A day where I'm transformed into "Supermama"...

Being a mom pretty much guarantees that you are superwoman.  There are so many things we juggle as a mom, especially as a mom who works another job on top of the career of being mom. Trying to balance it all and trying to find balance in it all is difficult. On September 1st, I transformed myself into Supermama because I did find that balance...with a lot of help from my husband.

Two weeks ago, I knew that as soon as my maternity leave ended, that I would be back to juggling life. During the first year of R's life, I developed a routine where I would spend one Saturday, every other week, cooking all day. I would then freeze these foods so we would have easy and healthy freezer meals to eat during the week. It was awesome and really there was no way we could have eaten so well that first year if I hadn't done this.  I slacked off from doing this last year, and while there were some weeks where I contemplated starting up again, we made it work. It was alright to cook immediately after school since R was older and could entertain herself and could eat snacks by herself. However, I knew that with a two year old and a little one, there was no way I could make dinner and eat at a decent time after school.  I can't always count on my hubby's help because he coaches the never-ending sport of basketball. Right now, he's only gone one or two nights a week, but in a few short weeks, he won't be there at all most nights. As an example of how life is when he's not there in the evening, a recent evening went like this:

Out of school at 5, Pick up the girls at 5.20, back at the house by 5.45, needed to pump so get hooked up to the pump, R is playing nicely on the iPad, A decides she needs to eat RIGHTTHEN, unhook from pump to feed A, realize that now it's 6.40, give R some leftovers for dinner hoping she'll eat while I'm pumping, R decides that dinner is the next closest thing to dog puke even though she happily ate it last night and pitches a huge fit, try to reason with my unreasonable tired and hungry 2 year old to no avail, unhook from the pump, try to feed R her food (which sometimes will get her started on eating it) only to result in a bigger temper tantrum, send R to time out, A wakes up and wants to eat RIGHTTHEN, R comes out of time out, pitches another fit about eating but starts eating nicely just as hubby gets home. Meanwhile, the last 2 hours I've been topless, in pain because I'm overfull, and dripping milk everywhere.

Needless to say, I don't have time to make dinner every night.

And I knew this would be the way it would be, which is why I decided to again pick up the art of cooking a ton so we just have to defrost it and eat. This time I attempted to do that with the crockpot so it will be hot and ready by the time we are home.  I love Stephanie O'Dea's website where she attempted to use the crockpot every day for a year. She has a ton of recipes and she blogs about how to make each one and if it was any good. We've eaten some of her recipes before, but for this endeavor I decided to really peruse her site and then google some more.  I made a mixture of her recipes and Once A Month Mom's crock pot offerings.

A quick shot of the remainder of our dinners from that cooking endeavor.

After picking out 8 recipes, I went shopping for what I needed and ended up spending about $50 less on our grocery bill than I normally do. (That can't be a coincidence, right?) I came home and put together the meals into freezer bags - no cooking necessary. The only thing I had to do was chop up some veggies. Even that was limited because I used frozen veg to replace a lot of veggies that were called for. It took 2 hours to assemble everything and clean up. I only had one minor mishap of a bag tipping over and spilling chicken, broth, and veggies everywhere. Basically for about 4 hours of time (including shopping), I had 8 bags which equals 16 family dinners.

 But you might be asking yourself, "Ok, fine, so she cooked some meals. Big deal. I do that all the time. How does that make her Supermama?" 

Ali and I commemorate our first race of the season. Many more of these to come.

Sprinting to the finish

Well, ladies, I'm Supermama because earlier that day I got up early and ran my first 5k of the season.  I ran the Dr. Piper Legacy 5k in a time of 27.39. I totally surprised myself with that time. My pace was an 8.45/mi and my first split was an 8.02. I got to the mile mark and I almost fell over with shock.  I did not intend on going out that fast. I was about a minute slower on my subsequent miles and really had to push myself to finish the last half mile running. The race started at 7.30, so the sun was already up and the humidity was already ridiculous. It was a hot race. I don't do well in the heat standing still, much less running so that compounded why I was surprised with my time. This was also the first race that I can remember where I didn't do well on my finish. Normally I can out-sprint anyone, but I couldn't this time. In fact, I got out-sprinted by two ladies I had passed.  I know it's a product of going out so fast, but I guess I should be happy because I may not have even been close to those ladies or that time if I had gone out slower. I ended up finishing 4th in my age group - one place away from medaling. This race gives me a lot of confidence for our next 5k on the first of October - Lexington Cares. I'm hoping with consistent mileage at or above 3 miles, my 5k time will be even better next race.  I need to take about 7 minutes off of my time to meet my goal, but with consistent training with longer distances, I think it will be do-able.

Crossing the finish line

I'm so proud of Ali on this race because it originally had been her goal to finish in under 30, but she ended up either breaking or severely spraining her toe earlier that week. She finished in a very respectable time just over 30 given that situation.

So this is why I was Supermama...not only did I cook enough food for half of a month of eating, but I also ran a 5k that morning.




(And I have to end on this shout-out: Of course none of this could have been accomplished without my hubby's help. His support makes all of the above happen.)