Pressure Cooker

09 May Pressure Cooker

I bought this little contraption the other day.

It’s a single serving vegetable steamer for making baby food. Truthfully, it was an impulse purchase. It was on the discount shelf and I thought it would come in handy and also inspire me to make more fresh baby food. I looked and looked all over the package but I couldn’t find instructions or suggested cooking times for certain vegetables. On my inaugural steam I forgot to open the little pink flip-top and 40 seconds in the top blew off in the microwave from too much internal pressure. That’s how I feel.

Look, there’s no need to sugar-coat things, this week has been tough. Both of my kids are sick and clingy and not sleeping well and all of it has made me irritable. I hate feeling like this; resentful and regretful. I hate walking on the razor’s edge of anger all day letting the littlest things cut me. I feel cagey, constricted, suffocated by lack of choices and options for release.

When I worked outside the home there was a lot of pressure. There were tense meetings, deadlines, tough surgeries all of which created a fair amount of stress. I thought I trained myself to stay calm under pressure but I think I simply trained myself to open the release valve. Back then I took a walk, drove the long way home, stopped for a coffee or just plain stopped working for the day. Those are no longer options. I can’t just leave the house, walk away or stop feeding my children. I must find a way to keep doing my job in spite of reaching a definitive boiling point.

I need to find my little pink flip-top release valve that I can employ at a moment’s notice. I would prefer it to be healthy but I’ve been known to compromise. Any suggestions? How do you keep your cool when cool is the farthest thing you feel because buying isn’t the only area where I lack impulse control. Yelling is another, and I don’t like that option.