For about three hours this morning, it felt like fall around my house. Even with a two hour rain delay that messed up my morning plans (because god forbid I have to tend to the children I birthed on a school day), I flitted around with unusual good cheer, buoyed by the promise of cooler weather. Fall is the best season for domestic engineers, but not for the reasons you think. Yeah pumpkin spice smells good and sweaters hide your bingo wings, but that’s not it. Let me give it to you straight, fall is the best season because it’s the start of crock pot season.
No one told me that the above mentioned children would have to eat EVERY SINGLE DAY. I mean yeah, I knew kids and husbands eat daily, but I had no concept of what being in charge of meals would entail. It’s like I applied to teach home economics and unwittingly got promoted to Secretary of Education. It’s such a huge job: think of what to eat, write a list, procure listed items, load it in the cart, out of the cart to counter, back in the cart, into the car, out of the car, haul all the 87 bags in, put all the food away, get it back out to feed some hungry kid before they ravage the snack drawer and eat all the “good” snacks in 2.7 seconds, clean it all up, and repeat over and over again until you die.
Basically, I have a few minutes each day to referee kid fights, wash clothes, chauffeur to school and sports, work on my side hustles, ya know, ALL THE THINGS before the feeding onslaught begins again. I’m fresh in the morning so I can tolerate breakfast and packing lunches but oh man, dinner. Dinner is the bane of my existence. The hell time from dinner – sleeping is known to my kids as “Cranky Time”. I’m usually wild eyed and messy bunned and hollering at anyone who dares to enter the kitchen and whine, “I’m hungry”. Most likely, I have PTSD from all the meals prepared at the end of a long day, that I’d lovingly served to my family, who I’d somehow confused with a Norman Rockwell painting, only to be assualted with their complaints about the meal that they “don’t like” even though last week you liked it just fine JIMMY so you better eat three bites or you won’t get the dessert we all know you’re going to get regardless of bites taken. Gah!!! I know you feel me out there.
There’s so much about momming that comes as a surprise but this tops the charts for me. The weight and expectation of sustentence, it’s a life sentence.
So when crockpot season arrives, the noose loosens just a bit. Sure, I could crock pot year round, but there’s something about the appeal of a bowl of comfort food on a chilly day. I love that magical appliance. Dump a bunch of stuff in there, leave, and return to dinner with the promise of leftovers for the next day! Miraculous!
Even though the sun is shining and I had to shuck off my booties for flip flops, Green Chile Chicken Enchilada Soup was in the works when the day still felt like fall. I’m just going with it. Maybe tonight “Cranky Time” will get downgraded to “Mildly Irritated But Could Be Mediated With Wine Time”
Recipe adapted from Chelseasmessyapron.com
Fox Family Travels 
So damn true! I have never read it put so perfectly. The good, but maybe sad news is that not too far off into the future you will have teenagers that can drive, do sports, and have lots of friends and the days of conjuring up meal after to meal will be only a memory; hang on momma there is relief from what seems as the never ending meal prep saga! I dare say you will sit waiting and hoping for them to walk through the door and beg for a good meal, the very ones they once “hated” seems as though for all the things we moms begged to end at one time, as years pass we beg to please simply happen once again! Keep up the good work! You’re an amazing mom, wife, sister, daughter! You’ve got this!! 😘
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