Three solutions

ONE
A post by Something Remarkable got me thinking about the first two solutions in this post...

When I was pregnant with M, I decided that I was really really tired of cleaning my house.  So, I hired a maid.  Best decision ever.  This wonderful woman and her wonderful daughter come every Monday morning and my home is sparkly clean when I get home on Monday evening.  They even change my bed sheets.

TWO
One of the more recent things that is weighing me down is cooking dinner.  I am finding it very hard to pick M up from day care at 5pm, get home and have dinner prepared so we/she can be eating by 5:45pm, in order to avoid a total hunger meltdown on her or my or Dh's part, and get bathed and PJd and stories-read by 7:30pm.  It meant absolutely not a second to spare.

Stressful.

A good friend of mine mentioned that a friend of hers who works full time hired a personal chef.

My dad mentioned the idea when my parents were in town over the holidays.  He even found a couple of websites and sent me the links.

Encouragement is a nice thing.

So I looked into it.  I found two people that looked interesting.  One was a woman who comes to your house one day a week and cooks in your kitchen, leaving you three dinners in your fridge (four with leftovers).  This was delish, and it was nice to have the smell of yummy food just cooked when I got home.  But it kind of weirded me out to have someone in my house cooking.

The other person is a guy who cooks in a professional kitchen and brings 10 dinners to your house every other week.  The idea is that he has a key and drops off the food if you are home or not, so there is very little to no inconvenience once you get things set up.

We've had our second dinner that he cooked and may I say, it is pretty dang good.

On one level I love this.  It is SOOOO nice to just heat up a very nicely cooked, fresh, healthy, dinner without the stress of having to plan it, cook ahead of time, or cram the cooking into a ridiculously short amount of time when you are already tired and it is making you sad that your child and spouse are playing in the living room without you, but you can't complain because the alternative is to be holding small child in one arm or having her hanging off your leg the whole time whining for you to pick her up while you are cooking.

But on another level, it is weird.  I didn't feel so much like a complete slacker when I got someone to clean my house.  But cooking?  That's like a whole 'nother can of worms.  That's what us mamas are supposed to do, isn't it?  isn't cooking like love?  I know, I know.  Stereotypes and old fashioned notions of motherhood. But it is hard to kick those thoughts/feelings out of your head and heart.

I think I'm going to keep having this guy cook for us for a while though.  I am finding that I am eating healthier outside of dinner too.  It's expensive, so I have definitely traded quite a lot of my income for quality of life, but I am incredibly lucky to be in a two-professor-salary home, so it is do-able.

THREE
Ok, so the complaint about Dh's yucky mouth guard and bad morning breath?  I wrote a cute little poem in the valentine's day card I made him.  Something along the lines of, "despite the scary morning breath and not-so-sexy mouth guard, you still make me weak in the knees...yada yada yada."

It worked.

Lovin' has gotten back on track.  And that is making everything better this last week.