urbanstepmom.com

I just have to look in my fridge to see how big the adjustment is from single career gal to urban stepmom. We have brie and kraft singles, a beautiful bottle of chilled white wine and a row of apple juice boxes. I have left over filet mignon and left over spaghetti and meatballs. Such is this crazy life of contrast. I used to order take out sushi after work, and watch Entertainment Tonight with a glass of Chardonnay, now I’m on deck for dinner for four on a shockingly regular basis.

Getting my head around what to eat when we have the kids (half the time)  has been the biggest logistical challenge I have faced.  It causes me a lot of stress. There are weekends and school nights and both require the creativity of Jamie Oliver and the speed and efficiency of Rachel Ray. I’m starting to think I should leave work early and watch Rachel and ditch Jamie. It’s about efficiency, not creativity I’m learning.

Take this past weekend for example. There are hockey games  that end at 7pm, soccer games that end at noon, and Olympic events that got us home at  8pm. One option is  I could stay home and do all the cooking and meal preparation while my husband attends all the sporting events and Olympic festivities with the twins. (Oh sure, and why don’t I just do a quick swish of all the toilet bowls and change the vacuum cleaner bags while I’m at it?)

Or, I could wing it.

These used to be my two options. One, even though I felt good about what the boys were eating, made me feel resentful. And the other just caused me massive amounts of stress. For example, one night last weekend the boys were all at a hockey game so I made roast beef and root vegetables and apple crumble for desert. It would be served hot and amazingly delicous when they arrived home. I was so pleased with my self. However, by the time they dragged their little bodies to the table, they were so tired they hardly tasted the food and it was all over in 8 minutes. And of course everyone was too tired to do the dishes. Last night I decided to wing it (also a bad choice). We had been out all day and home by 8pm, unfed. Just for the record, my husband was in charge of the logistics of the night and said he had it under control. (note to self, sometimes husbands forget to feed kids). By the time we all got home, everyone is cranky and tired including me. I scroundged around the kitchen and produced soup for one, left over Chinese for another, and heated some pasta for my husband.

The only real solution is to take a page out of Martha’s book and be organized. Plan ahead. Pre make healthy meals and snacks. Shop on Sundays for the week. But the trick is don’t try to be Martha because again, that will just lead to resentment. No one will appreciate the little extras, the fresh cut flowers on the table, Granny’s silverware or the new napkins that match the meal. When these nine year olds and my husband sit down to a meal, they  need large amounts of tastey, healthy simple foods.

And so I start my quest, my new hoby if you will, to figure out what boys like to eat,  how to make it and how to prepare for their busy schedules.  I needed recipes and ideas that are easy to prepare and well received.

I’ve got some good resources. I have some good recipe books such as  The Best of Bridge, The Guy Can’t Cook, and Betty Crocker. I also have a Slow Cooker, which they say is great for someone like me. So now all I have to do is dive in and get organized. It won’t be as easy as take out sushi and a glass of Chardonnay, but maybe I’ll find it fun, easy and way less stressful!

We are highly capable, successful career women. We created fabulous lives for ourselves and feel confident there is nothing we can’t do. We run businesses, we make companies and ourselves lots of money, we are entrepreneurs, then we meet a man with kids and suddenly we are useless. We cannot keep up to the new demands on our time and our life.

You’ve gone from taking care of yourself, your condo and maybe a pet, to taking care of a man, his kids, probably a bigger house, and maybe their pets. All this on top of all the usual demands in your life.

I’ll tell you what you don’t do, you don’t drop all your own responsibilities for his. Many an exhausted new urban step mom does this and she goes from fabulous to frantic faster than you can say “institutionalized”! But you also have to accept that you do have a much longer to do list and you need to find a way to step up, manage it and learn when to say no.

You may suddenly  be grocery shopping (I am still overwhelmed by the task of grocery shopping) for a family, feeding a family, cleaning a house, gardening (your condo had a few plants on the deck), and probably lots more chauffeuring to do. How are you going to manage getting everything done and keeping your sanity?

The first thing I do is I get up at around 5am most mornings. I do this because I need control over some of my time at home. No one else is up, so I can write, read, walk the dog or work out in peace. I schedule everything on my to do list and prioritize it. This may sound selfish but unless I get my own stuff done first I feel out of whack, and then resentful if I cancel my own plans to take care of their needs.

Second of all, I do lists, lots and lots of lists. Every day I find old lists in various purses and pockets. I basically had to learn how to cook for a family, run a house and a garden. I would  tell myself that I am not lame, I can figure this out, how hard can it be? Well, it is hard. Cooking for yourself is easy and cooking for a dinner party is fun, cooking for five year olds and a picky 40 year old on a daily basis is neither fun nor easy. Not only that it is incredibly stressful.  Deciding what to cook each night is enough to push me over the edge, let alone doing the shopping and the actual cooking after a long day at work. Turns out there are lots of books for lame -os like me. A couple of my favorites are “The Girl Can’t Cook” and “The Guy Can’t Cook”. Right up my ally, make me look good quickly, (without making me a basket case)  recipes.

The other thing I started doing is devoting some time on Sunday to planning the week’s menu, the week’s grocery list, and then going out and doing the humungous shop. Then it is done. The food is in the house. I know what I am making for dinner on Monday and not to freak out at 4pm when my husband calls and says “what’s for dinner?”

I also started delegating. What a concept. This took quite a while to learn this one. I now ask him which two (week) nights he would like to cook and what he would like to make. I just add his ingredients to the list. If I don’t nail him down on his menu selections, we get home from work on “his nights” and order take out, which is not good for the waistline or the pocketbook.

Another lesson, which I have not yet mastered is don’t try to do too much. This one still alludes me and I still find myself stressed out and acting like a bit of a martyr (but I do do most of the housework!). They also say, lower your standards. I am not there yet. I am doing much better with, hire the help if he won’t do it. I am also  not excelling at the acceptance factor. My Grandmother would not be proud, sorry I’m just not accepting it all just yet.

One year, I was all excited because I thought I would grow  a vegetable garden. I bought a bunch of seeds and planted them. That’s what you are supposed to do right? Apparently, there are all kinds of other things you need to be aware of like time of year, light exposure, soil composition. Two years in a row, my planting a vegetable garden was not only a complete bust but was met with, “my mum knows how to grow vegetables”.  I don’t try to grow vegetables anymore. Trying to grow something you can actually eat is too much pressure. Now I go to the garden store and ask for the most low maintenance, pretty plants they have. Also, my very kind and compassionate neighbor buys me bulbs and  tells me when and how to plant them each year. Bless her.

Running the house for a family is also something that one needs to learn coming from single life. There are so many items that need to be replaced. You need cleaning products for so many more jobs than before. How are you supposed to know what products to use where, when and how often? And boy do you need to know how to clean when living with twin little boys, a big (messy) boy, a dog and two cats! Strap on those rubber gloves, urban step Diva!

I have so many lists in my mind, when I drive up my street to go to work I do a check list as I drive by various services, grocery store, coffee shop, vegetable store, bank, dry cleaner, drug store, yoga studio, gym, key cutter, florist, liquor store, salon.  My mind has become filled with one giant list. Now my step sons are playing hockey and soccer and there are at least 14 events we need to drive them to each week. I can hardly tell you what day it is at this particular juncture.

As for just saying no, this is another trick I have not yet mastered. Stuck in this feeling that I should be able to do this, I am so capable, I take on way too much, and all too often wind up drowning in a puddle of Chardonnay. I’m sure if you can do it, it will most definitely add to your sanity.

The urban step mom is definitely open to feedback on this topic.