Episode 82: How We're Lowering Expectations & Making Working Motherhood Easier
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From overnight wake-ups and packing lunches to changing careers and finding energy, Megan and I cover a LOT in this episode. I'm joined by sister-in-law for an honest, behind-the-scenes conversation about what full-time work actually looks like with three young kids at home.
We talk candidly about the seasons of motherhood that stretch your capacity, force you to lower expectations, and ultimately show you just how capable you really are.
You’ll hear real stories from daily life as a working mom, including:
What a typical workday looks like with three kids five and under
How she manages early mornings, daycare drop-offs, and tight schedules
The reality of pumping at work and trying to protect that time
How she thinks about sleep, exhaustion, and managing expectations when nights are broken
The logistics of packing all the food for daycare—and the simple systems that make it doable
Why repetition can be a gift for both kids and parents
If you’re a working mom juggling young kids, feeling stretched thin, or wondering if now is really the right time to make a change, this conversation will remind you that you’re not alone—and that your capacity is likely greater than you think.
links & resources mentioned in this episode:
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You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode. .
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. This is episode 82, and in today's conversation, I'm joined by my sister-in-law, Megan. Now, you know that this season I'm having on real women in my life who inspire me or have impacted me in some way on my working mom journey.
But I also recognize that a number of the conversations lately have been with women whose kids are a little bit older, more like school aged. And not many examples of what it is like to juggle work with very young kids, or let's even say babies at home. And so I thought, who better to join me than my sister-in-law, Megan, who just welcomed her third child about seven months ago and returned to work around the 12 ish week mark.
And so I love this conversation because not only have I gotten to watch Megan. Become a mom five years ago and go on to have three children now. But I've also watched her make a lot of really big changes in her life and just settle into her role and her life as a mom with a professional career and three kids at home.
I think Megan's perspective is refreshing
and reminds us all that sometimes the best shifts or changes we can make in our lives to make things easier is to shift our perspective and also the reminder that we are all so capable. I hope that you enjoy this conversation as much as I did recording it. Let's get to it.
Hi Megan.
Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to it.
I have to say, timing is always funny, right? And this morning I get my. This day over the years memory that pops up of my photos and my memory today was of you holding my daughter, your niece what was that, nine years ago?
She just had her ninth birthday. So it was you meeting her for the first time. I had a slew of photos of you holding a baby and Wow. Have times changed in those nine years.
Oh, so, so much they've changed. That is a, that's a funny memory, but also apt because at the time I didn't have any kids, so. I was getting a, a view of parenthood and motherhood through your lens, and now I hear am you know, nine years on with my own kids.
And it's a funny, it's a funny comparison and I've learned a lot from you through the years even, you know, not in the professional sense, but in the sister-in-law, family sense as well, so.
That's fun. That's a BU memory. Yeah, I know. I hope I didn't scare you too much back then. I was a little overwhelmed sometimes I'm
like, oh my gosh.
I watched, I've watched you grow in motherhood though. It's been, I think we all have to go through those phases.
We do and just
become more confident in our abilities. So,
yeah. Yeah. Well, let's start, everyone knows that you're my sister-in-law, my husband's younger sister. Tell us though about , you, , what you do for work your kids now, what life looks like.
Yeah, so I work as a financial planner for a wealth management firm in Cincinnati and, it's a bit of a career change. So that's been a big, pivotal piece of my story over the past five years is moving from supply chain and the contract management side of supply chain to this new role as I also shifted into this having children phase of life.
So I have three children five now, a newly 3-year-old and a seven month old. So a nice little fresh one at the bottom. The third was a bit of a surprise too, so that was a funny turn of events.
We have that in common.
Yeah, it's true. Always anticipated. I was gonna have two, but I have three. And yeah, it's, it's been a big year to shift to having three and working full-time outside the home technically, but also physically.
I, I generally come physically to the office most days, though I do get some flexibility. So, yeah, it's just been a, I. A lot of shifting over the past five years. A lot of growth.
I had forgotten until you just said that. What is time anymore that , you have not been in this role or in this industry, in this field that long and that you made all of those changes with kids, correct?
Yep.
Yep. Got my CFP or certified financial Planner designation. Started it really right after my son was born and my first son, my oldest, and then, officially earned the hours like a year or two ago to use the credentials, but all of that classwork and exams and this and that was done well.
Honestly holding a newborn for a large portion of it. So yeah, it's been big couple years and I'm indebted to my husband being a really good supporter along the way that I was able to do that because usually that much upheaval and change is, is difficult to juggle without a great support system around you.
Yeah, I see this and believe this more and more, and so for anyone listening who maybe is feeling like it is not the best time to entertain a change because you are pregnant or because you have young kids at home. I see your story so often. I lived your story as well. I've made so many of my huge professional career changes and shifts with young, young children at home.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I, I don't know what it is. A shifting of priorities, a new perspective on life, on work. Just everything's already changing. Why not change one more thing? Sometimes we get to choose those changes. Sometimes they're forced upon us. Mm-hmm. But I see that so often this, this transformation that we have in some area of our life that coincides with the birth or having children.
Absolutely. And I think there's something to be said about you start to learn your own strength and capacity when you have young children. Mm. It really makes you stretch some skills and, , reinterpret, you know, who you are. And that's always a good moment to then make shifts, otherwise, whether you meant to or not.
So I think there's a, there's a karma bit of it, of like, who knows? Maybe it's just the universe that's all coming together and we're making all the changes at once. But I think there's some element of, you just really discover your own capability.
And you
say, well, it's not getting any easier.
I might as well do what I wanna do, be the person I wanna be for my kids. And I think I have the ability to do so. I've been demonstrating this to myself as I've grown in this, role as a parent.
Yeah, I love that. I would like to own that.
I think we all should.
Yeah. Yeah. So I always think of you as being very organized, detail oriented just having a plan in place. And that's just from my view on your personal life. I don't have really a window into your professional life, though I would imagine that that carries over and is probably exponentially stronger in your work life.
But, , I would love to hear. First of all, what a day in the life looks like. So walk us through how do you get three kids out the door to various places during the day and to the office and home and fed? , what does that look like? What are the tips and tricks that you have to make that easier? And then we can go from there.
I'm so excited to learn more things from you.
Yeah. Well, I always am delighted and scared when people say they think I'm so organized because my own perception isn't always that. But the average day in life, I mean, it starts early. There's no way around it. My husband and I both have been waking up since the baby has come at about 5:00 AM and that is in part so that my husband can just start working because he functions in very much in the flex capacity for our family.
And I am I. It's definitely a firm believer that every parent or every, let's call it family with young children, if they have two parents, they need a flex parent in there, because I don't know how you roll with the punches of small children in schooling, et cetera, without that
or support. Or support.
Yeah. Or support, right? Like, 'cause I, I know there are scenarios where that's not possible, but you're right there, there's so much about caregiving and parenting that has to be flexible. Yeah. And so if your work does not allow that, then you're looking for outside sources to cover that for you Or one of the parents Yes.
Has that ability through whatever their work life looks like.
Absolutely. Yep. You're either getting it externally or somebody in your, your partnership is doing it. Anyway, so it starts early. He gets some work in for an hour before kids wake up and everything. The, everybody starts running at that point, right?
So before six 30 I get fully ready. I do anything I need to do. Ideally, I've packed lunches the night before. Ideally, I've gotten bottles together the night before. I would say. At least a couple days, a week, one or both of those things and not happened the night before. Yep. And I'm, I'm scrambling to do that.
But we're on a pretty firm routine with the kids. , my husband, he always says he is a very good robot, so he is good at executing on the plan when the plan needs to happen. And the kids are pretty much used to the rough timeline of how we get out the door. But from five to 8:00 AM is just. Get things together to then exit and be on our way to work.
So, leave the house around 8:00 AM hopefully get to the office somewhere between 8 15, 8 30, and then it's just into the thick of work. As a financial planner, I have client meetings, I have client work I need to do in between meetings. , the way we're structured means I do get a fair amount of support through my firm, which is amazing and makes my life easier.
But from. Whenever I walk in the door to whenever I exit, usually around four 30 ish, I'm just kind of all in on work. And I try pretty hard, not perfectly to limit the personal stuff that I'm doing, just for the fact that I need my work time to be as efficient as possible and as focused as possible. Yeah,
yeah.
Yeah. And then. Four 30, I go to pick up our littlest two kids. They are in a similar area. I handle their pickup. My husband usually handles our oldest pickup from an afterschool program. , 'cause he's in elementary school now as a kindergartner and, back home. It's, it's, you know, the, the race is still on, we gotta get fed, we gotta get cleaned, we gotta get, at least a little bit of connection time for the family, , before we hopefully have everybody in bed between seven and eight 30.
Mm-hmm. And then, you know, ideally I'd be in bed by nine 30, but I've been trying to be in bed by 10 to try and get roughly seven hours depending on baby wake up in the night. Yeah. It's a pretty tight schedule, let's call it, but it's a season, and I think the good news about having this be my third is I feel much more clear that the rigidity of our schedule, not even just the rigidity, but some of the difficulty of our schedule is being made worse by having a baby versus.
A toddler, a potty trained preschooler, or a kindergartner, et cetera, and that the time will change. And this is a season.
, it is always that debate of. Do we honor the youngest's con, the constraints that the baby provides or creates for us?
Mm-hmm.
And everyone just stays home to keep them on their schedule?
Or does the baby just have to be flexible to roll with the big kids schedule and, and it's probably both, or at least I know it was. For us as well. But what I, I remember I could do with my first to like keep to naps times and bedtime and feeding times. It's just not possible with a third, without everybody sacrificing everything and mm-hmm.
Yeah. I think constraint is a good word, or at least it feels like that in some ways. Mm-hmm. But it is just always that debate.
. Yeah. The third is we always say she's such a good baby and we have no idea if it's personality or if it's just she had to be more flexible because we've been toting her along to everything along the way.
So, yeah, and as always, probably a mix of both.
Yeah. She is such a good baby, so. During the day, how much of your calendar do you have control over? , obviously you're here, we're recording this in the middle of your workday. Mm-hmm. And I know you had to look pretty far out to find a time that would work.
Mm-hmm. , so , tell us a little bit about what you control and what you don't.
Yeah, it's interesting in many ways. I have a lot of autonomy over my day, which I really value. , it's one of the reasons I actually really wanted this career. Mm-hmm. , I feel like I do get to determine a lot of how my day's role, but in terms of actual scheduling, I actually have an admin support person and she does my scheduling of client meetings for me, and I can give her running rules, but.
Running rules or running rules, and they don't always flex with the world. So within reason, I am not determining every moment of every day. On average, I probably meet with maybe only four clients, five clients a week, but the prep work is pretty significant to prepare for those client meetings. So where my,
ownership of my schedule comes in as how and when I'm going to prep all of those things to be ready for the client meeting, and then how I'm gonna execute on anything after the client meeting.
Mm-hmm. So
it's a bit of a mix. I have found that there's been definitely a little bit more difficulty now that I've, three kids and there are normal schedule of people having somebody else schedule for me, because I'll have something in my brain that says, oh yeah, I need to be out just a little bit earlier on Thursday.
To get to an appointment or to get to a conference meeting or something. And I didn't communicate that to my assistant. And it's not her fault. She didn't know, I didn't tell her. But, , yeah, we're, we're learning and growing together through this, , shift in delegation of responsibilities over my schedule.
Yeah. So your youngest is seven months and you've been back to work since she was three months. Was that about Yeah, about that. Okay. Yep. And you've been pumping at work, right? This mm-hmm. For the last few months at least. Mm-hmm. How, how do you manage that on your calendar with client meetings? Are you able to safeguard that time or is it okay?
You're shaking your head no. What, what is happening there?
Interestingly, I mean, I was pretty rigid about it the first couple weeks back, which in part was really important because like my supply was still regulating all the, the normal things. Sure. But the needs of the business, the needs of my clients started to pretty quickly come up against the needs of my pumping schedule.
And so I had to make some choices pretty soon on how rigid I would be about when I would pump. So. Again, I, I do have a, thankfully I have a private office that I can pump in, which is incredibly lucky. Or I could have used our pumping room. So I, I have all the stuff I need there. Literally getting the time has been difficult.
Client meetings, if I have two in a day and that's three to four hours dedicated just to that depending on where they're structured in the day, there may or may may not be a great opportunity to go pump. So it's something my assistant and I have again, gotten better at. And frankly, I'm probably coming closer to the end of my pumping journey here soon.
, but it definitely has been some days where I'm just really glad that, . I have some protective pads in because when you get to end of a client meeting
Yeah. Yeah.
That is, that is challenging. I remember that in my corporate days as well. Like, , how do you choose, again, that debate of if this is the only time a client can meet with you, can you last, can you stretch it? Are you willing to sacrifice that time?
Mm-hmm.
And so often it would be, you know, I, I need to see the client because the next opportunity is gonna be weeks from now and this is really important to get done, or whatever it is.
I think it's one thing to go in and expect or assume that you're going to hold these two or three time blocks on your calendar every day. And then I think regardless probably of what role or what industry you're in, it does tend to be more flexible. , and that's just the reality of it.
And I think that goes along again with this whole, something that parenting is gonna teach you regardless of his, through pumping or through something else, is there's only so much you control.
In a given day, in a given week and in a given month. And, you know, pumping wise, it was one of those things where I said, well, I know I wanna get two in a day for so long and now I'm down to just pumping once a day while I'm at work at least. , which has made it notably easier than to do two.
But I had to be really flexible and just be like, well, this is gonna be a little bit longer. This is gonna be a little bit shorter. My supply may or may not be protected for as long. I'm still doing the best for my daughter. I'm still doing the best for my clients. I am finite as a person, so this is as much as I can give right now, at this moment.
Yeah. I really do not miss those days.
Yeah. I won't be sad. You won't
be either. You won't either.
Yeah.
So you mentioned, going to bed by 10, so that you can at least get a certain number of hours of sleep at night depending on kids.
Mm-hmm. And their sleep needs overnight. Mm-hmm. I, I mean, I hear some stories that. Not always the baby, sometimes the others love to throw us for a loop or waking up at night as, as you do when you have one kid, two kid, three kids more. It's, it's just unpredictable. Yes. And so I'm curious. You are meeting with clients, you're doing all this prep work.
It takes focus, it takes energy to get those things done. How do you do that when you've been up at night or you've been up since 5:00 AM already going a million miles an hour.
Yeah. I don't have a, a super, , genius answer here. I think each day as it comes. I, I try not to spend too much time, assuming the worst, that, because last night's sleep was terrible, tomorrow's sleep will also be bad, you know?
Mm-hmm. I think the emotional expectation settings is kind of like the best I can, the best tool I have in my toolbox, which is to say I go to bed every night at around 10, knowing I, there's a great chance I'm awake at some point in the, the night. At this point, she's still waking up, usually out of a week.
She's probably up at least four times for the nights. To eat still. , and so if I just set my expectations in this place, which is to say I'm probably gonna be awake, I'm probably gonna be a little more tired, I'm probably gonna feel a little groggy when the alarm goes off. I'm a little less mad when it happens, and I'm pretty delighted when it doesn't happen.
So I would say expectation management is a good part of it. And then when I'm in the thick of the day and I am feeling that energy dip, mid-afternoon, I didn't sleep all the night before, whatever the answer is. . Again, taking the perspective that I know this is not a forever situation. I mean, she's ne she's not gonna wake up in the middle of the night and need me forever.
It's relatively finite. No fingers crossed. And I, I know that if I'm able to juggle what I juggle now, like how much better will I be able to juggle it when I am getting closer to eight hours a night of sleep?
Mm-hmm.
I don't feel like my emotional capacity, which is usually the first hit for me, , my emotional capacity will be that much greater.
And so the frustration, , angst, the whatever else that kind of percolates up when I feel tired, , those variables will be reduced and impact in my daily life when she's sleeping a little bit more. And, time is flying already. I have a five-year-old and I don't know how that happens.
So I guess I just try to keep the perspective that this is temporary. It's probably not gonna be great right now. Don't be mad about it. Take it day by day.
Yeah. That expectation shift unfortunately took me one and a half children to learn and was the biggest game changer for me. I mean, you know, you've been around, sleep has, was.
The worst part of parenting for me. I was so tired. My children did not sleep, none of them, but it did shift when my second, I don't know, at some point along the journey, I decided I'm just gonna expect that she is gonna wake up at night because she did every night. Mm-hmm. And you're right then.
I wasn't so angry at her in the middle of the night because she woke me up. I just expected it. And I had a good book to read on my Kindle in the middle of the night when I was nursing or feeding. And , then when she didn't, I was pleasantly surprised, but I wasn't so angry and resentful when I was awake.
Yeah. Yeah, something I used to do a little bit more and have just again changed again. Each kid you learn a little bit more is. I would get a little angsty around my performance in the day ahead. I would just expect that I'd feel like garbage by the end of the day. 'cause I'd be so tired because I was up three times in the night or whatever the thing was.
And I pretty quickly learned like, don't, just don't think about it. You know, it might happen, it may not happen. There's a real big, who knows, sometimes your energy carries you through beautifully and you're like, I don't know how I made it through, but I did. , so instead of expecting that, it'd be bad.
It was easier to just be like, well, might be, might not be. It is what it is. Proceed with your day.
Yeah, yeah. I've been paying attention more to my sleep in the last year or so, and you know, , my children now are 11 nine and six, so everybody is sleeping through the night unless they're sick and. What I am learning, and I wish I had known then as well, is that I could get eight and a half, nine hours of sleep.
Sometimes I can do that. Now I'll go to bed really early. The kids aren't waking me up. And. If it's not deep or restful sleep, I feel the same as if I only got six and a half or seven hours, which for me is way low.
Mm-hmm.
And so I think back then I put so much emphasis on the number of hours of sleep that I got.
Mm-hmm. And I wish then I had the perspective that I could actually get some really restful sleep. Mm-hmm. In those shorter windows probably because I was just so tired. Yeah. And so, right. It's all of these things. It's the expectations. It's the possibility that maybe your energy will be fine the next day, and also that hours does not necessarily equate to depth or restfulness.
Yeah, very true. If that helps anyone out there who's up multiple times a night, we've been there. We know what it's like. It's no fun. It always feels like you are so alone in the middle of the night, like you're the only person awake. I always felt so lonely in the middle of the night. That's when I started reading.
But yeah, all those things , could be true.
Yeah. Oh, and I guess something that I've also found beneficial is a hot tip to anybody who's an iPhone user out there, the send later function on your text messages. I didn't discover that that existed until this pregnancy, and it may not have existed actually until very recently.
I don't know what that is. Tell me, tell me what that is.
So, so there's now a function, iPhone specific I would assume, but maybe Android has it. And you can literally schedule a text to send the same way you would schedule an email and outlook to send it a different time. So you know how you're in the middle of the night and you are a little more alert and you do have this brainwave and maybe you needed to contact somebody.
, I'm still not always good at utilizing it, but it was a really. Helpful little, , I don't know, productivity gain, let's call it. And that's a little strong, but where I felt a little less like, well, the good news is I got that text out to that person I forgot to reply to, and I didn't wake them up because I sent it to deliver at 8:00 AM the following morning.
Oh.
So
just a little thing when you're sitting in the middle of the night and you're like, oh, I meant to reach out to so and so and I forgot, or, or whatever.
I should look and see if that is available to me. Not that I'm up much in the middle of the night, but sometimes even late at night.
Even late at night. Yeah. Sometimes when I don't like to text people after like 9:00 PM it just feels weird. , but then I would also say I, I sometimes text other friends who have babies in the middle of the night, and I typically, again, still send it as a, a scheduled send later. Mm-hmm. But every now and then, you know, I receive a text from them that says, Hey, I'm up in the middle of the night again.
Reading this book, thought of you, and it reminds you to your point that you're not, you are not alone.
You're not alone. Yeah. A lot
of people are awake in the night, unfortunately.
Unfortunately, yes. Oh, sleep is just always a struggle. Not always. I guess it does get better, but I look forward to In seasons.
In seasons, it can, it can be a struggle. Yeah. So. We recently spent some time together for a family holiday, and you were sharing with me and my jaw about hit the floor when you were sharing how much you have to pack for your kids, even just to go to daycare. And I don't know if this, I'm assuming this is common.
Probably in lots of places where you have to pack all of the food and all of the snacks and the bottles and the whatever, whatever you're base, I'm picturing. My nephews and my niece like leaving the door with this overstuffed satchel on their back full of so much food. So tell us what you have to send each day to just set the stage and then I am so curious what you are trying and experimenting with to make it as easy as possible on you guys , to do all of this.
Yeah, no, this was a big adjustment for me. Our last daycare did not have this requirement, so this new daycare that we transitioned to, which by all means has been a wonderful daycare and a wonderful experience, definitely added a lot of logistical hassle to our lives. . So my oldest is in kindergarten.
He does get lunch at school provided, so thankfully he's kind of off the hook, but I do have to provide a snack for him for afterschool program. That's a new thing this year. Last year we didn't have to do that this year we do have to do that, so that's okay. It's at least a non-perishable snack, and it's been manageable.
My middle son is a in preschool, a preschool daycare, and in essence, I provide all of his food that he eats from breakfast to dinner. So that's two snacks and a lunch. And as you can imagine, kids get pretty hungry. They have to be relatively notable snacks. Like I can't just get away with being like, here's an apple, or, you know,
yeah,
here's a granola bar.
Like it kind of needs to have protein, fat, carbs, everything that will keep him fueled or else we get an even angrier child coming home.
Yeah.
From daycare when I pack , a weaker snack in the afternoon. , so he gets those two snacks and a lunch. And then my daughter, , you know, sending bottles to daycare is not anything new.
My last daycare did receive bags of frozen milk and was willing to take it from there. Wow. And then I would just send them cartons of formula and they would take it from there. Our current daycare doesn't do that, so unfortunately I have to fully prepare the bottles and mark them appropriately, et cetera.
, and now that she's eating, I need to send her. Food as well, which is, the big wall that is mental wall. That is, starting to feed a child. Food feels that much greater when I have to also be like, well, what can I send her that's easily portable and meets the, you know, structure we've been putting in place for her with food.
That's something she's already tried and she's not allergic to and this, that and the other. Yeah. So those are all the different things that need to be packed and prepared. And I made a joke to you at our, at our family gathering that it feels like I get done making dinner, the night before, and I just immediately have to prepare all of the following food to the next dinner.
Yes. It just, it's really overwhelming. So I don't have a ton of genius tips here either, but I would say that. The first thing I did was let go of expectations again.
Mm-hmm.
Ongoing refrain here. The first couple weeks I had to prepare the lunches. I wanted them to look Instagram worthy. I wanted them to be colorful and full of vegetables, of fruit and, and all the things.
And then most of it didn't get eaten because again, , my son is still three. Doesn't always wanna eat the carrots and cucumbers I put in. , so I started reducing my expectations on what goes in. Like I still include the vegetable, I still include the fruit, I still include the things, but I got a little less precious about I can't have packaged snacks or they can't have the same thing every day.
Well, yeah, they can, they actually could have a lot of repetition and it's just fine.
Yes.
So for me it's just been readjusting expectations to say I was sent to school with either a, , peanut butter and jelly, or peanut butter and honey sandwich or a bologna sandwich. And there was really,
that was it.
So
that was, there was no further, and it was always a granola bar and chips and maybe one slice
of bologna, let's say, too.
Yes, exactly. So, and I was fine. And I don't remember eating lunch being really mad or upset. I think I was just like, oh, here's food. I'm hungry. I'm gonna eat and move on. . So I, I wrote myself just a little schedule and I said on, Monday, Wednesday, Friday they get this and on Tuesday, Thursday they get that.
It kind of scratches my itch for giving them some differentiation, but it also is easily repeatable. Has the same grocery list every week.
Yeah,
it's fine.
Do you have like an a meal and a B meal?
Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. It's a nut, nut free school. So that was a, a different adjustment of like, oh, we have to do sun butter or not.
Peanut butter, and I have to be really careful on the packaged snacks I put in.
Sure.
But, but again, to some extent, it reduced the options of packaged snacks I could even buy.
Mm-hmm. And that was
not a bad thing. Then I'm , doing a lot less, searching for a new snack and me just saying, well, I know these are not free.
That's what we're getting, has his phone and
lunch.
So yeah. Yeah. Reducing expectations was probably the most key. Change or adjustment I made to my, just my mentality. And then tactically, it's really just been batching. That's really the only thing I have. You know, if you're gonna get everything out, you might as well get two days worth out of it.
Or, I like to make a whole loaf of. Peanut, well, it's not peanut butter, but sun butter and jelly sandwiches. And then I cut them and I freeze them because one day I was in the store and I realized, well, there's these things called Uncrustables, which I'm not gonna pay for. I bought the cutters to make 'em at home.
Realized that was a lot of effort that I did not care to take. I passed on the cutters to someone else and decided it was good enough to just make the sandwich, cut it in half and call it good. And my kid has never complained,
and you just put 'em in the freezer. I learned that from you.
I'd never heard of that before. What do you wrap them in?
I just stick up a bunch of 'em in a Ziploc bag, squeeze out air and throw it in, because we'll go through 'em within a couple weeks. So it's not like they're gonna get. Funky. Yeah. In that regard, but yeah, just a big old gallon Ziploc bag full of peanut butter and junk sandwiches,
and you're pulling them out the night before and putting it into their lunchbox.
You're pulling it out the morning of, and it's thawed enough by lunch or they don't. Yep. Care to complain to you or tell you if it's not so Who knows?
Yeah, no. I've even eaten them a couple times where I've been like, oh my gosh, I'm running to work and I don't have a breakfast, and I've just grabbed one.
They saw they thaw relatively quickly, I'm sure. anD they've been great and it hasn't made any difference. And my, my kids' lunches are not, there's no refrigerator or something.
Right.
So it kind of is, needs to be pretty shelf stable, whatever I'm popping in there. So yeah, it's, that's been my one, my one big.
Logistical win of lunches lately is freeze sandwiches as much as you can.
Freeze sandwiches, batch things. You don't have like multiple lunchboxes per kid that you're prepping, or do you I Okay. I do. How many?
Yeah, so I started this in the summer when my, my older son also needed lunch and snacks, et cetera.
Sure. But they each have one of those metal, like. I think Planet Box is the brand we have, but metal lunch boxes each and then they each had one of the bent go like more plastic style. Yeah. Bento box style.
I know exactly what you mean. We just lost one of our plan. We, one of my children lost they're planet box lunchbox, which if you, no, they're not cheap.
They are great. Yeah. And they last for forever Lost one. So we've been shopping for a new lunchbox and it's rough out there. They're expensive.
They're
expensive. They're
expensive.
Anyway, okay, so you have a planet box and you have the bent go. Yeah. And so you're like, so I can, I
can make a couple lunches at once and just pop 'em straight in the fridge.
Perfect.
Just pull them out. I wish I could make a week at a time, but to some extent I do feel like there's a limit too.
Yeah.
How early you can pack a lunch and it still be like even slightly delicious taste Agreed. On the other side.
Agreed. I love hearing you say what I know I have said to clients before and to myself, if I'm honest, that it is okay to eat the same thing for lunch over and over again. I think that's where, whether it's packing lunches for our kids or deciding what we're gonna have for dinner for the family for the week, I think that is where so many of us get stuck, is overthinking the variety that we have to have variety, that our kids need something different every day, that we're gonna get bored.
Mm-hmm. And I've seen many. People do like an A and a B meal plan for a week. Yep. A week, B week. And you just flip 'em. Yep. Because in two weeks you are not gonna remember that you just had spaghetti and meatballs or Turkey burgers or whatever you're having. It's gonna enough time has passed. And so Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday, they're also not gonna really care or remember.
Yeah, just food.
Absolutely. And I think kids, again, we always like, I think over look that kids do kind of thrive in structure and routine. I don't want every day to look identical. That wouldn't be fun. But I do think within reason that that becomes comfortable, that becomes understood. That's some part of their brain that doesn't need to be worried about the new food that you're trying to.
Put on their plate and they still need new, they still need to work on that skill. But I, I do think there's a balance to be struck there. And even seasonally, I'm not in a season where I wanna do tons of new things food-wise all the time. And we're, we're lessening our, I don't know, I should say my meal planning effort.
'cause I, I run that in our house. , whereas in other seasons, maybe in another six months or a year, I have more capacity again. To go find the recipe. I wanna try and put it in the, to try part of my little recipe book, which I keep. Yeah, that's just not my season. So for now, repetition, ease the staples that I know the kids will eat is kind of where my brain is most days.
Yeah, and I would say too, to tie this back to. Just about everything that you've shared in our conversation so far. You have gone through lots of changes since becoming a mom five years ago.
Mm-hmm.
From career shifts and doing your studying for your credentials, changing firms, changing jobs.
Changing childcare providers. We didn't even talk about that. It's all changeable. Just in case you're wondering. It's all changeable and it is okay, but that the repetition, the consistency for something as small as, , sun butter and jelly sandwich in your kids' lunch every day can be really comforting when there are.
Other things changing around them. They're going to a new daycare, they're with a new sitter. Mm-hmm. They feel, even if they can't quite understand it, that mom or dad is going through a change. Mm-hmm. That's, not just the bedtime routine or reading a book every night or mm-hmm. The things that your family does, but down to what we put in their lunches , can be a great source of consistency when other things are changing.
Yeah, we do something called ice cream sundae. We don't eat ice cream any other day of the week, but we eat ice cream on Sunday for the obvious reason that it's a fun little food, like pun word wise. And sometimes we go out for the ice cream and sometimes we're just eating. Scooped, store brand ice cream at home.
It doesn't matter. The kids honestly don't care a ton. Yep. But they know that Sundays are ice cream sundaes and they get ice cream. And it's a fun, easy moment of joy, but it also is that expectation and it helps mark in their brain what day of the week we're on and what's happening. And I will tell you, we've forgotten almost no ice cream sundaes in a year.
So I
love that.
Yeah, I love that. Know that that exists and is is a, A staple.
Yeah. My 6-year-old still has trouble grasping what day of the week it is. And is it a weekend day? Is it a school day? Is tomorrow a school day? I like that. That could be a great way to signal the end of the weekend and being at home and the shift to going back to school or back to daycare for the week and work for mom and dad.
Yeah, no, definitely it, it's a little marker in their brains I think.
Yeah. I would just say that I have loved watching the evolution of you, not just professionally, but as a parent , and as an adult, and. I love how you articulated that here today, that it does get easier in some ways because we learn more about ourselves and we learn more about what we're capable of and our capacity for different things.
, and I have definitely seen that in you
thanks. Yeah. I mean, good news is I've gotten to learn from a lot of other moms and women in my life, including you, and it's the benefit of being at the younger end of the family.
I can watch everyone do it ahead and say, huh, I might, I might take that or I might adapt that.
Or I might do it really differently too. I might do it totally different, which is just as valuable.
Yeah, absolutely. Parenting has been definitely a journey of self-discovery and it's not always pleasant at every moment, but I think overall I like myself so much more now as a mom and I like how much more my husband and I are a team now that we're parents than I did prior to children.
And that's never to say you have to have kids, but for me it has been just a really revelatory process to understand. The strength that I have, the flexibility that I have, the love that I have, , and that I can still be me in and around and about all of that. So, , I'm glad that you see it and I hope that my kids see it and appreciate that down the line when they have the awareness to maybe look at who mom was at different moments of their lives in the future.
Absolutely. I mean, you have always been the crafty di wire and now you're making amazing rainbow birthday cakes or you write different things like that. And I still, I, I love that we can still see ourselves.
In the evolution, and maybe it looks a little bit differently than in the past, and it'll look differently again next month and next year. Yeah. But that we're still, we're still here. We're still us.
Agreed. Yes. And I would remind that to anyone out there especially if it's your first, it's gonna take time to discover that, but file this away so you can reflect back on it later when you start to discover it yourself.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you. I love you.
Yeah, I love you too.
Alright, talk to you soon.
Bye.
Thank you for listening and as always, for being a part of this working mom community. You can find everything related to this episode in the show notes at themothernurture.com/podcast,
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