Take Them A Meal

Whenever a friend of mine has a baby I always like to bring them a meal when they are home and accepting visitors. It's just one less thing to worry about as you acclimate to your new life and schedule. It's hard enough trying to find time to even shower with a brand new baby in the house, especially if you have other children, let alone trying to find the block of time and energy needed to cook a homemade meal. The meal is not only helpful to the mom, I do it for the dad as well. If the new mommy is lucky enough to have a husband like mine who would take over/do the cooking while the family adjusts, it's nice for the dad to not have to worry about meals either and just focus on his expanded family.

I belong to an amazing church and over the past couple years have come into a circle of amazing friends who are also amazing mothers. When I had Aiden, these fantastic ladies arranged for meals to be brought to me when we got home. People volunteered and one lady coordinated everything and we had meals brought to us every night for over a week. And these meals were sooo yummy! (isn't food you don't have to cook always just a little more yummy anyway? I think so!). These women truly loved on us and their kindness was such a blessing!

Recently, maybe even when I was on Facebook, I came across a website called TakeThemAMeal that is a free site that does all the arranging and coordinating for you!! The site allows you to enter in the new mommy's name and info as well as a place to give meal delivery instructions including what foods they like or dislike. Then you pick a start and end date for the deliveries. Next, the person who created the page for the new mommy simply email invites anyone interested in delivering a meal to view the page. When you are invited to view the page/sign up for a delivery date, you do not have to sign up for anything, you don't get anything sent to you, all the invite is is a link to the page along with the password needed to view the page (it's kept private to protect the family's info). Then, if that invited person so chooses, they pick which date they would like to bring a meal on and there's even space to list what you might be bringing- which is great when trying to decide which meal to make. That way you don't end up with 8 spaghetti dishes. Before this site, it was up to the person coordinating deliveries to assign people dates and help clarify who was bringing what. But with TakeThemAMeal.com, the coordinator spends literally 20 minutes filling in info on a page and sends out an email and the coordinator is done. People sign up on their own and contact the recipient family directly to confirm delivery times.

I am currently doing this for two mommies (sisters actually, due with baby #3 and #1 respectively!). I am in love with this website!!

So please, if you know any expecting mommies, BRING THEM A MEAL!! Even if you don't have time to cook, or don't enjoy it, bring them a pizza from their favorite place, or pick up a lasagna from your grocery store that they can heat up. If you're a parent, you know how amazing the gift of a meal is.

THIS SITE IS NOT SOLELY FOR NEW PARENTS!! This site is simply a meal delivery coordinating site. If you know of anyone who is ill, bedridden, elderly, or simply going through a time when having meals brought to them would be beneficial, this site is what you need. You can even set it up so meals can be brought multiple times a day!

What kind of meal would you bring to a new mommy/daddy?