous, is a huge blessing that nourishes my soul and my being in the most special and unbelievably calorie-free way that anything ever has. As a matter of fact, despite the fact that I’m not there yet, I believe that my desire to feed my little one well and with a great deal of culinary gusto and flavor, my little one will in fact be my inspiration for getting back into the kitchen with a vengeance. As a matter of fact, I’ve been combing through some old recipes and eyeing some new recipes that I would like to try. There are just sooooo many recipes out there that I think it’s a total waste of our time on earth to not try some more. What gives me a little bit of peace is that Rachael Ray and her team apparently have seen how time-deprived we are, whether we have children or not, because she recently came out with a new book called Week in a Day, in which the premise is to devote an action-packed day to creating 5 dinners. It may seem like a chore (or an impossibility) to devote a full day to cooking, but, imagine how much smoother the rest of your week will feel if you in fact get your dinners done and over with? If you apply the same teaching to creating breakfasts and lunches, then you’ll really be on top of things. Not only will you save some time, but you’ll save some sanity and money given that less groceries will go to waste.

Time to Evaluate Yourself

So if you’re a parent, tell me, what is your relationship between you and the kitchen like these days, is it strained (no pun intended) or is it kosher? Please leave your comment below, and please, if you have any tips to how to balance the need to nourish your children and the need to nourish yourself (both literally and metaphorically), please let me know.