Oh, what a week. If you read my 10K training update post, you know I’ve felt like I’m running on fumes lately. At the end of last week, Tim was convinced it was diet related and I needed “more protein and iron.” In Tim’s world, this translates to “you need to eat more meat.” Instead of waging a nutritional battle, I complied and put more meat on the menu.
Guess what? I’m still tired. When you have a baby who you are up with 1-2 times a night and are trying to accomplish a few too many things in a day, no amount of meat is going to replenish those stores. Sleep will. Maybe next week that will happen.
I’ve had a few requests to include what my 3-year-old is liking and not liking with my meals, so you’ll see some commentary on what Meghan ate this week, too. She’s like most preschoolers in that she’s predictably unpredictable in what she’ll like to eat from week to week.
Sunday
Mediterranean Lemon Chicken with roasted broccoli, potatoes, and mushrooms.
The chicken recipe was easy and flavorful. Tim complained because he doesn’t like chicken legs and said it would have been much better with breasts. It would have been much more expensive, too, honey.
Meghan ate everything except the mushrooms.
Monday
Grass-fed burgers and sweet potato fries.
Burgers are much better with cheese, and I had to have a strange bun because the regular sprouted whole grain buns I get have “soy grits.” That made me sad. Loved the sweet potato fries, though.
Meghan has always refused burgers, but I offered her a small mini burger anyway. No go. She had sweet potato fries, strawberries, and cheese.
Tuesday
Turkey meatball sandwiches and a salad.
I used Ari’s recipe for turkey meatballs, but to make them dairy-free I substituted a mixture of ground almonds and nutritional yeast for the parmesan cheese. Tim loves meatball sandwiches (he had his with melted provolone cheese on top) so this was a winner for him. I liked that there were some veggies in the meatballs, at least.
I served Meghan a meatball, some of the veggies from our salad (bell peppers, carrots, and cucumber), cheese, and a banana. I don’t force her to eat anything, but do encourage her to try one bite of everything she is served. Soooo, she did take a bite of the meatball, but she spit it out. She also ate just one bite of bell pepper, carrots, and cucumber. She ate all of her cheese and banana. Notice a pattern? She loves cheese and fruit. We’re working on getting her to eat a bigger variety.
Wednesday
Leftovers night
Tim had a sandwich with the leftover meatballs (the rest went in the freezer for a future lunch or dinner). I had some leftover soup I had made for lunches and a salad.
Meghan had a grilled cheese sandwich and some vegetables from my soup. The girl will still not eat anything in soup form. I hope she outgrows that aversion soon, because we love soup around here. She ate a few pieces of the veggies and also a kiwi fruit.
Thursday
Lemon Parsley-Spinach pasta
This pasta dish was so good and easy, I put it on the meal plan again this week. Two recipes from the Diva Dish on our meal plan in one week! Thanks, Ari. (Again!)
Meghan doesn’t like pasta except for macaroni and cheese. Weird, right? I’ve tried to serve it to her in a variety of ways: with tomato sauce, with butter and parmesan, with just butter, totally plain. She just does not like it. I continue to offer it to her, because, as I tell her, you never know when your taste buds are going to change. She’s totally allowed to have her dislikes, though. So I offered her the pasta, plain. Nope. She still doesn’t like it. In addition, I offered her pistachios, strawberries, and crunchy green beans. She ate everything else I offered her.
Friday
My tired mommy brain got the best of me today. I was planning on serving a version of this Vegetarian Pad Thai on Friday. Tim was working from home and somehow I got it in my head that it was Saturday, the day in which I was scheduled to work at the church nursery. So I loaded Meghan in the car, left Tim home with Luke, and drove the 20 minutes to church to work in the nursery for the 5:00 service. Oops. It’s Friday. Meghan and I ate at Chipotle and Tim was on his own for dinner (he had some pasta).
Saturday
The real day that I had to work in the church nursery. Instead of eating out again, Meghan and I rushed home after working in the nursery and had a throw-together dinner. I did make the pad thai on Sunday, so you’ll get to see what I thought of it next week.
Question: Do you still manage to prepare homemade dinners even when you are having a hectic week?
I have also discovered making risotto with barley. this recipe from real simple is so delicious and you actually bake the risotto…it is really nice!
http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/baked-barley-risotto-00100000070986/index.html
Hope you get rest. Nurture your post partum self…you deserve it.
Ooh that looks good. I love butternut squash. Thanks for sharing.
how in the world do you have time to post your How dinner went down posts???? LOL I don’t even have time to make dinner let along write about it! hahahaha
I’ve only been able to sneak in a few posts a week. I’m hoping I can get back to blogging more, but for now I’m happy I can at least do these and a few more posts.
I think it’s important to do your best at home cooking. It can be done, progress, right? not perfection.
So true, Lindsay.
I could write this post. Your husband and Meghan sound EXACTLY like my husband and son. My son just turned 3 and would eat his weight in cheese and fruit if I let him. I offer him the same thing we eat and every night he eats pretty much what I thought he would but every now and again he will surprise me and eat everything offered. Its those nights that I pat myself on the back for continually putting new items in front of him. Keep up the good work, hopefully the little one begins to sleep through the night.
It’s those nights where she does eat the main dish I cook that keeps me hoping that this is something she’ll outgrow eventually!
Have you made any mexican foods lately? I’ve been making/layering salsa, corn tortillas, beans (black, pinto or black matpe beans), more salsa, frozen corn, black olives and cheese (which I know you will have to avoid) in the crockpot — layer until you have the amount you plan to eat. You can put it on high for a bout 4 hours, in the crockpot, or throw it in the oven for 30 minutes – easy and fast.
Those black matpe beans (found at a global foods market) are high in fiber and protein — but they take quite a while to cook in the crockpot (6 hours on high), for as tiny as they are. I cooked 2 lbs. and froze the extras in smaller containers for later use.
That sounds great! I love Mexican food and am always on the lookout for healthy crock pot recipes. Thanks for the idea–I’ll have to think of a way to do it without cheese and still make it husband-friendly.
Sigh. I have a little one at home (only one though so I have fewer excuses) and sometimes meal planning gets done and sometimes it doesn’t. If he sleeps well, dinners go well. If he is having an off week, it is microwaved organic chicken sausages and sweet potatoes all around. My husband has started the Paleo diet and with his new restrictions, it is much harder if I don’t plan meals. No more frozen Kashi pizza when baby didn’t sleep well.
Kids are so funny about food! My six year old niece is a little foodie and will try anything! Girl loves her veggies. We had lunch at a state park a few months back and she ordered the veggie plate off the kids menu. The waitress had to come back out and ask her which veggies she wanted because it had never been ordered before and the chef didn’t know what to do.
Keep plugging away! I read it can take a loooog time and a lot of taste tests before a child really decides on a food.
I love the story about your niece! I would be so happy if Meghan turns out that way when she’s older.
I know how you are feeling right now, I was there after the birth or our second too. Tired! Tired! And more tired! My husband and I had pretty much the same conversations too. Maybe your not eating enough protein. All I really needed was sleep and five minutes to myself. This crazy time will pass. And by the way, remind me of my advice in a few months!
As for our meals. I have had to accept that right now my kids are not eating 100% (not even 70%) the way I would like. As you know I have been so sick that cooking was the absolute last thing on my mind. Now we have baseball 4 days a week between the oldest two. So we have been eating out more than usual too.
The one thing I have started back on is the green smoothies. At least this way I know they are getting their daily doses of greens and fruits. They are very good about eating their apples, carrots, srawberries, watermelon, and salads too. So I just try to keep those foods available to them and try not to harp on the chips and fries at the ball fields.
Hang in there!!
my husband tell same the same exact thing. Make more steak, eat more cheeseburgers. I just feel weighed down and greasy when I follow his advice. More sleep is totally the answer.
Your Meghan and my soon to be three year old have A LOT in common food wise. Tonight she tasted half a spoon of carrot soup, ate 1 carrot stick, a couple of chick peas, cottage cheese and some edamae beans for dinner. For dessert she had a banana…
I guess it’s just normal for this age. I try not to stress about it too much–I figure she’ll come around eventually.
Looks like you’ve got a little vegetarian on your hands, which of course, I love to hear! 🙂 (I’m vegan.) Odd that she doesn’t like pasta, but to each her own.
I think that besides more sleep (the obvious) you might want to try more fresh fruits and veggies, homemade energy bars, smoothies, etc. However, that means more time devoted to making them, of course. Do you think you and Tim could work something out where you could take an hour or two to yourself on Sunday nights – or whatever night works best – to plan & prep meals for the week while he handles the kids? You could make sauces, cut veggies, even make pasta/rice and have it ready for later in the week. If I know exactly what recipes I’m going whip up I’ll put all the pre-measured spices/condiments together in one tupperware container so I can dump the whole thing in without having to get out all my measuring spoon/cups when I need to have dinner ready quickly. Even though I love to make new (and admittedly, sometimes complicated) recipes, I also try to allow myself once or twice a week where I do a VERY basic dinner such as rice and sauteed veggies. (Would that work for Tim though? 🙂 ) This takes the stress off for part of the week anyway.
As women it’s so hard to remember that we aren’t and can’t be Superwoman. Try to take some time for your mental and physical health…even if that means deep breathing for 5 minutes, like you said! Maybe even swap one run per week for an extra nap, a bath, meal prep, or just some “you time.” You are doing a fabulous job juggling everything (seriously!) and we are fortunate that you still take time to share your life and writing with us. Thank you!
p.s. What are soy grits? Although I try to stay away from fake veg stuff and eat whole food, I feel like I should have heard of these before…
Thank you for taking the time to write such a long comment! I appreciate your insight. Meghan’s never liked meat, so you might be right. Probably because I don’t serve it very regularly. (This was an unusually meat-heavy week for us) What you described pretty much sums up my diet and lifestyle. What you see in this post is just a snippet of what I eat over the course of a day. My diet is probably about 90% whole, unprocessed foods that I make from scratch and includes a variety of fresh fruits and veggies. I make my own snack bars (I make them into ball shapes, but same thing) every week and eat my share of green smoothies, too. Unfortunately, I don’t think a diet change is what I need. Just sleep! ha ha 🙂
I also plan my meals once a week. I really like the idea of taking one day to spend prepping. I’ll have to give that a try as I’m sure that would help cut back some of the stress in my day. I do some basic dinners and Tim may not love them, but he eats them. 🙂
Soy grits are soybeans that have been toasted and cut into small pieces. I am breastfeeding my son and he can’t have soy, so I have to avoid all soy right now (and dairy, too). Thanks again for your comment and advice!
I know you have some snack bars and energy ball recipes on here…haven’t ever tried them but I’ll have to do that.
Glad your in-laws are in town to help…hope you get LOTS of sleep!!
Good luck with the meal prep and let us know how it goes!
Thanks again for your awesome blog!!
I love the commentary on Meghan’s preferences too! When I first started reading this blog and it seemed like she ate everything, I had a feeling it would change. It was so frustrating for me to watch my toddlers slowly reduce their “approved” foods to either carbs (J) or cheese and fruit (B). It does come back … our 6-year-old eats a nice variety and will try anything now. The 3-year-old, not so much. He hasn’t willingly had a veggie in over a year. Thanks for keeping it real and giving all of us good ideas for meals!
It’s good to hear that your 6-year-old eats a lot of different foods! It was really frustrating to see Meghan stop eating foods she used to love, but I guess it’s just normal for her age.
I really hope you find some time to rest, you seem to be pretty drained!
Loving these posts for inspiration!
I mostly cook, even when I am really busy. Usually I will prepare some millet and stir-fried veggies, as it takes me under 20 minutes to prepare, more like 15.
Guess what! My in-laws are in town this week so I’ll get some extra rest. Yay! 🙂
Perfect 🙂
I hope you all will enjoy their stay!
I love the commentary on what Meghan is eating! I have awhile to go before Nolan gets there, but I still find it incredibly interesting.