Mama in the City

A few months back I wrote about how I was struggling to find my groove with being at home full time. You can find that post here. What I was really searching for was the secret answer for how to be keep our home in tip top shape, create beautiful meals every day, and have the time to do fun adventures with Ben and Josie. I guess, I wanted to have it all.

At the time, 2 months post partum, I was feeling overwhelmingly lost with how to shape my days and how to keep things flowing nicely with 2 kids. Once I put it out there, I got some great advice and tips from all of my blog readers. I was given ideas on meal planning and strategies for cleaning and also, '...permission to have a chaotic looking household and feel disorganized and to take a break from it all' (thank you, Kristen!).

I'd love to report back that my house in perfect order with Martha Stewart labels on all of my pantry items, but it just isn't true. I can say that I've found my groove with the day to day stuff. Laundry gets done, bedsheets get changed, grocery shopping is more focused and I'm cooking more than I ever did when I worked full time.

I have found a good balance with getting things done around the apartment but also spending lots of time with my children too. Which, when it comes down to it, is actually what I really want out of my year off from work. If things could be even a bit more perfect, totally pushing it here, I'd love to have someone come in and clean my bathrooms.

Today the house was 70% clean and tidy and I let the other 30% slide so I could do something fun with Ben and take time to smooch the baby. We decided baking was a good idea and went from there. At 3 years old Ben's attention span is about 10 minutes in the kitchen so I took that into consideration in a big way. I went through the ingredients we had in stock (Callebaut chocolate for the win!) and came up with the perfect preschool recipe plan of chocolate covered bananas.

You would have thought that I had come up with the most exotic recipe in all the land. Ben couldn't believe what an amazing idea I had come up with. I love that you can impress a 3 year old so easily! He was full of pep helping in the kitchen during the whole 10 minutes it took to make these.

Chocolate Covered Bananas
*melt the chocolate on our make shift double boiler (a pot of water with a bowl on top)
*peel some bananas and chop them in half
*pierce each banana half with a kebab skewer (only stick like thing I had on hand!)
*roll the banana into the chocolate, spooning extra chocolate onto the banana
*add extra bits for added deliciousness, crushed peanuts and colourful sprinkles were easy and fun
*chill on wax paper lined cookie sheet for minimum 20 minutes
*make preschooler very happy and satifisied (done!)