Missing.....

Last night was the first big meal I have cooked in a while....especially by myself.  Usually I have my husband around to help cook the meat since that is his favorite thing to do.  Last night I cooked my first whole chicken by myself.  I made roasted lemon-rosemary chicken, seasoned fries with skinny garlic aioli, garlic green beans, and a raspberry pie for dessert.  All of them weight watchers recipes which makes me feel even better about eating them.

But I have really begun to miss the dining routines that Jeremy and I got into this past year.  Some evenings one of us would cook something small or we would just have left overs but every other night or so we would cook a larger meal together.  Jeremy would call me before I got off work and we would decide which meat to pull out of the freezer to thaw (or he would make a quick run to the grocery store for something new). Then when I got home Jeremy would mainly focus on the meat and I would make the side dishes and dessert.  Sometimes I would make larger desserts which I would then have Jeremy take the rest to work with him the next day so that his fellow students would consume it instead of us.  Most of the time I would make smaller desserts like cookies or brownies just for us. You never realize what you will miss until you don't have it anymore.....like my last job.

Although I don't miss the slow pace of being a nanny, I do miss the kids. I took care of a 12 yr old, a 9yr old, and (when I left) a 10 month old. Most of my day was spent with this cutie who is going to be 1 yr old this Friday...

 

I loved getting to pick up the older kids from school and taking the daughter to her Gymnastics practices.  It was fun cooking and watching movies with them on their days off from school and on one of their days off I even got to take them to the Sam Noble Natural History Museum. The kids were wonderful....this is a photo of them with me on my last day of work.

Some people have joked and asked me whether or not I am turned off of having kids of my own after 10 years of babysitting and a year of being a nanny.....No it hasn't...it has made me want to be a mom even more. Like life, kids aren't great 100 percent of the time but it is those small wonderful moments that make it worthwhile.