Hey Queens
Oh gosh, if you missed the email I sent out this week, honey you MISSED!!!
You need to jump in on our mailing list like RIGHT NOW
I send out amazing content as God lays on my heart weekly, and MOST of it will not find its way to the blog, so sign up and enjoy!!!
Ok so today, I am here to share some wisdom straight from heaven I apply at home when it comes to kitchen time.
As a mom of littles, there is a lot of feeding and kitchen time that goes on, and because kids expend energy a lot, we find we have to keep feeding them a lot too. If you are not careful, you find that you are spending all day in the kitchen, especially when you are home schooling your kids, or they are on holiday.
Ok, so this is what works for me. Let the Holy Spirit show you how to apply it to your own life, Ok?
I am NOT the standard. JESUS is!!!
I have NO FORMULAS. Jesus is the formula!!!
Ok here we go.
First, some context.
I consider myself first a Domestic Queen over and above anything else I do.
I also run a home based Fitness business, create steady content for my three blogs, and other places, lead a couple Christian prayer groups (maybe 5 or 7 phew), mentor at 3 different mentoring academies, and I still put Jesus smack in the center of it all.
My family doesn’t get my leftovers, Jesus gets the best of me, and I somehow bear fruit everywhere else He has sent me.
My life is INTENSE BUT feeding my family ranks HIGH UP on my priority list, so I am always thinking of how I can feed them healthy, steady and without sacrificing all my hours to the kitchen.
That requires some planning and strategy ooo.
All I shared above is my vision and my priorities.
Feeding my family healthy is so key and that drives everything I am saying and doing…
So two major tips have helped me thrive INSIDE and OUTSIDE the kitchen.
First, when I had the boys fully at home during the lockdown and holidays, I completely flipped their eating time tables
For school mornings, I could do a cereal or bread. Then they go off to school where they are engaged with school work till they have a snack, and then lunch later.
For at-home days, giving them cereal or bread means they will come back to me hungry 40mins later because bread and cereal especially golden morn and co, are simple carbs that will break down easily.
And because they are not as engaged at home, as in school, they will feel the empty tummy immediately, and keep harassing me for food, distracting me from work.
So, I started to make breakfast work for me instead of against me.
It has to be heavy.
Enter boiled plantain, yam or potatoes with egg sauce. Then moimoi and pap.
These 4 options were what we rocked out at breakfast and they would be FULL until about noon when they would top up with a snack, before lunch time.
At lunch, we would have rice, swallow, pasta, or beans.
That would ‘hold belle’ very well until dinner time.
Dinner is typically the LIGHTEST meal of the day, so I can now do bread, cereal (golden morn or cornflakes), or oats.
Now, this doesn’t only keep their tummy full, it also means that my night hours are kitchen-free or much reduced. This is important to me because by evening, I am EXHAUSTED mentally and physically.
The last thing I want to be doing is cooking or even thinking about food.
I don’t feed them too, they rock it out themselves so I take myself almost completely out of that process and really save my energy.
Which brings me to the second point
I keep my mornings heavy and evenings light
What this means is that I plan all our meals ahead, meaning I already know what BLD will be before the day gets here, and in the morning, I prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner all at once, and store appropriately.
So if it is rice for lunch, I make it or bring it out the freezer as I make breakfast. Ditto swallow. Everything is as ready as can be, so when it is time, I just heat it up or dish, if it’s in a flask. This means that I spend less time in the kitchen for lunch and dinner.
THIS, my sisters, saved me so much time and head space.
In fact, I even made their smoothies which serves as snack in the morning and threw in the fridge door.
Everything for lunch and dinner is ready with breakfast.
Now what this means is that I have stewarded my time well to feed my family, without neglecting them to junk food, and also to the other assignments of my life, without letting domestic and especially kitchen time affect me.
I am productive IN the kitchen and OUTSIDE the kitchen. I love that beautiful balance because everything important to me gets done, with God’s help.
Oh, sometimes, kids also get hungry in between meals despite my best efforts, though in all truth, this HARDLY happens, but should it, I give them nuts, or a whole fruit like carrots or apples.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I do not have a help at home, so this would look different for you if you had a live in help. You would have to train her, and that is story for another day. Actually, my sister girl Ore of MaidForMe has such wisdom on that you wanna check her website AND sign up to her mailing list.
I love her emails.
Ok, so I hope this helps
One of us sent me a question I want to answer here
Ok, so I have this dilemma and I will share a couple of things I do, after first of all giving you permission to be OK with this process taking longer than you expect AND you INSISTING on what you want and not let them exhaust you to a point of giving in and letting them eat cereal or anything all day just because they like it.
The process is hard BUT INSIST till you see results. You are the mama. BE THE MAMA!!!
Ok so what I do!!!
1. I pick my battles. My kids can feed themselves BUT they make such a mess, are slow, distracted, and then I have to clean up too. I find it time wasting especially if we have another activity planned for after eating, so it delays me. I decided to lose that battle and feed them MOST TIMES, or half feed them meaning I sit with them and direct them to maybe pick up the swallow balls I already made and dipped in soup, or put the food on the spoon and have them do the work of putting in their mouth. Anything to make time go faster MOST days. Some days, I have time so I just let them waste time and eat, and I don’t mind cleaning up. However, this is not a battle I want to win, that is having them feed themselves, waste my time and make such a mess. I feed them and we are done in a couple minutes. On those rare Golden morn occasions, they feed themselves and eat very fast, and they do same with fries and all, but meals they don’t like is what they waste time on, so I even time those meals to when I know I have time to feed them, and I am happy to feed them without it being an interruption. What I won’t do is take those meals off the plan because they don’t like it and are trying to frustrate me.
Kids are REAL smart but we must OUT SMART them with our insistence and persistence!!!
2. Frankly, I am now transitioning to a place where I want them to feed themselves and quickly, so I set a timer and have a reward for them at the end. I try not to do junk food rewards like you get a chocolate if you finish eating. It could be ‘we will go downstairs and play if you finish on time’ and so on. Has to be an activity already planned out before so I just use that as an added incentive.
Also with my countdown timer, they know mommy won’t be happy if the timer goes off, so they try to impress me on that. And if they don’t finish, I go and keep the food back. Sometimesit is even a meal they don’t like so they are happy lol, but the next time someone says ‘I am hungry’, you better believe I am bringing THE VERY SAME dish out for them.
By the time we do this for 10 times, they will adjust.
I am still working this out and I am not in a hurry to transition.
Of course, I also pray about it.
Like I said, I pick my battles and try to win just the one that gives me the most wins, and happily permit myself to win the rest later. I don’t want to be GRUMPY mommy and make meal time a disaster for them and they dread it.
I hope this helps mama.
Ok, I will see us all next week, and by God’s grace, this time, I am focusing on our wifey assignment, sharing some common mistakes I see us makes, which I too made, but am wiser for it now.
If you loved this, please share with your fellow mommy friends and on your social media and don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter here mama
Lots of love and Prayers
Eziaha
God’s PROUD Domestic Queen
PS
Check out my latest blog post on Coache.ng where I blog about fitness related topics
FitFam & Minimalist Part 1: My initial Baby Steps
And the latest on my faith-based blog Eziaha.com, where I blog about faith, friendship and mentoring.