Author: Rebecca Cuneo Keenan

Rebecca Cuneo Keenan is a writer who lives in Toronto with her husband and three children.

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Friday Night Swimming and Mandarin Take-Out

A big, full-belly thank you to Mandarin Restaurant for sponsoring this post.

The season of swimming lessons is upon us. Man, do I ever hate swimming lessons. It’s essentially a solid hour of wrestling one kid and then another into and out of swim suits, combing out hair, drying bodies and picking up socks off wet change room floors while keeping tabs on a wriggly toddler at the same time. In the few minutes of downtime between their staggered class starts, I get to sweat my butt off in the five hundred degree pool room. This is the real reason for global warming, I tell you.

And yet I do it. Every spring and summer I enroll the kids in lessons hoping they will learn enough to keep from sinking like rocks in the event of some water emergency. Or I guess I hope they’ll learn to swim for exercise and fun and all that too. But we are not an aquatic people and they never do learn much at all and I am so exhausted by the effort that I take the winter off to recuperate.

So anyway, swimming happens on Friday evening between five and six and that means no time for cooking. (Stop it right there with your crock pot recipes! Can I not have an excuse for eating out?) When I found out my ad network was launching a blog campaign for Mandarin Restaurant, I immediately thought of how much Colum loves their all-you-can-eat buffet. Then I thought of three hungry and tired kids in a busy restaurant on a Friday night and just how many things could go wrong. Right.

But then! Then I found out you can do Mandarin take-out or delivery! Who knew?

We brought home more than we could eat for less money and when Mary started crying and trying to escape from her high chair five minutes into the meal, it wasn’t a big deal. And when Irene had to run to the bathroom, nobody had to go with her. And when Colum started falling out of his chair due to some seven-year-old boy-requisite mid-meal ninja moves, nobody glared at us from the next table. It was pretty fantastic.

Colum’s favourite dish was the Mandarin Combination fried rice and also the baby corns that came with the mixed vegetables. Irene ate only chicken and broccoli and Mary was a noodle gobbling monster. Ed was all about the lemon chicken and honey garlic spare ribs. That meant more pepper steak for me! There’s seriously, like, a hundred dishes to choose from and they’re all cooked fresh to order.

On the one hand, it’s too bad we are just outside their delivery zone. On the other, it’s 10% off pick-up orders over $20 when you pay with cash. So, you know, win-win.

And one day my kids will learn to swim, right? Then we’ll really go out celebrate.

This post is sponsored by Mandarin Restaurant. Opinions and words are still mine, of course.

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Momosphere Recap: Mommy Business Trips, Drunk Reese and More

•  The Wall Street Journal stole the show late in the week with an article belittling mommy conferences and their attendees. The indignation was immediate (and I’m sure it will continue well into next week.) The article leads with an interview with Katherine Stone of Postpartum Progressand makes the case that conferences are nothing more than dressed up “mommy business trips.” They are excuses for moms to escape the day-to-day and have fun with their girlfriends under the guise of professionalism.

There’s certainly something to that perspective given that only a relative handful of the 5000 attendees at Blogher, say, are really running their blogs as a business. It is beyond me, though, what that has to do with a well-established and successful blogger like Katherine Stone. Here’s Stone’s response  and Cecily K’s wrath on Babble, Joanne Bamberger’s tidy rebuke on Broadside and Jessica Gottleib reminding us that if we brand ourselves as mommies, then we should hardly be surprised when everyone else calls us mommy too.

I don’t doubt that the article was little more than a sensationalist pageview grab. Then again, I am now subscribed to the Wall Street Journal.

•  It was otherwise a mostly quiet week from where I sit (which was just fine by me). We all gossiped about Reese Witherspoon’s drunken antics when her husband got charged with a DUI, but that got stale fast. Lego’s opening a school in Denmark and the Duchess is still pregnant and planning to stay with her mum for a bit (gasp!) when the baby’s born.

•  But before we eagerly move on to lighter times and let the horrors of last week fade away altogether, read this TwoBusy post on Dadcentric. It’s a stirring and poetic account of a family trapped in their home with a madman on the loose. Nothing happens and everything does. It’s blogging at its best.

More of me. Other stuff I wrote online this week (and last, in this case):

Can A Woman Rape a Man? Our Double Standard When It Comes to Sex Assault at iVillage.ca

10 Things You Need to Know About Justin Trudeau at iVillage.ca

Clever or Crass? Playtex Animal Ad Campaign Aims to Help Keep Your Pecker and Your Beaver Clean at iVillage.ca

Image credit.

 

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What Do You Mean I’m Not Supermom?

I was stretched out on the couch with a cup of herbal tea Sunday night. I was going to watch the new episode of Mad Men and then head to bed when it was over at 11pm. Early for me. Ed paused to say goodnight and I stopped him to say, “Thank you. Thank you for this weekend.”

He looked confused. I could see him mentally thumbing through the weekend’s activities: nursing one last kid through the final stages of a stomach bug, bickering about housework, writing up a new list of chores for us to ignore, grocery shopping, the tyke hockey finals, brunch with his mom, a trip to Canadian Tire for t-ball gear and a scooter, cleaning up the yard a bit, burgers for Sunday dinner, kiddie bath and bedtime. Pretty uneventful, all in all, and I was damned happy for it.

Because two nights earlier I was brought to tears trying to cook chili for dinner while all of the children ran around screaming like banshees and time marched mercilessly on.

You know how everyone tells you to take time for yourself? To make sure your basic needs are taken care of so you’ll have more to give? Yadda yadda yadda. Whatever, I always thought, I have super endurance powers. I don’t need sleep.

I could drive the entire five hours from Ottawa to Toronto while Ed naps because he needs to rest. I could then stay up late writing a well-received post that I was also vilified for because I was too bleary-eyed to properly consider how people might feel. I could wake up early and spend my morning’s worth of paid childcare dealing with that flack and thus have to stay up late again to catch up on work. I could then squeeze a haircut into my childcare window so I might look half-decent for a meeting with a Toronto Star photographer and then realize at the last minute that I don’t have the car key to drop off the kids at my parents and have to walk the girls to the bus stop to get Colum and frantically text the photographer and my dad and figure out how I’m going to make it there.

I could pretty much run on adrenaline for an entire week, I figured, trying to juggle a million different responsibilities and look good doing it. New haircut!

So there I was trying to defrost ground beef at 5:45pm because some kid asked for chili last week and dammit, I should be making more home cooked meals, what’s wrong with me, why am I so lazy? And the kitchen was a disaster zone and I kept yelling for Colum to go upstairs and do his homework and Irene was crying about wanting more TV and the toddler was running around wreaking toddler havoc and the ground beef wouldn’t cook fast enough and I couldn’t even get the cutting board washed to chop up the cauliflower I always add and the dishwasher needed to be emptied and filled and I was tripping over toys and papers and play jewelry and stray socks and odd rain boots and I said, “NO, YOU CAN’T PLAY WITH THE TABLET.”

My brain was running at some souped-up, caffeine-addled frantic speed and all the things I’ve ever wanted to get done kept looping through with the utmost urgency. Emails to write, parties to plan, shopping to do, bills to pay, posts and stories and novels to write, laundry, dishes, toys, window washing, gardening, home renos, baseball games, swimming lessons, book proposals, grocery shopping, pest control, taxes, homework and cooking dinner. Why would it not cook?!

I was sobbing over the stove.

Mercifully, Ed came home then. He kept the kids away while I finished dinner. I served it two hours after I started, at 7:45 pm, only 15 minutes before kiddie bedtime. And then I left the room, went upstairs and passed out.

I slept. I slept and I slept and I woke up when Irene threw up in bed and changed her sheets and brought her a bowl and went back and slept some more. It was wonderful.

It turns out I’m not supermom after all. I think I’ll try to remember this for a couple weeks.

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Momosphere Recap: Actually, I’mma Pass On This One

You know what? Screw this week and it’s bombings and explosions and manhunts. It has been a non-stop string of terror and horror and sadness.

Let’s instead take a moment to remember last week when one of the most talked about things in my social media feed was this guy’s tumblr of his crying kid.

I’m going to go make my own toddler cry when I stop her from choking to death on a Lego piece and be bloody thankful that this is my life right now.

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Some Things Should Stay The Same: Fisher-Price Favourites

Thanks to Fisher-Price for sponsoring this post.

I tapped lightly on the same knocker that has adorned my grandmother’s front door all my life. The kids kicked off their shoes and scampered up the same staircase I ran up as a child to the spare room with all the toys. I slid into the same built-in banquet and sat at the same Formica-topped table that my father was bathed on as a baby. We drank tea from the same teapot we always do.

There is such comfort and warmth in having these constants in my life. I can’t help but think that my Ikea furniture won’t make it another five years, let alone 50. And as I watch friends and family buy and sell houses, always angling for bigger, better, newer or nicer, I can’t help but wonder what we’re trading away. Nothing lasts forever, of course, but it’s nice to have a few important things last a really long time.

Now I know I’m laying it on a bit thick here because I’m about to start talking about Fisher-Price toys. But bear with me, please. I had just been assigned this campaign when I visited my Grandma. I went up to check on the kids and suddenly noticed they were playing with this:

I have vivid memories of playing with this toy at my grandparent’s house as a young child myself. A closer look confirmed that it is indeed a Fisher-Price toy and that the doorbell still works.

Fisher-Price doesn’t make that toy any longer, but they do still make products that last.

Looking through a list of Fisher-Price favourites, I saw a couple that my own kids have used and used over the year.

The My Little Snugabunny Cradle N Swing has actually served six or seven babies in our extended family. I borrowed it from Ed’s cousin for each of my newborns who used it for her own three babies and then passed it along to another family member as well. It feels like new every time I put a baby in it and is a total life saver for those first few weeks.

We all know this one, right? Even if you don’t have kids, you’ve seen the Brilliant Basics Rock a Stack kicking around. The reason is that there’s simply no improving on this simple stacking toy. All of my babies played with this intently for a solid six months and then I packed it up for next time. This time, alas, I shall be packing it up to give to someone else because there’s lots more life left in those plastic stacking rings yet.

If you’re shopping for baby gear for your own kids or anyone else’s, I’d definitely recommend starting with the Fisher-Price Favourites web page.

And, as if you needed another reason, use the coupon code FISHERPRICE20 to save 20% off Fisher-Price favourites at Toys ‘R Us by April 30.

Disclosure: I am part of the Fisher-Price Blogger Campaign with Mom Central Canada and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

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Auto Tweets in the Wake of Tragedy: A Conversation

We were on the road yesterday when the Boston Marathon bombings happened. Ed learned about it on Twitter at a rest stop and then we caught the odd update on the radio as I drove home to Toronto from Ottawa. It felt strange to be so disconnected in the midst of such of a scary tragedy. I’ve gotten used to immediately tuning in to Twitter to see the reactions or, more often than not, learning about the news on Twitter itself. But in a way it was nice. It was nice to be able to dwell on the enormity of the events quietly with my family. (Whispering to Ed while the kids babbled obliviously in the backseat.) It was nice not to have to wade through all the knee-jerk editorializing of every person I’ve ever connected with. It was sad and lonely and it felt right.

Alas, we arrived home.

Checking in with Facebook I found this thread on a private group for Canadian bloggers that I belong to.

Update: Members of the Facebook group have asked that I remove a screenshot of the conversation (although identities were protected). I hadn’t considered that I may have been breaching anyone’s privacy and I apologize.

So, in a nutshell, someone posted the following suggestion: “If any of you run automated tweets/updates, you may want to consider turning them off out of respect for the Boston tragedy.” There were four or five replies right away that suggested they didn’t see any reason to stop auto tweets.

A simple and courteous reminder to think about any automated tweets you may have going out was met with defensiveness and disdain. OMG, they basically said, how are we supposed to wade through the ceaseless string of tragedies and know when to stop tweeting about our toothpaste giveaways? The show must go on!

It was a consensus with the exception of the person who posted the original question and continued to stick to her guns and the eminently reasonable and ethically astute Emma Willer, who said:

Why would you delete the thread? This is an interesting conversation to have. Do you proceed with scheduled tweets about funny cat photos and the latest cereal brand when something kind of bad is consuming people’s thoughts? I can see both sides of the debate. I might want to click on the cat photos as a distraction. But a twitter party about cereal would really bug me right now. Debate is healthy. Different approaches in these circumstances are interesting.

It’s too much to ask, it doesn’t matter and who’s to say that one tragedy is worse than another anyway? That was the basic sentiment.

So of course I had to chime in:

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That really got them going. Unfortunately, now backs were up against walls and chips firmly planted on shoulders. Everyone dug into their position and it didn’t take long for people to start crying about being judged and wondering why we don’t just support one another. (Even though the original post was just as helpful and supportive a piece of advice as I could ever hope to get.)

Finally, Laura O’Rourke of Mommy Miracles chimed in with the perfect balance of reason and diplomacy. She said what I should have said:

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Because here’s the takeaway.

It is crass to knowingly continue to promote irrelevant content in the wake of a tragedy, especially sponsored content and branded Twitter parties. It is off-putting and makes you look bad even if it was an oversight. In fact, there is a very good case to be made against automating any social media content for this very reason.

Tragedies that happen in our own backyards are going to hit closer to home than those that happen across the world. Our social media backyards are bigger than ever, but there are still cultural ties that bind our networks. These deaths are not more important per se than those of children in war-torn countries, but we care about them more. They could have been us. And the socio-political implications of terrorist attacks in the United States scare me more than those happening in the Middle East (even though I’m Canadian). They just do.

If you are not sure if a given tragedy is important enough to cancel a Twitter party (and I do understand that a lot of work and planning go into organinzing a successful one) or to suspend your auto tweets, then just look at your own feed. Take the temperature of your network because, ultimately, it doesn’t matter if it feels wrong to you. What matters is that it feels wrong to others.

THAT’s what is going to make you look like an asshole.

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Stuff I’m Digging: The WotWots

I’m not sure if you heard, but we didn’t have cable for a long time. We went over four years without cable until finally my husband caved we decided as a family that we would really like to be able to watch sports again. So up until a few weeks ago my children have been utterly deprived, only having TVO and whatever DVDs we got from the discount bin to choose from. They are only now starting to realize how deprived they were, gorging on countless cable channels and On Demand programs and Netflix until I turn it all off and they are forced to contend with the bleak reality of life. Thus is the fate of mankind …  Ahem, kiddie TV, right.

We attended the launch of The WotWots new DVD recently and they were YET AGAIN reminded of how deprived they were. Spotty and Dotty WotWot are utterly endearing aliens who marvel at all the discoveries they find here on earth. It’s actually a very charming show and all of my kids (even the one who should be too old for it) really enjoy it. Mary was totally engrossed. Finally, something that will hold her attention for fifteen minutes while I finish dinner! And Irene was over the moon about the whole experience.

Of course, you probably already know all about this because you have cable and catch these guys on Treehouse all the time. But just in case you don’t! Or if you ever want to put on something you can feel good about, take on a road trip or bring to Grandma’s … Then WIN both of The WotWots DVDs right here on this blog. (Or, you know, buy them for a reasonable price, but that’s not as exciting.) (But they’re only going to be available in stores for another couple weeks, so don’t waffle about it too long either.)

Contest closes Friday, April 19 at 11:59pm. Canada only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Of Mice and Vomit

Mary had her 18-month check up last week and other than the frenzied car trip through rush hour traffic that had us arriving a full 30 minutes late and the frantic series of phone calls I made to make sure someone would be able to pick Irene up at the school bus, it was pretty uneventful. Her height, weight and development checked out okay and she took her shot fairly well.

So when she woke up with a fever the next morning, I was pretty sure that’s all it was — a side effect from her vaccination. When she brought up a thin dribble of milk at breakfast I still thought it was because of her needle. She’s not really sick, I thought, but I’ll keep her home anyway because she’s pretty tired and clingy.

Needing a refill on my morning coffee, I went into the kitchen to rinse out my mug. I moved a pot from the night before aside and found a DEAD MOUSE lying in the sink. I repeat, there was a dead mouse in my sink, wallowing in all his germ-laden lifelessness. Yes, I screamed. I’m pretty sure I did a quick tiptoe rendition of the River Dance, too.

I decided to skip the rinse, go directly for the coffee refill and get myself and my fevered toddler out of the kitchen pronto. I gave my heebie jeebies further outlet on Twitter with an excessive use of all caps and OMGs. (Sorry about that.) How could I even begin dealing with the dead rodent in my kitchen sink with a clingy toddler and a kindergarten kid due home before long.

Then I did what I always do when the going gets rough. I resolved to get take out.

I put Mary in the carrier and headed out to pick up Irene. It was  actually a lovely day and we strolled along Dundas, deciding to stop in at a little cafe. All Irene wanted was a bagel with cream cheese, so I ordered one figuring we’d sit near the window and she could tell me about her day.

I was chatting with the owner of the cafe whose children go to school with my kids when suddenly Mary threw up a little. “Oh my,” I said. I took a couple napkins and dabbed at her face and at the small stain on the carrier.

Then she threw up again.

I grabbed more napkins. Again, she threw up. Now she was hurling vast quantities of chunky and sour puke all over my coat and her own and down our shirts. The owner handed me a roll of industrial strength paper towel and I did my best to get up the worst of it. Miraculously  none of it got on the floor. It all landed on us.

I opted to take the bagel to go at this point. I still feel good about that call. We walked back home, enjoying the bright sunshine and the warm vomit nestled within my cleavage.

Post script:

I did finally dispose of the mouse that afternoon using a foam coffee cup, a paper bag and a sophisticated scoop and bag system. It’s little grey body was already stiff, the sight of it’s tiny little whiskers and toes still haunt me.

Post post script:

Irene came down to find me plucking away at the computer late last Sunday night with vomit smeared down her face. Poor thing. I cleaned her up and changed the sheets (which I had only just changed that day, OF COURSE), went back to work, changed them again, and so on. I guess it wasn’t the vaccination after all.

And thus concludes this tale of mice and vomit.

Image credit.

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Momosphere Recap: MomThrive, Frank Bruni and Goodbye, Dawn

  • The would-be inaugural meeting of the MomThrive conference was set to happen this weekend in Toronto. Proving (perhaps) that putting on a mommy blogging conference isn’t a license to print money after all, organizers were forced to cancel with only a week’s notice due to “a situation beyond our control”. I can only assume it has something to do with money, but I could be wrong.
    Blogger Sober Julie, tried to salvage some sort of get togetherfrom the wreckage by organizing a meet up for the attendees who were already out their travel costs. Things came together quickly with the hotel providing free meeting space and discounted rooms, many speakers willing to come and talk to whoever showed and other vendors throwing in freebies as well.
    The original organizers are pissed. Or, at least, they made sure to state that they, “…are not in any way associated or involved with this event, nor are we “happy”.” On the one hand, it’s understandable that they don’t want to see their hard work and planning be taken over by somebody else. But on the other, they had every opportunity to find a way to save their own event and failed. “Cancelling” on vendors, sponsors, speakers and attendees at the last minute is simply not “professional.”
  • Moving on: Parents these days. Frank Bruni devoted several column inches of last Sunday’s NY Times to explaining how this generation of parents are spineless, self-involved worry warts who aren’t doing their kids any favours. The good news is, however, that it hardly matters because kids will grow up just fine anyway. I’m not surprise it garnered mixed responses either dismissing his childless, can’t-possibly-understand-how-hard-it-is perspective or praising his honesty and insight since the column really didn’t say anything at all. Helicopter parents are doing it wrong and so are free-range ones. Yawn. There are as many different approaches to raising children as there ever were. The only difference is that now there are opinion columns in the Times talking about.
  • Also this week, the mom blogging community lost one of their own to cancer. Dawn from Defying Melanoma continued blogging about her struggle with Metastatic Melanoma right up until a couple days before she passed away. There is a fund set up to help feed her husband and two sons, if you are so inclined. The outpouring of love and support has been wonderful and I, like so many others, would like to leave you with the last words Dawn wrote on her blog, “Check your skin people. Check your skin.”

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Jessica Alba and I Are Basically The Same

 

We are such a lucky generation of parents. Not only do we get to disregard the wisdom of our own parents and grandparents on account of their formula-feeding, playpen-using and hard-soled baby shoe-pushing ways, we also have countless experts and competing “parenting philosophies’ to choose from. And if the experts with strings of letters behind their names are not enough, there’s the vast and murky virtual ocean of mom bloggers to drown in  relate to and take comfort from.

But most of all, we have celebrity parents.

Jessica Alba is currently promoting her new book, The Honest Life: Living Naturally and True to You in which she gives some pointers for being more healthy, fun, stylish and engaged as a parent. Sounds like a hoot. According to this Celebitchy post (which is the sum total of everything I have read on the topic), Alba has also made a point of contrasting herself with Gwyneth Paltrow. Paltrow is clearly living in an out-of-touch, elite sphere whereas Alba is nothing but down-to-earth and relatable.

Hey! Let’s take a look at this breakdown of a typical Jessica Alba day (as excerpted from the NY Daily News by Celebitchy) and then compare it to my typical day. You know, for kicks.

7 a.m.: Feed your tot the homemade baby food you made over the weekend by pureeing a pound of peeled veggies with chicken stock, a clove of garlic, fresh ginger and sea salt. Serve yourself a green smoothie by blending cucumber, kale, celery, apples, ginger and lemon juice.

7 a.m.: Flail wildly at the alarm clock until you manage to hit the snooze button. Finally drag your sorry ass out of bed after repeatedly begging your husband to go get the screaming baby doesn’t work. Serve the kids some mainstream cereal and non-organic milk unless they are whining for bagels or toast. Basically, do whatever you need to do to make them shut up until your coffee is ready. Curse yourself for being too damn lazy to make school lunches the night before and slap together a ham sandwich with a granola bar side. Mmmm. Corn sugar and nitrites.

8 a.m.: Put your best face forward by whipping up a quick coffee scrub, stirring a tablespoon of finely ground java with a 1/2 cup of full-fat Greek yogurt, and a dash of lemon juice if your skin is oily, or coconut oil for dry skin.

8 a.m.: Pull your greasy hair back into a ponytail and try to rub yesterday’s yogurt stain off your shirt with a baby wipe. Gulp back some more coffee and rush the kids out the door to catch the school bus.

9 a.m.: Dressing is a snap since your closet is so organized – labels are a must! And with all your wardrobe staples (a fitted blazer, the perfect jeans and playful scarves), there’s always something to wear.

9 a.m.: Dressing is a snap because you only have one pair of jeans that fits and one t-shirt that will pass for clean. You stopped using your closet altogether at some point between baby two and three. It’s much easier to just rifle through the basket of clean laundry until you run out of underwear and do another load.

Noon: You’re planning a dinner party tonight, so hit your local greenmarket or specialty store during lunch for fresh organic ingredients.

Noon: Sure, if you call a box of Ritz crackers, a bottle of Pinot Noir and a Girls marathon a dinner party. And crap, you meant to pick up groceries during lunch, but Facebook.

5 p.m.: Get back to your pre-pregnancy weight by working out with a friend or chasing your three-year-old around. A chiropractor and prenatal yoga teacher are godsends for mommies-to-be.

5 p.m.: You’re yelling at one kid to do his homework for the love of god how many times to do you have to ask. Another kid is having a meltdown and asking for a new mommy because you put your foot down and said that three hours of TV is more than enough for a four year old. The 18-month-old is clawing at your legs and you’re desperately trying to figure out what to feed everyone for dinner. Does stress promote weight loss?

6 p.m.: Prep the dinner party while readying your kids for bed. Roast two chickens in the oven while the little ones take their bath.

6 p.m. : Oh good, your husband just called from the office. He should be home in another hour and a half. You’ve been working on dinner for 45 minutes and have yet to begin cooking anything. Somebody just told you they have a project due tomorrow.

7 p.m.: Put the kids to bed; setting an early bedtime makes time for you and your hubby later in the evening.

7 p.m.: You’re finally eating. Two out three kids are anyway which is a win. You gave up expecting to feed everyone a long time ago. What’s that? Your husband’s going to be home? Plan to get out of the house while you can.

8 p.m.: Party time! Serve the roasts with premade nuts, cheese and olives, and have the guests bring the wine and dessert.

8 p.m.: Bahahaha. Kiddie bedtime is finally underway and then you have at least two hours of work to finish before you can even think about that date with your couch. Cry a little bit.

Mad props to Corinne McDermott of Have Baby Will Travel for serving me this idea on a silver platter and begging me to write it. Inspired.