We've been given a lovely supply of meals since Lily's arrival, and it's been such a wonderful blessing. It's such a great gift that I thought I'd blog about it.
It's a gift of food.
- to state the obvious. It sustains us literally.
It's a gift of time.
- It means we don't need to choose a dish, write a list of ingredients, go shopping, decide on brands, unpack shopping, prepare ingredients, cook the meal, clean the pots and put everything away. Instead we can heat something up between a feed and nappy change, eat it at a reasonable hour, and spend energy on toddler & bub (=less crying and more loving feelings all round!). In the first weeks of a new bub the tasks listed above can be rather overwhelming, and it's so so wonderful to not even think about cooking and be able to focus.
It's a gift of an idea.
- Many meals we received are things we've never cooked, but gee it'd be good to repeat some of the dishes when we have more time for creative cooking!
It's a gift of hands.
- Especially with 2 kids, even when one is happy to be worn, 2 hands are not quite enough to go around at dinner time (and particularly just before dinner time!). But heating up a meal and dishing it out can be done almost one handed, or with minimal meltdown times because hands are available for cuddles and pats so much more than if they were cooking.
So thank-you, if you have cooked for us. It's made a great deal of difference to getting used to being 4 in our family.
And if you know someone having a baby soon and you want to support them, consider a culinary gift...
