tales of a young mamma

Late afternoons/early evenings are the toughest parts of my day usually. Jasper is home from school and I miss him so much during the day I want that to be OUR time. He is ready for that time too, snacks, cuddles, books and game time with his mamma. (Yes he still calls me mamma.)

 There's just one adorable little girl standing in the way of that. And evenings she has decided need to be all about HER. While she is the easiest baby from the hours of 7PM and 4:30 PM she has decided those 2.5 hours before bed time she would prefer to eat (on and off) every 15 minutes, be held and entertained constantly, preferably with at least  2 baths during that time frame for her pleasure/distraction. 

The other 'problem' is that Drew doesn't usually get home till 6:30-7, and we need dinner to be made during that time as well. So entertaining two littles who are no where near into the same things during both their neediness time, while also preparing dinner was proving to be a little difficult. 

I needed a solution to keep everyone happy, sane and fed.

Answer: Long walk to the store, with a swing by the park on the way home, where our dinner is waiting in the crock pot. Also, bumped Jasper's bed time back by 15-20 minutes so we get typically about 30-45 4minutes of just US time after Tindra is in bed for the night.

We started this last week and so far it's going great. We are always in need of at least 1 thing from the store, and the one day I couldn't think of anything we needed we went for a special treat and shared a candy bar. 

I've really started looking foroward for these evening walks. Tindra is distracted by the outdoors and usually a pumped bottle to keep her satisfied so I get some uninterrupted time with my little man to hear all about his day at school. After we have covered the school talk we play a game he invented where we look at our surroundings and name things we see in Swedish. Fun AND educational!

Now I just need some more crock pot ideas so we aren't eating chicken/veggies in the crock pot every night. Have any to throw my way?