Am I the only one who doesn't do family "dinner"?
I was reading one women's blog on her daily work outs, and she mentioned that "dinner tonight is..." It occured to me that I read and hear similar phrases often: "dinner tonight is..." "tonight we're having..."
I would love to get to the point where I could get home, give hugs, and start making a healthy dinner with everyone eating the same thing. But for now, unless Chris is home to cook - which is maybe one night a week these days if that (and said dinner night is generally at my parents' house these days) - I never feel less like a "we" and more like a "me" than at dinnertime.
As mentioned above, Chris is rarely, if ever, home in the evenings. Which means that most nights I am essentially a single parent getting home at 5:30p, desperately trying to throw together a meal that will a) not result in a Gladiator-esque battle of the whines, b) be health-conscious, and c) not take forever to make and/or eat, thus allowing time for our frantic schedule of cuddles/ playtime/make Pumpin's dinner/feed the baby/baths/books (we can't even read the same books because the baby tries to eat the paper pages)/bedtime.
After the baby was born, our eldest survived on his own steady diet of chicken nuggets and cheesy sticks. As I slowly try to transition to healthier food, I try to feed him smaller portions of what I'm having, but any kind of spice or herb is subject to a CSI-style investigation.
So more often than not, I end up making Pumpkin the safe bet grilled cheese while I attempt to feed the baby (who is transitioning to "real" food). I generally don't start thinking about what I'm going to eat for dinner until 9pm or later. Not good, especially for my healthy diet.
While I am trying desperately to become the "we eat ____ at dinner" family, it's a process. Baby steps.
What I want to know is - who are these "we" families? How do they deal with the different tastes of their family members? The dragout food battles from the picky eaters? The evening crunch time?
Enlighten me.
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4 comments:
i usually let my kids whine cry and starve to death if they dont like what im making. brandon too . he he!
"too bad, so sad. sit down and eat. theres kids in the world who have no food at all" -i sound something like that.
ps..might i add...its rarely a pretty sight. =)
Yep, it's one meal, and if you don't like it, that's a bummer. Maybe you'll enjoy breakfast more.
I don't cook dinner for my kids. They get breakfast and lunch to themselves and dinner is for me and Chris. They have learned to just deal with the fact that they grown-up food at night. Their favorite is grilled or poached salmon! They love to help with mashed potatoes (which I don't eat)and I can pass ANY kind of meat off as chicken! They don't get dessert unless they eat at least their age in bites of the vegie for the night.
I also have a husband that works very regular hours. He is home by 5:40 every night and expects dinner on the table (so traditional it hurts to say it outloud). But at the same time it works really well cause we get to sit down as a family. I've also become very good at learning to make meals that take about 30 minutes to prepare (I start defrosting the meat in advance, however).
So there you go. Things do not go perfectly and most of the time I feel like it's a waste of food because I'm throwing whole plates of food in the disposal...but, whatever. It's all about habit.
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