The JENerally Informed family is very, very busy. In between baseball, play practice, girl and cub scouts, piano you name it we do it. At least it feels that way some times. Thus making dinner a very daunting experience for our family. I truly believe that by sitting down together and sharing our day even if it is just for 10 minutes it helps to bond and connect our family together.
Some dinners and family meal times are better than others. Take last night for example. We are finishing up baseball, but that means most every night we are out at the ball fields since the hubs coaches the kids. I thought I would prepare an easy crock-pot dish that could be eaten on the go. It is a family favorite. Except, somehow we bought a different brand of salsa this time and so the normal beautiful creamy and orange colored enchilada chicken ended up instead being “Pepto Bismol” pink.
I have 4 kids, you’re seeing where I am going here, right……..
Here’s how dinner went:
1. Put baby in chair. Serve her up finger foods she can eat. She proceeds to throw everything off of the chair to her accomplice in crime the dog. My husband manages to get 1 raspberry, 1 blueberry and a bite of cheese in her. Yay!
2. Serve up children with chicken. Six year old Princess likes the pink color and tells me it matches her shirt. Older children believe this meal could cause digestive failure and are not convinced it is safe to eat. Grudgingly pick at plates.
3. Husband and I still have not eaten. Baby begins to scream that she wants out of the chair. We clean her up and let her out. I serve hubs so that he can change and get to the field early for set-up.
4. Baby finds a toy golf club and begins socking her brothers and sisters in the ankles. They flee the dinner table almost too happily, leaving most of their “Pepto Bismol” chicken uneaten. I take away the golf club from the baby.
5. I start cleaning up their plates. Baby starts screaming for her club and one of her siblings gives it back to her. She begins chasing the dog with it.
6. Dishes piled and water from the faucet still running I chase after the baby to get the golf club. Take it away a 2nd time and set her up with blocks.
7. Still have not eaten. Return to clean the disaster of a kitchen. Luckily the dog has cleaned everything off the floor, except the lettuce. She has never liked lettuce. . . Lettuce and Cucumbers.
8. Before the baseball players and their Dad leave they obligingly give the baby back her toy golf club and she begins knocking the dishwasher I am currently filling and gut laughs while the plates make a clinking noise.
9. Twelve year old comes in and collects her sister and her golf club so that I can eat in the 5 minutes we have left before we need to go.
10. I take one look at the “Pepto Bismol” chicken and opt for this instead.
So what are you cooking this week? Come link up your Mommy Reality.
Jen
