Guest Blogger

This is the first of five Drop-In Centre guest posts by Leanne Shirtliffe of www.ironicmom.com over the month of March. Come back every Wednesday to get her humorous take on holidays big and small, real and made-up.

March is National Frozen Food Month.

At first, we may want to say who cares. After all, the first month of spring is also National Text-Your-Neighbour Month and National Flour Month. Since I am an exhausted mother of six-year-old twins though, frozen food holds a spot dear to my heart stomach. How else could I watch chicken nuggets cook while I scoop out frozen margarita mix and eat it directly from the can with a spoon?

This monthly designation is brought to you by The National Frozen Foods and Refrigerated Foods Association, or – as they’re known in the freezer world – the NFRA. No doubt the NFRA chose this month intentionally since March is the time of year we Canadians can no longer reliably use our back decks and balconies as nature’s walk-in icebox.

Besides the ease of meals such as mystery-meat-in-a-box that I can whip up in less time than it takes to talk my son down from dancing on the table, I like frozen foods for other reasons. First of all, frozen foods are perfect ice packs. I’m not sure if anyone out there actually eats frozen peas, but in our house whenever someone injures herself, we dig out the bag of peas, smash it onto the tile floor a few times to break the solid ice block, and apply it to the injury. Then, since we’re good re-users, we put it back in the freezer until the next 911 moment.

Recently I discovered another use for frozen foods. I was opening a bag of frozen bagels when two of them scooted onto our floor. And you know what? Frozen bagels on a tile floor move like curling rocks. I almost wanted to call my friend to come play the bagpipes. Instead, I started teaching my twins, Vivian and William, about in-turns and out-turns. They were less interested in the technical lesson than they were in zinging the bagels across the floor with maniacal giggles. I’d like to reassure you that, unlike the peas, I didn’t refreeze the bagels; I gave them to my children for dinner.

So, whether you’re opening the freezer to put in a bottle of wine (a.k.a. Mommy’s Juice) that you forgot to chill or are grabbing a bag of breast milk (an entirely different type of Mommy Juice), let’s pause to celebrate National Frozen Food Month. And if you don’t feel like doing this, you can always text your neighbour.
 

Leanne Shirtliffe is the mother of six-year-old twins, William and Vivian, also known as Thing One and Thing Two. Leanne lives by the motto, "If you can't laugh at yourself, laugh at your kids." When she's not telling her children to stop licking a frozen flagpole, she's writing and teaching teens. She blogs at IronicMom.com. Follow her on Twitter @ironic_mom.