I know this is exactly how you wanted to start your new year. With bacon, cream, potatoes, cheese, and everything that is right with this world minus resolutions. But here’s the thing. I’m just going to throw out a guess here, and say you’re a little like me. You are slightly neurotic finding it hard to keep new year resolutions when the new year starts on a Tuesday. Isn’t there an unspoken law that every new beginning starts on a Monday, the first day of the week — err, Sundays never count but as a last hurrah.

I mean isn’t that what we say? Monday I will start eating a salad everyday instead of Ben and Jerry’s Peanut Butter World (ohmygah!). Monday I will wake up at 7 a.m. instead of rolling out of bed when I hear the baby wake up at 9 a.m.. Monday I will start running off the extra baby toddler weight I’ve been lugging around for over a year. Monday I will finally get back into the kitchen since the play room is finished and our ghetto baby gate comprised of two dinning room chairs and a board are in place to keep my kitchen enthusiastic son locked away in BallBookToy Land, where all babies are joyful and not at all whinny because mama isn’t right next to them at all times playing and entertaining them and smooching their squishy cheeks and giving long soothing back rubs and caressing fingers through soft baby hair…

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I find breakfast can be a picky subject. There are people who must have the most important meal of the day filled with only healthy things like granola and fruit and hearty million grain toast without butter or jam or the necessities of life. And there are those who like to eat something that actually tastes good. No offense million grain lovers, but you’re not in the latter category. Now, this is a no-judge zone, so I will not judge you for your healthy choices if you don’t judge me for my cake-for-breakfast policy. I mean, that’s what you non-muffin eaters say isn’t it? That we eat cake for breakfast and if we stopped we could easily drop those extra 5 pounds hanging around? But remember, we don’t judge. I will, however, try to convert you to the right side of the spectrum where everyone eats pumpkin muffins stuffed with cream cheese under a pecan streudeled lid, the makings of the most memorable breakfast of love. Seriously, just ignore the sugar and look at the 2 cups of pumpkin and the four eggs. It’s a serving of vegetables and a bit of protein packed into a little hand cake. See? Now, I’ve won you over with my sound logic.

But let’s get serious for a second. Even if you might actually prefer hearty grain breads and bran and wheat germ and supplements, I’m sure there comes a point where you get tired/bored of the same thing and just want to break free and eat something sinful. Something that tastes incredibly decadent and, like I said, is still relatively healthy. (You can stop rolling your eyes now.) That’s where these muffins come in. Now I’m not the biggest breakfast eater. I skip it far more than I actually eat it, unless you count this month where I had an undisclosed number of muffins with my Keurig cafe caramel every morning. So if it has the power to convert a non-breakfast lover into an avid breakfast eater, surely you can give it the benefit of the doubt too. Besides you will have the entire day to burn off your 2 cups of pumpkin and extra protein.

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To be completely honest, there are times when I am my own worst enemy in the kitchen. I find recipes that sound perfect and are photographed impeccably, and they give me culinary epiphanies where I realize this will be the greatest dish ever and I have to make this immediately, but then I continue reading and discover countless comments claiming the recipe to be a garbage worthy failure. And yet I think I can beat this, I can make this recipe into the jewel it is supposed to be. And, inevitably, I find I cannot beat this. I cannot make this recipe into the jewel it is supposed to be.

Oh, I still try. Despite repeated failures, I still try to fix it. Occasionally I win, usually I throw in the towel. This past month, I have barely made one recipe that works correctly and tastes wonderful because I seem to keep picking/being drawn to the duds. Then I look back on the week and realize I fed my family unsaveable disasters (if they’re lucky), or, in many cases nothing.

As with most things I had to go full circle. We went out to a little French Cafe for lunch a few weeks ago and in my stubbornness I ordered duck confit, absolutely positive it would be superior to my husband’s humble quiche lorraine. It’s duck people. It’s the best. It’s posh snobbery, like the French do so well, and snubs its nose at such things as diced up ham and softened leeks in a shell of egg custard. I mean really.

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Shhhhhh. The baby is sleeping. Finally. The husband had the audacity to leave our home office and get whisked away to the Big Apple on a business trip for three whole days taking my dutiful put-baby-down-for-nap  and wake-baby-up-from-nap partner, leaving me the bad guy.

This guy also took my daily dose of grown up as it’s just me and baby in the house…alone. Albeit, I am glad to take a break from our most frequent conversation topic:

Josh: Hey, his diaper needs to be changed.

…

Josh: Then I want him back.

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So my attempt at getting back into my pre-pregnancy routine has failed miserably. Dinners now consist of drive by stops at the supermarket because I want something quick and easy (read: tomato soup with a sprinkling of cheddar cheese) or take out (read: Chic Fil’ A cookies and cream milkshakes are my mother blood). The days of even a quick salad doused in some vinegar (ette) are over as that braise was apparently a one time deal. Fortunately this bothers me more than my other anxious half as he is drowning his worries in a jar of nutella — and we’re talking the super plus size jar, not the normal 9-ouncer. (ahem, thanks mom!)

We’ve been taking a birthing class, and yes I know I sound totally hippy right now, but according to my hospital’s stats, 98% of us knocked up groaning women call for the anesthesiologist and their 8-inch needle before too long. And, well, not to gross you out, as I’m told it is a fact of life (but one even I must draw the line at when we are here to talk about food (yet here I go because pregnancy makes/forces you to become comfortable talking about all sorts of things, which yes I will draw the line at naming)) but we watched a birthing video and I think we are both still trying to recover from what exactly happens. Down there. To me (he just gets to sit back and watch and say haha woman, that’s what you get for nagging me about starting a family.)

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