Motherhood and Menu Plans

With Mother's Day yesterday, I kept seeing post after post pop up from other bloggers I follow reflecting on the beauty and joy of motherhood. This would have been the weekend for that, wouldn't it? It's too bad that, when I called my mother to wish her a happy Mother's Day and she asked how we were doing, my initial response was to suggest selling her only grandson to the zoo... 

Little Bear is a good kid. He sleeps through the night, mostly. He often entertains himself while I make dinner. He only fusses when something is actually wrong, not just because he is bored. He loves his daddy and me, and is almost always happy to play with us. He greets us with "Mama" and "Dad," sings with us in the car, comes crawling down the hall or around the corner to "find" us with the biggest grin on his face... And I know all of this. But when he's teething, and biting, and whining while he tries to climb on me as I try to work on a freelance writing job, it can be too easy to forget all of the wonderful things about being named Mama and just focus on the negative. 

I don't want that. I want to be the kind of mom my mother is, patient, compassionate, prayerful, joyful, pretty much perfect. I have a long way to go, but at least I have a good example.

Thank you, Mom, for being that example to me and all of your kids. Thank you, Matt, for being patient with me and loving me even though I haven't finished growing into "the perfect wife and mother" yet. Thank you, Little Bear, for making me a mother and helping me to keep growing every day...

As part of that working toward Perfect Wife & Mother-hood (I know, I know...) I've been thinking about posting my weekly menu plans on Mondays. I am hoping this will a) motivate me to actually finish planning the week's meals by mid-Monday and b) cut down on the number of days Matt gets home from work to see his wife working on the computer with a sleeping baby across her lap and no dinner started. Life happens, and I certainly won't feel obligated to make everything in the order I write it down if something else comes up, but having some kind of structure might help.

{Week of May 13}

Monday - hot ham and cheese sandwiches, green salad

Tuesday - vegetable-chicken stir fry, rice

Wednesday - egg bake (ham, potato, tomato, bell pepper)

Thursday - chicken enchiladas, green salad

Friday - vegetable soup

Saturday - moose meatball subs, green salad

Sunday - leftover night