Feed Me!

I love to cook. Cooking is my version of a glass of wine and a bubble bath for stress relief. But cooking with an infant is not my cup of tea. Most likely because I haven't mastered the art yet. Nor have I put much effort into trying to learn. Because even I'm not dumb enough to try to stand over a stove while holding an infant. I'm a hazard to myself, no need to involve a helpless child. Besides, all I have to do is even consider cooking dinner and Greyden gets fussy. Probably because he'd rather go to Buffalo Wild Wings with Daddy instead. So with my luck, I'd end up halfway through and he'd decide that it was time to freak out and I'd never get back to it. (I'm picturing the fire department having some involvement here.)

What really gets me is that I shouldn't have to worry about cooking right now. Remember that pre-baby to-do list that I posted about while I was still pregnant? One of the things on that list was to make up a whole bunch of freezer meals. My plan was to have the meals all assembled and in freezer to oven bakeware so that all we'd have to do is pop one out of the freezer and into the oven for dinner, my reasoning being that I wouldn't have any free time to cook dinner every day while caring for a newborn. Of course being me, I was stressing over how much I had to make and how I had ZERO time to do it. (Ha! Had I only known then what I know now. I can't even figure out what I used to do with all my free time back then). Kevin comforted me by telling me that I would be home all day and I'd have a LOT more free time than I thought I would. (Blind leading the sightless anyone?) Then comes baby. And for once Kevin turns out to be right. I do have a lot of free time. Unfortunately that free time comes with the slight catch of having a baby on my boob arm 24/7. Not exactly condusive to hanging out over a hot stovetop, huh?

And not only did I mess up by not making my freezer meals, insult has been added to injury. One of my friends on Facebook recently had her baby. Last week her status update said that she was so thankful for everyone who had brought them freezer meals when the baby came. She then went on to say that she wasn't going to have to worry about cooking dinner for an entire month. HOLD THE PHONE! Where do I find these Freezer Meal People??? I seriously messed up in my pre-baby planning. Instead of putting "make freezer meals" on MY to-do list, I should have put it on everyone else's to-do list. This stupid pregnancy brain obviously has me not thinking clearly enough! (Oh, all right. I accept. You can all feel free to send food now! Heeheehee.....)

I have managed to do a little bit of cooking since Greyden arrived. I've cooked dinner maybe twice each week, but only when my back-up was home from work. And it really helped that Thanksgiving came when it did, because at the conclusion of the Shagene Thanksgiving Invasion Kevin and I had leftovers for the entire next week. (That's one of the benefits of having people drive in from Michigan. They can't steal my leftovers.) Of course after Kevin and I had eaten "Thanksgiving Dinner," for the fifth day in a row, I would have paid them to come back and take the rest home with them. The thought of turkey still makes my skin crawl.

Of course if you think I'm hungry, you should see Greyden. You would think that the world was ending when he's ready to eat. His normal schedule is sleep, then wake up, get changed, and eat, hang out for awhile, then go back to bed. Then repeat. And repeat again. And again. Again... Anyway, he woke up from a nap a couple of weeks ago ready to eat as usual. I remember being impressed because he had went for three and a half hours since his last feeding instead of his normal 2.5 to 3. I had him on the changing table where he was fussing up a storm and looking like a goldfish trying to find my boob, so I put my face down by his to talk to him and calm him down. Next thing I know, he gets this crazy look in his eyes, grabs two fistfuls of my hair, and starts shaking his head back and forth while pulling my face toward his like a crazy person. I swear, he looked possessed as he tried to eat my nose. Needless to say, after that little incident we don't mess around with pleasantries. He's up, changed (preferrably by Kevin who doesn't have long hair), and latched on to mom before you can bat an eye. In an effort to gain some sympathy, I told my family about that incident and Grey's desperate need for food the second he gets hungry. I mean, look what I have to deal with everyday people! All I got in return were a bunch of "I wonder where he gets that from" looks. What...he doesn't get it from me.