Home again, home again, jiggety jog.
Ahhh, that’s better. Back in bed the office with Bagpurrito again, trusty teapot by my side, computer reliably connected to the internet and a day sans enfants stretching ahead of me. What bliss.
I am slightly sticking my head in the sand vis a vis various unpleasant tasks I have to perform today which include preparing the tax return (surely not more than 10mins?), making comparison calls to lower our car insurance (zzzzz) and hiring a hit man to assassinate the owner of the Cat House Hotel who put a tape collar on poor Bagpurrito which left him with a giant bald patch and a sore on his neck. I am taking recommendations so please feel free to leave one in the comments.
And other less than pleasing news is that the wonderful new nursery I had lined up to send One to when Two (did you like reading that? 1 2 1 2. It’s my little joke..) is already turning out not to be so wonderful and he’s not even attending yet.
I had a letter from them yesterday saying that the teacher I had requested – the big draw to this place for me – had left because he was unhappy with working “part time”. This seems rather suspect as I was never told he was part time in the first place.
Also they announced the ‘exciting news’ that they would also be operating the nursery school as a ‘drop in center’ in addition to their regular curriculum and please tell our friends with children aged 2 -6 that they could have ad-hoc child care at the nursery.
Uh, WHAT? I am not paying top whack to have my precious child go to a place which is going to be a glorified babysitting service for anyone who wants to go out for a couple of hours. That is a great service to have in and of itself, I wouldn’t mind using it from time to time, but not really at the place where I want my darling little tot to be learning his shapes, continuity, group socialisation and getting individual attention from his teacher in a small ratio.
I could, of course, keep him where he is – it’s a lovely place, but it’s quite a drive away near Husband’s work, whereas Four’s school is a short walk from home(as was the new nursery). And as for getting him into another nice one near home:
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Yes, if I’d put him down on the waiting list before I’d had Four, I could have done that.
Maybe Husband could take and drop him off? (And monkeys might fly out my butt?)
Maybe could teach One to drive himself?
Maybe I could home pre-school One?
And get double dose of meds from Doc?
For us both?
And the cat?
I see it’s time for elevenses. Paddington’s favourite time of day. I don’t have a bun but I am sure I can dig something out to eat. Excuse me while I replenish the teapot..
..I’m back.
Ok, WHY IS IT that I went to the supermarket last night, spent over $300 and there is still no food in the house?
Potty Mummy wrote a post recently about how she planned a weeks’ meals and then did the shopping for those meals and saved money in the process.
How did she do that?
Mrs. Trefusis? You boast of being clairvoyant.
How the hell does one know what one will want to eat? Or what one’s offspring will deign to consume at any given time?
Or what one will be able to bear to make for them when one feels like running off to dance class and pretending one is not their mother, feeding them is the babysitter’s job?
Could it be that I missed some vital home economic lessons due to parental inattention and the fact that my school did not offer home economics.
Or perhaps they did but I was…not there very much (Roy Rogers in Georgetown, you have much to answer for).
I am not very good at lists – I get writer’s block when Husband suggests we write a one prior to going to the store and I get the same sense of sinking doom when I enter the doors of Trader Joe’s until I reach the fancy bread or chocolate aisles. That part is easy but then my guilt will not allow me to buy the delicious things I actually want to eat so I come back with a bag of carrots that slowly go bendy in the fridge, some milk and a small packet of frozen peas.
Cost: $317.25
I need some assistance from you experienced shoppers.
How do you combat meal planning failure and supermarket ennui?
{ 31 comments }
I have gone through many many phases with my meal planning and supermarket shopping in my families life. At present I do a weekly shop for the non perishables, and fresh food to get me through the first half of the week, I then pop to the local shops for any top ups needed. I did home economics and passed with flying colours and did a hotel management course so catering for my family is not a problem, the only thing is they are all so fussy that I am sometimes cooking 2 or 3 meals for one sitting which is fine if I have the time but a real pain if I am short of time. Not knowing you or your family it is hard to give suggestions on how to ease your situation. Favourites in our house include: macaroni cheese, shepherds pie, roast dinner, beef sausages in gravy with mash, steak and jacket with greens, breaded chicken, pasta bolognaise and chicken curry
brenda’s last blog post..Stunning jewellery that would make a wonderful gift
Fuck knows, gorgeous. I buy a heap of random shit, mainly biscuits and yoghurt, and then end up ferreting around in the freezer to find something to eat. Children only accept two meals currently – pasta w peas and lardons or chicken fajitas. Picky little buggers.
Came home today with 6 different types of yoghurt, THREE TYPES OF WAFFLE (totally true), four packets of biscuits and no, uh, food. Ah well. Will be reading comments with interest.
Jaywalker’s last blog post..Fuck you, Wednesday
Online delivery.
Pros – No tantrums, queues, or unnecessary browsing of ‘buy one, get one free’.
Cons – Shame shit each week.
Take your pick
Emily Bassin’s last blog post..What’s in a name?
Brenda. I am humbled. I can tell you passed home ec. with flying colours. I can barely cook ONE meal at one sitting, let alone three. My GOD! I do a lot of mac and cheese but have to confess it comes out of a rectangular box that you boil and add suspect packet to. It says it’s organic though.. How do you do breaded chicken? Other than buy frozen, of course? They won’t eat shepherds pie because don’t like mixed textures (grr). Maybe problem is that they won’t eat anything. I don’t eat anything either except tea and toast. Husband eats everything. I think he’s moving to your house. Still not sure how you translate the lovely food into a list without wanting to cry.
Jaywalker. Once again I am disturbed by our similarities. It sounds like we have same stock in cupboards. However you mention Belgian supermarches v. disgusting whereas the US ones quite nice. But still I fail.
Emily.They don’t do online delivery in Stepford (why, I don’t know). But even if they did I would not know what to buy. I would stare at internet in despair and come back to my first problem which is THE LIST. And then I’d play on Twitter and everyone would starve.
I speak as someone who has no children, so my only experience is from being one (a long time ago).
But … (deep breath) exactly when did the children start dictating the menu? My recollection of childhood dinners goes like this:
Me: What’s for dinner?
Mum:
Me: I don’t like that.
Mum: Too bad, this is all there is. I’m not cooking anything else.
And later, at the dinner table:
Mum: Not hungry? You can leave the table now.
Needless to say, I don’t recall ever having done so.
How did that give way to “I will only eat chicken nuggets from now on” (which was the basic diet of a nephew of mine for 10+ years and he’s stunted and deathly pale).
I am bracing myself for the barrage of stale bread rolls about to come my way. 🙂
In theory we do that once the damned meal is cooked, but prior to assembling it some thought goes into what can we purchase that the little angels might eat. Also, easier to be hardass with a nearly 5 year old (who does not get any pud if she does not eat her dinner) than nearly 2 year old who can outwit you by shouting NO! and throwing whatever is handy at your head, refuse to eat it and will punish you by waking up at 1am crying because he is hungry.
I just want to know how to go SHOPPING and then COOK something that SOMEONE will want to eat (self included). Moving towards tea and toast for every meal for everyone for next 15 years (see Bread and Jam for Frances)
Yes I can see where the plan falls apart for the infant. Nighttime revenge, that’s not nice!!
Shopping’s the worst part whether it’s for kids or not. Even just shopping for hubby and me, if I go to the store and randomly roam picking up things that we like to eat, I seem to end up with disparate elements that don’t go together as a meal, and at least a few things will get thrown away because they don’t go with anything and I can’t incorporate them into a meal.
Potty Mummy has the right idea. Once before I started working over here and had to budget carefully, I would do what she did, plan the week’s meals, shop for them, and it did save waste and a bunch of money. In the current crunch, I’m contemplating going back to that style.
So planning seems to be the key. If it was just Four you could include her in the planning but that’s not going to work with One almost Two. :/
Ok, baked beans with sausages in – all you need to do is open the tin and heat them up. Even you can do it. Also pasta parcels with things inside that sound healthy (like spinach and ricotta or ham and mushroom) so you feel like you’re doing your bit… and again all you need to do is boil some water. Easy and the children love them. I alternate those every two days…
Emily Bassin’s last blog post..What’s in a name?
Nigella Express. More reliable than crystal nball
Mrs Trefusis’s last blog post..VANITY OF VANITIES
Caroline; It’s the planning that defeats me. Planning for what? As soon as the word PLAN enters the lexicon I feel a huge need for a nap.
Emily, we’re getting closer. Beans and sausages. Yes! And I have little mini cheese raviolis that come out 3 or 4 times a week.
Mrs. T. Nigella Express – googled this and recipes and her makeup look fab, but still requires complex reading, translating into weekly format, putting on to paper, and organisation that is beyond me.
Maybe I am just shite at this. Or is it that I just hate it?
Just cook the same things over and over again: I did, my mother did and probably my daughter will if she loathes cooking as much as mother and me. Sig. other is a whizz in the kitchen department, so i console myself with the knowledge that everyone will get something thoughtful, balanced and creative at the weekend. Having one car helps: can’t be arsed going shopping in the evening and sig. other works until 8pm, 9pm,10pm whenever “it’s” finished and I have to be really in the mood to trek into local town centre, sooooo we make do with what we have in: sweet!
katherine’s last blog post..Shabbalism or a load of old sh*$ ?
Please Mrs Trefusis tell me you don’t make healthy delicious Nigella Express recipes when you get home from a long day at the coal face of being impossibly glamorous? Becase I will just roll over and die.
Jaywalker’s last blog post..Fuck you, Wednesday
I can’t do lists, they give me hives and I am on a budget, so fail safe shopping for myself and uberpicky daughter goes like this….(and I can’t believe I’m writing you a list, you owe me antihistamines)
Fruit and veggies to include onions and garlic
Beef (for bolognese or stew) and/or (happy) whole chicken (Roast one day make curry/pie out of leftovers next), sausages.
Eggs (egg toast/omelettes/boiled/with rice)
Cheese, milk, cream, yogurt, butter, wholemeal bread.
Tinned toms, nice jar of curry sauce (to add to leftover chicken or ancient veggies or both)
Olive oil, pasta, rice, pesto, hummus, smoked salmon (not really budget food but daughter likes it and……it’s protein)
Fish fingers (requires no effort), something from ready meal section, usually quiche (requires no effort) Fresh tortellini (fast and requires no effort).
1 packet of biscuits (for bribery) 1 pack choc ices (for bribery).
Admittedly not overly inspiring, but covers cop outs, never requires much thought or preparation, small one will generally eat it and we no longer have to spend whole evening eating doritos because I can’t face the supermarket. Bonne courage!
Late developer’s last blog post..Reasons to be Cheerful
Jaywalker, she does. Mrs Trefusis is a freak of nature (in a good way, obviously). There is no hope for the rest of us.
Late developer’s last blog post..Reasons to be Cheerful
Late Developer: THANK YOU! OMFG, this was just what I needed. One giant pack of jumbo antihistamines winging its way over to you with box of virtual chocolates.
My family will not know what’s hit them. I forgot about roast chicken. Oh YES!
Jaywalker. I had been looking foward to meeting Mrs. Trefusis IRL at some point when I borrowed her hairdresser to save me from deathly mophead syndrome on Stepford escape jaunt to London , but this latest information from Late Developer is too intimidating. Plus I don’t think I have any pyjamas suitable for the trip.
and to think, we WANT to have kids!!!
i’ll tell you, i’ve become quite upset with the miserable cycle
that we call “eating.” it’s ABSOLUTELY ridiculous. it NEVER
ends. we eat, we shit, then it’s like, “what do we eat now???”
over and over. until we die.
i often wish i was uber-wealthy, not just to have the world-class
motors i dream of, the mansions, the pools, etc… no, i want to be
a bazillionaire mostly just to have the dough to hire some gypsy
to buy and cook a variety of healthy delicious foods for us, every
single day.
and i even count myself as someone fortunate enough to eat the very
wholesome, fresh, natural, delicious foods we buy exclusively from
whole foods (often referred to as “whole paychecks.”) i head over there
weekly, or more, in my exceedingly german mini-suv, and pick out
what to stock our lovely viking fridge with. and they might as well just
SELL me the bendy carrots because i have never eaten a store-bought
carrot ever. ever.
admittedly, it’s quite a step up from scrounging through the couch
(either mine or a friend’s) looking for change with which to buy a packet of ramen noodles or a can of the good white tuna. but in a sense, NOT being
able to AFFORD TO EAT was so DAMN FREEING!!!
dear god, i am fucking starving right now.
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Claire’s last blog post..Wordless Wednesday….
Kev, that’s so funny! I know your pain. I often look at the cupboards gratefully when they are empty and think “Well, I guess I’m not really hungry then” and make a cup of tea, but unfortunately with children, I have discovered, if you don’t feed them regularly they become singularly disagreeable.
Now, where is your BLOG?! Get it off that myspace crap and on to blogger or similar and entertain us all with your prose. I mean it. Even Jessica is going to do it. That is if you can find time in between the trips to the grocery store..
Hah hah! I do Nigella Express. But just as the house is suffused with the delicious and enticing scent of wine and herbs stewing gently in the oven, Mr Trefusis ruins it all by saying ‘Chicken? I’m not eating bloody chicken’ and then eats the sauce from the Coq Au Riesling on the pappardelle and leaves the chicken. At which point I have to go into the broom cupboard and twitter madly until the desire to stick a fork in the middle of his head subsides. Also like visualising tapping his head gently yet persistently with meat tenderiser. And my children eat nothing but plain pasta with butter and parmesan (though called Savoury Sprinkles because Trefusis Minor ‘hates cheese’) or peanut butter sandwiches. Which considerably reduces the burden of culinary creativity when it comes to the infants. And a friend of mine gave me the best piece of advice ever when it comes to feeding children ‘give them chocolate – chocolate cereal, nutella, chocolate pancakes, chocolate milk – who cares whether it’s bad for them? they’ll eat it, and you won’t turn into Medea when you’re scraping yet another disdained plate of salmon and broccoli bake the plate and into the bin
Mrs T’s last blog post..VANITY OF VANITIES
Littleboy 1 eats wraps, hummus and salami for about 50% of his meals. A bizarre combination, but he and his brother both like it. Most other meals he rejects. At least it makes shopping simplee…….
nappyvalleygirl’s last blog post..Get the look
“How do you combat meal planning failure and supermarket ennui?”
Our local Dillons has a superb Chines buffet. You buy a meal for one for $6.99, and this being America, it’s more than enough for two. It’s delicious. That’s Friday night sorted. Only 6 more to go…
Iota’s last blog post..Identity crisis
Chinese, not Chines, obviously.
Mrs. T, I am relieved to hear that Mr. T and the offspring are not also perfect or I would have gone into a permanent decline. I like the chocolate menu. It would work for me too.
Nappyvalleygirl: How amazing that Littleboy 1 will eat wraps! I’m assuming not the paper kind you buy off dodgy blokes in Hoxton that contain powder, but the roly sarnie kind, right? Four won’t touch them. She used to eat hummus but now refuses (too slimy). Sigh.
Iota: That is a BARGAIN! Can’t you go every night? I would. Except of course my children wouldn’t eat anything on the menu.
Actually, I am also guilty of Potty Mother’s ‘crime’ The Weelky Mealplan, and have found that since implementing it life has become immeasurably easier. I know is sounds wanky, but, by jingo, it actually works! By spending half an hour, once a week, (on any given day, you choose, preferably in tandem with day of weekly shop), planning what we will be eating, I have saved myself so much heartache, wringing of depairing hands and gnashing of teeth. Oh yes, and last but not least, (possibly should be foremost in these times of penury) MONEY.
Added, and totally unexpected, bonuses have been, not having to root around in bottom of freezer/back of pantry, a recurring backache has subsided and, now this is the big one, not being exposed to the horrors that lie within. It’s a win, win! So, go on, give it a go, I dare you, you never know, you may actually like it.
Addendum: Do not want to give false impression of goddess-like domesticity.
Bottom of freezer/back of pantry will bear testament to this! Total slattern in ALL other ways, (but MPing does work!).
I commented yesterday but the computer ate my post.
My husband does the meal planning, shopping, budgeting, loyalty card discounts. He is genius on our tight budget.
I do have to convince him that in a pinch I am capable of grocery shopping and meal planning. I did survive on my own from 18 – 27 and didnt eat out every night (although there was plenty of that between nice men and living in Adams Morgan).
When I lived with those 2 chronic alcoholics we never cooked or bought food and they would steal and eat anything I brought home. They used to get drunk and hide the liquor from each other and then forget they had and accuse each other of stealing it. Once we turned on the oven to warm something up and nearly blew up the flat as a plastic pint of Odessa Vodka was lovingly nestled in the oven.
Asitis, I think I would like to do this meal planning thing but I feel overcome by terror at the mere thought of approaching it. I feel similarly about filling in forms and attending conferences of any type. I actually emailed Potty Mummy yesterday and she has promised me both her list and the corresponding meal plan so I won’t have to actually think one up myself. We’ll see how it goes.. I live in hope.
Jessica: Your husband sounds like a gem! Those 2 nutters you lived with in the old days. Well, least said, soonest mended. On balance agreed, best not to find..
I must confess: I’m the list-making, menu-planning type.
However, for those who are planning-challenged, check out: http://www.thescramble.com for preplanned, kid-friendly menus complete with shopping lists that get emailed to you weekly. Great mom-owned business.
I just don’t know, love. It’s a total fucking nightmare getting them to eat anything. What I REALLY hate is when you think you’ve cracked it and come up with something popular as they eat it all. So you cook it AGAIN and they won’t TOUCH it the second time round!!!!!!!! ARGH. All I can suggest is making vast vats of bolognese sauce and freezing in portions so that you can always have with pasta when can’t think what the hell to cook. My daughter won’t eat the sauce but she’s always offered it. If she gets ill from following the white diet then it’s not my bloody fault!
Cassandra’s last blog post..Divine, darling
Domestic, I am clicking DIRECTLY through, thank you. It does not surprise me, with a moniker like yours, that you are an expert planner. I am sure that it does not surprise you that I am not. But perhaps there is hope?
Cassandra. I do actually freeze the bolognese and am even occasionally moved to do fish pie in the same gargantuan job lots which then go into tiny little foil cases. Unfortunately they have started refusing these with about 15 still in the freezer and I don’t like them either. AGHHH! Yes, white diet. So much pasta. Or rather white and brown because chocolate always acceptable, somehow..
I’m replying to your comment, Caroline, because I see you are having trouble getting on to the blog, but NO IDEA why!?
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