Mama Pasta?

Mama Pasta. Mama pasta is not some rejected ballet character from the Nutcracker. Mama Pasta is one of my earlier triumphs of first-time motherhood. It was only a week or two after the birth of my son, and I was trying to figure out how the hell anybody did anything while breastfeeding. I mean, really, do the math - eat every 2 hours, for about 20 minutes. Throw in some diaper changes, naps, and BAM - you have exactly 7.845 minutes to take care of yourself. On the day that Mama Pasta came to be, I made the decision to eat instead of shower.

The baby was in between feedings and resting in his pampasan. I began scrounging around for food, and found very little. No lunch meat, no bread, no cereal, no milk, no leftovers. Leftovers would have required me to cook at some point. Pasta - being raised in an Italian family, I knew I had pasta. As I continued my search for food, I found no sauce. My eyes started to fill with tears - I just wanted something hot to eat. Why not run out and get something you may ask - well, those of you who are first time mom's of an infant know. It is not worth it. I had barely figured out how to get the kid in the car seat and definately didn't yet have the strength to drag him through the store in that heavy ass car seat. Instead of crying, I thought of my Aunt Dana, who, could whip up something to eat out of nothing. WWDD - what would Dana do? And 10 minutes later (drum roll) I had my first batch of mama pasta. Whole wheat rotini drizzled with olive oil, mixed veggies from the freezer, chicken from a can, some Mrs. Dash garlic, topped with some Mozzerella. Success! Hot dinner AND I hit all the food groups. Since then, mama pasta has become a game. The only rules - you must use pasta and cannot leave your house for any ingredient.

I triumphed - baby ate, I ate. We made it through another day.

Now my son is 8 1/2 months old, and we still have our mama pasta days. Today was one of those days. My friends Danielle and Scott were here this evening, and I was showing them my mama pasta creation and was explaining the game. After some other random baby tales and musings, we (meaning Scott) decided this should be blogged. And there it is - the birth of my blog.