Saturday Morning Meal Planning

Here we are again, back around to another weekend.  The little one is squirming around happily in my abdomen, my middle child is snoring happily in his bed, and my oldest is in the car with his dad, heading north for a few days at the grandparents’ house.  We decided to give him the week off before “big boy school” starts, but as Daddy couldn’t take a full week off (major paper due), he hightailed it to his parents’ place to get a hand with childcare.  We would’ve sent the middle child, too, but it’s a long drive and tough to do with both of them.  So he’s staying home for special “mommy and me” time.

Here is where I briefly lament one of the features of American life, particular to our country in the civilized world: our craptastic vacation leave policies.  When I lived and worked in England, I received six paid weeks of vacation in a year, and would have every year if I’d stayed.  It was such a blessing.  People in England with jobs have time in their year to visit friends and family, go on a Mediterranean vacation in summer and a skiing holiday in winter, take two weeks off at Christmas . . . they get regular opportunities to recharge and renew.  What I wouldn’t give to have been able to have taken this week off with Jack, and Liam, too – to just have one week of summer with my kids.  In America, we call that “lazy” – only lazy people want paid time off from work, entitled people want to be able to have a job and also take short breaks from it.  In other countries, they seem to embrace it as an investment in family and personal happiness, which makes for better employees in my humble and grumpy opinion.

Anyway, I am taking four days off in October this year for a family holiday to Disney World, and that’s pretty much all I get for the year except for an aborted Fifth of July day off (was supposed to be off, was called in) and one day around Labor Day.  I have attempted to make flexible work arrangements in order to visit family, working out of different locations of my firm’s offices that are close to family members, so I can at least have evenings with them and the boys can spend time with them.  But it’s tough – it’s tough to have scattered family in this enormous country who you’d like to visit, and also to want to see some things in this old life, and to need a break on occasion, to be thought lazy and selfish for wanting that.  GROUSE GROUSE.

So, I get no summer break with my kids except what we can squeeze in on weekends.  But at least Jack has somewhere he can go, where he can ride his bike and swim and go berry picking and explore in the woods and do whatever his little boy heart desires from sun up to sun down for one week before he launches us all into the new frontier of public school life.  Meanwhile, Liam and I attempted some fun on our own today.  In order to distract him from the fact that he didn’t get to go to his grandparents’ house, as the Professor and Jack were driving away, Liam and I also loaded up in the other car and drove away, down to an outdoor shopping mall here in town that has some water fountains that kids play in.  We had packed a backpack with some juice boxes, snacks, and a towel, and he proudly lugged that thing around on his back across the parking lot.  According to the plan, we first walked past the fountains and into the adjacent bookstore in order to buy a children’s book for a friend’s son’s birthday.  NOT according to plan, Liam found a train platform all set up, and proceeded to play for almost an hour.  At first I tried to hustle him, but then realized – awww, what the heck, this outing is for him, let him do what he wants!  So we played trains for a while, until he got bored, and then we bought our book and trotted back out to the fountains.  Unfortunately, in that span of time some sort of crazy storm had blown in – the temp had dropped noticeably, the wind was whipping the trees, and the sky looked ominous.  I hustled him off to splash as long as the weather held, and twenty minutes later the skies opened up.  We had a giggling dash to the car.  I changed him into dry clothes in the trunk, meanwhile getting my own clothes soaked, and then we headed home for a lunch of crackers, cheese and fruit.  Now he’s napping, and I’ve got my feet propped up on the coffee table, I’m watching the Pioneer Woman cooking show and making next week’s meal plan.

Last week was largely a hit.  For the pizzas I ended up  making homemade French bread pizzas, allowing the boys to “decorate” their own.  That was probably their favorite.  Jack was especially adventurous, chowing down on olives and onions and even trying a radish (“too spicy” was his verdict).  (The radish went on salads for the Professor and me, NOT on the pizzas.)  They also loved the ravioli with burst tomatoes and mascarpone – they refused to eat the burst tomatoes themselves, but everything else went down the hatch.  I highly recommend that one as a nice alternative to red sauce or pesto on ravioli.  The roasted red pepper and goat cheese angel hair was also amazing, as was the sausage and broccoli pasta (I made it with pasta wheels, to up the kid interest factor).  My boys will eat pretty much anything pasta.  The marinated chicken was also great.  Really the only one they didn’t dig was the enchiladas – too spicy – so we let them eat leftover “wheels” that night and their father and I happily dug in.  Tonight I’m making the turkey cutlets with tomato cream sauce – my last item.  As it is meat and pasta, I’m hoping Liam will like it.

This week, as it’s just me and Liam for a few days, I’ve had to be a little creative.  I am trying to make things that appeal to me, that I can adapt to appeal to him, and also make in small doses as neither one of us eats too much in a sitting.  We also have some events this week – Jack’s “meet the teacher” night, and my friend’s son’s first birthday party, which is a dessert party one evening.  So the following meal plan is designed to work with that schedule.

Sunday: buffalo chicken salad.  I will make just one chicken breast for us to share, and adapt this so the buffalo sauce isn’t so hot.  Liam can just eat cut up chicken and applesauce, while I can build a personal sized salad all por moi.

Monday: Swedish meatballs over egg noodles and a veggie side.  Amalah swears her kids inhale these, so I thought I’d let my meat lovin’ Liam test them out.  I can also easily freeze leftover meatballs for later use.

Tuesday: baked fish sticks, macaroni and cheese, and veggies.  To counteract the meatstravaganza of the past two days.

Wednesday: Ginger steak salad – a long time fave.  The fam will be reunited by this time, and this is a nice quick dish.  The boys can just have some strips of steak, and a fruit or vegetable side.  They don’t do salad – not yet.

Thursday: Leftovers day.

Friday: Taco bar.  I like the idea of Friday night meals being a participation event – I think the boys are more likely to eat it if they help make it, and it makes Fridays feel a little fun.

Saturday: Spaghetti night.  Mmmmmm.