Tips for burned out moms:

There is no doubt that being a mom is a very lovely job but, sometimes, it can be hard and exhausting. When the days get complicated between household chores, work, your personal development activities and child care and it seems like you are drowning, it is convenient to have some tools on hand to lighten the burden a little. Among these tools that I can rely on in difficult days are having ready-made frozen food and snacks to use when necessary and some easy craft that helps me entertain the little ones and give me a few minutes of freedom to do other things or even rest. I like to be prepared and, more than once, I have used these tools. I'll leave some ideas for you below.

Healthy easy foods and snacks that can be frozen: Banana pancakes

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of rolled oats

1 cup of water

3/4 cup of hotcake flour

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 teaspoon of baking powder ñ

2 very ripe bananas

2 eggs

1/2 cup of Greek yogurt

30 gr. Of butter (about 1/3 of a butter stick)

1/4 cup of milk

Chocolate chips

*You can replace butters and milk with options such as coconut oil or coconut or almond milk. Yogurt is also optional, you can skip it.

**You can share this activity with your little one. I bought my little girl her apron and her own kitchen utensils (beater, teaspoons and measuring cups) and she loves to help me cook. You can do it on a Saturday morning, it doesn't take long. The little ones can help serve the ingredients, previously measured by an adult, and mix the dough.

**You can swap to whole wheat hotcake flour to add more fiber.

Instructions:

1. In a glass bowl melt the butter in the microwave, then add the two eggs and beat them.

2. On a separate plate, crush the bananas and add them to the mixture.

3. You can cook the oatmeal flakes a little in the water or add them raw. I like to cook them so that the consistency of the dough is soft. Add them to the mixture.

4. Add the hotcake flour, baking powder, vanilla extract, milk and yogurt. Depending on the consistency you want for the dough, you can omit the milk or add a little more. Mix everything very well.

5. Preheat two large pans on the stove and, with the help of a big spoon or ladle, make small hotcakes of about 5 cm in diameter. Add chocolate chips before turning the hotcake. Once they are golden at the bottom, turn them over and when they have been cooked on both sides, remove them from the heat.

6. Put them on a plate and let them cool before freezing them. I like to use reusable plastic bags, I put several hot cakes in each bag and freeze them.

Once frozen, if you want to eat them, they come off very easily. Just take out the ones you need and heat in the microwave 15 seconds on each side. Serve with maple syrup, bee honey, jam, whipped cream, hazelnut spread or peanut butter and add some some fruit to the side. My little girl's favorite fruits are banana or mango but it can also be served with strawberries, grapes, blackberries, kiwi, apple, in short... any fruit.

And that's all, no you have a nutritious breakfast that can be cooked in batches and stored for later use. You can also serve them for dinner or lunch or as a snack.

These hotcakes have the proteins of eggs and Greek yogurt, they are also good in fiber since they have banana and oatmeal.

You can make them fun by adding color sprinkles, some food coloring like green or blue or red, or pieces of your favorite fruit instead of chocolate chips. You can also make large hotcakes and cut figurines with cookie cutters or instead of hotcakes make pancakes :D

Quick, fun and easy crafts: Easter eggs

It's always good to have some crafts on hand that even us adults can enjoy.

Right now with Easter approaching, a good craft is to fill and decorate egg shells to play and crack on Easter day. It is simple and fun and will entertain the little ones for quite some time.

The materials you'll need are:

- clean egg shells with a small opening at one end. You can collect these every time you use an egg in your kitchen, wash them and set them aside.

- You will also need confetti,

- Glue and pieces of paper to cover the egg hole.

- Washable paints and brushes to decorate the egg shells.

I painted the eggs shells with my little one doing a little experiment. I used a cupcake mold and in each space I put a little baking soda and a little paint, then I added a splash of vinegar to each mold and when it started to effervesce my little girl put the shells in so that the same fizz of the baking soda and the vinegar mixed with the paint will paint the shells. Then we used her brushes to continue painting with the painted baking soda and vinegar. But you can also do it in a simpler way, just decorating with paints and brushes. You can also use stickers and even markers.

Once the shells were dry I gave my little one a container with confetti and a small measuring spoon that would fit in the hole in the shell and rested the shells once again in the cupcake pan. She filled each shell with confetti using the small spoon and, once they were full, I helped by closing the holes in the shells with glue and a small piece of paper.

The next part is to have fun breaking them. I suggest doing it in the garden so that all the confetti falls on the grass and it doesn't make a mess inside the house.

My little girl did this activity in the kitchen while I cooked, I only gave her all the necessary materials and supervised the activity, so I had a little break to be able to cook. To clean quickly, I recommend putting several paper napkins to serve as a tablecloth which you can also use to clean afterwards. You can also do it in the garden on a small plastic table, so that if there are splashes or confetti falls, it falls on the grass.

These two activities, pancakes and confetti-filled egg shells, helped me give myself a little respite on difficult days. Knowing that you have tools to use if you ever need them gives you peace of mind and confidence. To this end, I recommend always having a box with recyclable materials from which you can invent some craft that takes away the pressure of thinking about entertainment and learning activities for your little one (yes, crafts also help learning such as hand-eye coordination, handling tools and their use such as scissors, practicing grabbing crayons and pencils correctly and strengthening fingers and hands, etc.). For example, I like to save cardboard tubes, pieces of paper and fabric scraps, cardboard boxes, stickers, ribbons, and anything else I can think of, so when I see that my little one is a little bored or restless the only thing I do is invent something quickly, it doesn't have to be anything complicated, something easy like drawing some basic geometric figures on a sheet of paper and having her decorate them using torn paper or stickers, for example. Nowadays there are many crafts accounts on different platforms and son many ideas on the Internet and it is not necessary to tire your brain thinking about some nice craft to do.

Later I will share more tips and crafts that even as adults we can enjoy. Today I leave you these two easy activities hoping to help you make your day a little lighter. Mom, you are doing a great job 💗