Organizing Meals for Post Baby

Cooking. Some women love it, some women not so much. Regardless of your culinary level, cooking when you have a brand new baby is a little tricky. What's a girl to do? Set up a meal calendar and let friends, family, neighbors, whomever to bring you some dinners here and there. You can thank us later.

Okay, so you might feel a little awkward sending out a request yourself. If that is the case just get a close friend to do it. The best way is to send her the email addresses for everyone you want to hit up. If a few people on your "I know you love me enough to cook for me" list do not have email, your friend can call them and add those entries in herself. These calendars are VERY user friendly. Here's how they work:

Your friend logs onto the site and sets up a page for you. She enters all the emails and types up a little message that goes out to all your people. It will say something along the lines of "let's help Sarah welcome her new baby by stocking up the fridge" blah blah blah. It might explain that you want meals on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but you can set it up however you want. If you have any food allergies or food preferences she can add that to the message as well.

Then your friends get the email and logo onto the site and select a day they want to bring you dinner. We suggest spreading out the love into the second month. You can also freeze meals, too, if you get a bit of a refrigerator traffic jam. What is cool about these calendars is that it shows who is providing the meal and what they are planning to make. That way the person bringing you dinner two nights later doesn't repeat something you just had. And you have a heads up, too.

People are always asking what they can to do help. Be happy about their willingness to hook you up and get them in on your meal calendar. It will make life so much easier. Even if you don't have 90,000 freinds, here are a few days it is nice to have something planned for:

• The night you come home from the hospital
• The first night your mom or mother-in-law go home and you are on your own
• The first night daddy has to go back to work
• The first night (week!) you have to go back to work

And that last week of pregnancy is a tough one too. Don't feel bad if you start your calendar a little early. It is difficult to cook when you can't even reach the stove! Visit www.carecalendar.org. This site has a lot of options and is very popular for all sorts of needs. There is also a site called Stork Food, www.storkfood.com  that was developed just for new moms. What is cool about this one is that it can connect to your Facebook account. So they can send a Facebook message to all of your friends (or the ones you select) to get your calendar going. Might save typing up a lot of emails? Both are fabulous little time savers.