Meal Plan 08/01/2016 - 08/05/2016

This week's meal plan is all about local fruit and veg. My local farmers market is celebrating its twentieth year this year and is celebrating with weekly giveaways. I was lucky enough to win two big bags of produce and some market tokens to spend. (Full disclosure: I'm not being compensated for this post. I paid for some of my farmers market haul but I did receive some for free through the giveaway. All opinions are my own. Tri-City locals, you should check out the Coquitlam Farmers Market Facebook page for more info on how you can win their weekly giveaway.)

Monday: Oven-roasted chicken shawarma with garlic sauce served with roasted beets and green juice.

Tuesday: Giant green salads topped with leftover chicken shawarma, roasted beets, and feta.

Wednesday: Beet greens, kale, and goat cheese frittata served with roasted sweet potatoes and green juice.

Thursday: turkey taco salads with leftover sweet potatoes.

Friday: dirty nachos topped with leftover turkey and served with guacamole.

Bonus round! We've got a lot of delicious summer fruits currently kicking around our kitchen so Shawn has requested a blueberry peach pie and I'm dying to make Smitten Kitchen's Purple Plum Torte. Baked goods are both my therapy and my love language.

Extra Love

Sometimes (I say generously, as really it's more like "multiple times daily,") Poppy cries for no reason. She's fed, she's burped. She has a clean diaper. She's well-rested and has been cuddled for a satisfactory-even-to-the-neediest-cuddler number of hours. She just needs to cry. The breast doesn't calm her. Nor does her paci or the jiggle or the pat or the sway or the jiggle-pat-sway. Lullabies infuriate her. The rocking chair is her nemesis. She's offended by stories and baths and baby massage. Most of the time I can pop her in the wrap and carry on with my day and she eventually calms down or I go deaf. But sometimes I need to put her down somewhere safe and walk away and count to ten very slowly and take deep breaths and remind myself that it's nothing personal. Tonight was one of those nights. Grady asked me why I was crying and I told him Poppy was crying and I didn't know what she needed. He looked at me like I was dense. "She needs extra love," he told me matter-of-factly.

I have so much to learn. 

Meal Plan 07/25/2016 - 07/29/2016

I'm very excited for this week's meal plan because Grady's birthday is Tuesday. When we lived at home, my Mom used to let the birthday kid pick whatever they wanted for their birthday dinner and she'd make it. My little brother chose pancakes and ice cream every year so every year my health-conscious, salad-with-every-dinner mom would let us eat pancakes and ice cream for dinner. It turns out that Grady is a lot like Uncle Westy because when I asked him what I should make for his birthday dinner he requested waffles, bacon, and ice cream. Well played, kid.

Monday: Zucchini frittata, green juice, greek salad.

Tuesday: Birthday waffles, bacon, and ice cream! Shawn and I will also have leftover frittata to pretend we're grownups.

Wednesday: Grilled salmon served with quinoa and sautéed veggies.

Thursday: Giant green salads served with chicken wings for Shawn and leftover salmon for me.

Friday: Pierogis and grilled smokies served with green salad.

You're Beautiful

"You're the most beautiful mommy," he said and my breath caught in my throat because I wanted to say no, I'm not beautiful, I'm exhausted and smelly and wobbly where I used to be firm and my hair is falling out and I haven't had my eyebrow waxed into two distinct eyebrows in months and none of my clothes fit and my boobs leak breastmilk and my eyes leak tears on a daily if not hourly basis and did I mention I'm tired? I'm so tired. 

But I didn't say any of those things. I swallowed my words and smiled at him.  

"You're the most beautiful mommy because your love shines like Iron Man's unibeam."  

And he's right.