Save Time Shopping for Groceries by NOT Shopping for Groceries

Struggling to keep up with all the chores and get a full 3 hours of sleep every night between feedings? Start shopping online! We started using Peapod and reaped these Stuntastic benefits.

Stuntastic Benefits
1. Shop in your underwear. While the little ones are napping, at school or playing in the backyard, you can get the weeks grocery shopping checked off the to do list. Even better, get the iPhone app and shop while you ride the train to work. Extra points if you do it in your underwear.

2. Get a weeks worth of groceries in 5 minutes with lists. Peapod lets you store lists that make loading up your virtual shopping cart as easy as clicking a button! I got lists. I got "Friends coming over", "Dinner for the In-laws", "Wife taking kids to her sister for the weekend" (aka, pizza and beer), and "Flat broke". With a single click everything I need for the week pops up and I can select quantities, click buy and be DONE.

3. Sort by price, sales or size to make finding what you want quick and easy. I like sorting by the unit price to get a true comparison.

4. No chasing your little ones throughout the store and watching them tip a tower of jelly in aisle 6. Use your spare time to take them to the playground to get out that excess energy.

5. Watch someone else load your groceries from the truck to your kitchen. Again, extra points if you do it in your underwear. (Is this underwear thing getting weird?)

6. Free bubbles. Our usual driver brings stickers and bubbles for the kids and has become a part of the family. He's awesome. He brings food. Saves time. And even has tips on how to cook the pork chops. Still hoping he will take it to the next level and cook it too!

All in all, using Peapod saves time and gives you more time for your family. We've been happy with the produce and it doesn't cost as much as you think. We even did a price comparison test. We took a Peapod receipt and went to our local store. While many items differed in price the overall bill including delivery fee came within 10 bucks of the local stores total. Not bad for shaving a few hours off the weekly chores and not having to take the little one down the cereal isle.

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It's All In the Plating

As many will tell you, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Not just for the nutritional aspect, but for the tone that it starts for your kids. My daughter's first words when she wakes are "bekfast now daddy". And that is when the fun begins.

Breakfast can be a pretty stressful time. If your kids are like mine, they shout out orders like a 60 year old waitress at a New York diner. It would be easy to lose your cool. The trick is to make breakfast an entertaining experience. Here are a couple of simple things that I do to keep the kids engaged:

• Pancake Pals: Take a combination of microwave pancakes (full and silver dollar sized) to create the body. Silver dollar for head, full size for belly, and cut two dollar sized in half for arms and legs. Next you want to use raisins, chocolate chips, bananas, or anything else that you can come up with for eyes, noses, etc. Let the kids help you decorate. In the end, these will look like disfigured creatures, but your kids will enjoy it and who the hell are you, Martha Stewart.
  
  
• The French Toast 500: Take microwave french toast sticks (keep frozen) and build a race course on your kitchen table. The take some hot wheel cars and have them lined up and ready to go when the kids wake up. Tell them they need to complete 5 laps and then take pit stops for "fuel". Have juice, fruit and cereal on the side for this stops.
  
  
• Quicksand Trap: Nothing inspires a kid more than the fear that one of their favorite characters might die a slow and horrible death. Or at least that was my thought when I began to play Quicksand Trap. The ideas is pretty straight forward. Take a bowl of microwave oatmeal and bury one of your kid's favorite action figure neck deep in it. Explain to them that the character was out on a special mission and became trapped in quicksand. They need your help to dig out. Extra points if you play the Indiana Jones theme while they are eating it.
  
  
• Slime (or Ogre Poop): Yogurt + Green Food coloring = awesome grossness that any kid will be happy to gobble up.

There are also tons of sites out there for you if you are interested in finding more ideas. Here are a couple of my favorites:

• Kid's Crave
• Making Foods Fun
• About.com Family Crafts

Do you have any suggestions or breakfast time ideas?

Photo Source: Patrick Q

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"Are You Babysitting Today?"

Whenever I am out with my kids on the weekend, there is one thing that I hate more than anything else. Is it the constant screaming and demands for food, toys and attention? No, it is when people come up and feel inclined to ask me "Are you babysitting the kids today?"

Do I look like a thirteen year old girl saving up for the latest Justin Bieber cd? Do I look like Mr. Belvidere? No, I am their father! I want to be with my kids and share in my responsibilites of raising them to be happy well adjusted adults that add value to the planet (also my wife made me take them out).

If you should happen to have this happen to you in the future, here are a couple of handy responses to share with your new curious friend:

• "No, I was actually was trying to kidnap them and they both wouldn't fit into the trunk."
• "How dare you ma'am! These are my dwarf parents and I can't believe you would be so rude as to call them children. Dad here is a defense attorney working on some of the most important cases in the system today and Mom was runner up for Ms. Illinois in 1972. I think we both know that you owe them an apology and some candy."
• "I am a cannibal and these are my afternoon snacks."
• "Actually they are watching me. You see I am legally blind and I couldn't afford a helper monkey, so the state had all these orphans lying around...and let me tell you they are helpful."
• "Thank god you see them too! Nobody else can see them and I was starting to worry that I was going crazy."

Seriously, as a father, I think it is important that we raise our children to understand that the time that we spend with them is not a "chore" or a "job". I know most of the time, people are just trying to make small talk, but children are very preceptive and start to intake "cultural norms" early in life. Make sure they know that you are not the babysitter, you are their father...and you can afford your own Justin Bieber cds.

If someone should ask what an appropriate question to you or your children would be instead of this, here are some acceptable statements that I appreciate.

• Where are you taking the little ones today?
• It looks like a big day out with Daddy. Where are you going today?
• Are you having fun with daddy today?
• Are you being good for daddy today?
• Isn't your daddy so handsome?

Do you have this happen to you? Do you hate this as much as I do? Let us know.

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