5 on a Friday: Mom Hacks

 1. Okay— this is one I have not tried, but I have seen people do it, and I am going for it today because I REALLY NEED A PEDICURE: Take your toddler with you to the salon and ply them with screens and maybe some toe polish. Minnie and I have to take a kid to the therapist this morning and then we are hitting the nail place. WISH ME LUCK (but seriously, I do not have any free time to get a pedicure right now, and I haven’t for the last 2 weeks (which is how long I have needed one— things are getting desperate) and I have to spend all day tomorrow at a dance competition, and the place is closed Sunday).

2. If you plan to be gone all morning returning around, say, lunch time (AKA a toddler’s daytime witching hour), make lunch BEFORE YOU LEAVE. I did this for Minnie and me this week, and it was lovely to come home to plates of food in the fridge. She was a happy, chatty little clam, and I did not eat random bits of her lunch while making mine because I was starving. Something else that happens to me when we come in hot and need to each lunch ASAP is that I make hers first, and but the time I am sitting down with mine, she is done, and I have to go play blocks or something and then I spend the first part of nap cleaning the kitchen and eating my lunch, which kills my productivity.

3. Easy dinner on repeat over here (and leftovers pictured on my (way too big— I usually use a salad plate for lunch but I wanted to eat all the leftover salad) lunch plate) is a rotisserie chicken wrap with a bag of salad. SO easy! So few steps: Bag of salad that you can put in the wrap and eat on the side (any Taylor Farms variety is a delight IMO), wrap (I like the Mission Carb Balance ones that are only 70 calories, but my family uses the big fluffy 250-calorie burrito ones). Rotisserie chicken picked from the carcass. Some pre-cut fruit or veggies from my awesome veggie tray. Chips or pretzels. DONE-ZO. Want some variety? BUY A DIFFERENT BAG OF SALAD. (Can you tell that we are in a busy activity season? LOL).

4. Sometimes a variety box of cookies is the only thing you need to keep your toddlers happy at dive practice. Your high schooler who was done with his activity at the same time you were headed to campus and got roped in to the whole 2 hour affair doesn’t mind them, either.

(Also a Tupperware of Legos is a good distraction in a pinch, and it turns out that dive practice is the only time I had all day to watch her closely enough with them (choking hazard, etc).)

5. Don’t forget that 5th babies like to see your office, too.