Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Dinnertime

Ernie is working late every night this week. Argh. I’m super struggling with getting motivated to cook dinner. The kids are tricky, because apparently everything I feed them is poisoned. I know this because they make horrible faces while they’re eating and say things to each other like:

“Take a spoonful of the chili and then a big drink of water. That’s the only way to get it down!”

I mean, really. I keep telling them that I don’t cook gross food. People ask me for my chili recipe, for crying out loud.

The rule at our house is that you have to take a No Thank You Bite of everything on your plate. Every time I serve it. So, even if you’ve already tried it and decided you didn’t like it- guess what? You get to try it again!  My favorite is Nigel, who is by far the pickiest.

Nigel: Mom, that looks like I won’t like it.

Me: *sigh*

When they were little, they used to ask me if the food in front of them was food that they liked. The answer to that was always yes. Nigel caught on to that one pretty quickly.

Nigel: Mom, you always say that I like it, and I never do!

Thus my current dilemma. Dinner isn’t a problem when Ernie’s home to eat with us, but when he’s not- it’s hard to cook when I’m already tired and I know the kids are going to fight with me. Last night we had cold cereal and everyone was happy. On the plus side, I still read scriptures at the dinner table while the kids ate their Honey Nut Cherrios. I will count that as a small victory.

3 comments:

amyraye said...

i hate to tell you this, but it really doesn't get any better at the dinner table. kids are just plain offensive. :)

but reading scriptures together at the dinner table makes it all worth it- doesn't it?

Rebecca said...

Thanks Amy- I feel MUCH better now! :)

Kitty Smith said...

Love it! We do the no thank you bite too, which we learned from you! It doesn't always work so well for us. We usually end up with someone in tears and someone else with a gag reflex! :)