For the Love of Dinner

I must vent. And this might be a totally ridiculous one -- something everyone does, but I rarely hear others complain about.

If there is one thing that I do daily that, lately, is driving me nuts . . . it's the daily dinner decision.


What's for dinner? What time will we eat? If I eat enough, can I have dessert? Will the girls eat it? What did we have yesterday? What are we having tomorrow?


UGH.



Some days, I want to open our pantry and fridge and tell the girls, "Just eat whatever you want until you are full, then close the doors behind you." (I've never actually done that, but -- trust me -- I really want to.)




For me, the problem with dinner is that I have to think about it almost first thing in the morning. The thought of, "What are we doing about dinner tonight?" always crosses my mind as I put cream in my coffee and cereal on the breakfast table. And day after day, morning after morning, I get tired of planning our dinner before I've even decided what's for breakfast. Sometimes, I have to plan our nightly meals for an entire week before the week gets started to ensure I have what it takes to feed my kids all week long. It's the planning that gets to me . . . I just get tired of it. Tired of planning, of thinking about dinner all the freakin' time.



SO annoying to me -- the planning, the prep, the repetitiveness of it all. But, it has to be done.



It's all about the preparation. I have to plan our whole afternoon around what we are having for dinner and how long it will take to prepare it. Hence the need to start thinking about it in the morning -- I have to start with a 6pm dinner time, back up 30-60 minutes for prep and cooking, which means that our afternoon must revolve around what time the dinner stuff starts. I have to figure out what we are eating for dinner on busy days so that I don't get everyone home in the late afternoon, hungry and ready to eat -- and THEN have to make the dinner decision. I have to figure out what we are eating on not-so-busy days so that I can take advantage and make something that leaves good leftovers for more than one meal. Plan Plan Plan. BLECH.





If it's going to be a 'regular dinner' -- as categorized in my mind -- I probably need to take something out of the freezer first thing in the am in order to have it defrosted and ready to go by late afternoon. A 'regular dinner' is meat, veggies, and starch -- and I try to do that type of meal about 3 times a week.

* Side note: YES, I make full dinners when Jim is not home. I must -- if I only made full meals when he's here, the girls wouldn't get these nice meals often enough. Daddy or no Daddy, I want my girls to grow up with a regular meal at the dinner table. I did, and so will they. *

If it's a 'left over night', then I just have to think about what I'm going to make to go with the leftovers, if anything is needed. Those are easier days.

And then I have my 'quick nights' where the girls get Kid Cuisines, grilled cheese, frozen pizza, fish sticks, nuggets, etc. I try not to have these more than once or twice a week -- I save them for Bunco nights or nights when we are just running from one thing to another.

We don't eat out often during the week because (a) I'm not taking 2 kids out to eat solo and (b) I don't like eating fast food any more often than we already do. Our fast food is usually a quick lunch once or twice a week -- and that's enough for me.



Like emptying the dishwasher, putting away the clean laundry, changing the diapers . . . making something (healthy) for dinner is another chore that has become ridiculously monotonous for this SAHM day after day after day.



You know some of the times I am quickest to snap at Jim? When we have a date night -- or just a night when he's actually home for dinner -- and he says, "What would you like to do for dinner?" Most of the time, my quick reply is: "For dinner? I want YOU to decide what we are doing about dinner." Maybe if I don't stop snapping at him when he so kindly considers my opinion on our dinner plans, he may start trying the 'open the fridge' trick on me.

Anyway, like I said at the start -- I just needed to vent. Dinner is driving me bananas.

Hmm, Bananas . . . that's interesting . . . what can I make with bananas for dinner tomorrow?