Family Dinner

As of noon today (chicken salad sandwiches and sweet potato fries - Annie's favorite), my cooking hiatus is now over. Though it was a nice break, I'm looking forward to making some good things this week. However, meal time at our house has become a circus since Jemma has begun eating regular meals in her highchair.

Planning, shopping for, and preparing a "savory yet nutritious meal" (that's from American Beauty) that's ready at the time Jason walks in the door is difficult enough, but now it's become nearly impossible to even EAT it. Jemma yells, growls, squawks, squeals, bats her hands, sucks her fingers before running them through her hair, and generally tries to do somersaults in her highchair throughout the entire meal. Meanwhile, Annie is over in her corner, eating seven bites of meat, rejecting her vegetables, and requesting "something else." The result is that I eat about three bites of my food and have to finish it later, cold, after the kids have gone to bed.

The best strategy (for my happiness, at least) is for me to feed the girls an early dinner, around 5:00, before Jason gets home and then eat a grown-up meal with him after they go to bed. However, this causes me a great deal of guilt: we're not modeling good table manners; we're not having a lovely discussion about our day; we're not all praying together before we eat; we're not all helping clean up . . . etc. Does the fact that we often have a calm, relaxed breakfast together count? Am I the only person who finds this expectation of "family dinner" so difficult to meet? We'll see how it evolves as Jemma gets bigger . . .

For those of you keeping track of the goals I set for myself this week, I've achieved about half (the running, the early bedtime, and the ringworm). Still haven't done crap with my hair besides put it in a wet ponytail. Must work on that. I have, however, managed to eat almost half a package of Oreo cookies since noon yesterday. Jason insisted on buying them at the store, even though I begged him not to because I absolutely can't resist them once they're in the house. Promising that he'd hide them from me, he put them in the cart. As soon as he left last night, I searched the kitchen for them, found them, and promptly ate about 10. Maybe 11. Plus lots more today.

Favorite moment of today: Annie and Lucy running through the sprinkler in our front yard, screaming with glee, then lying down on a big towel in the driveway, facing each other, giggling. Jemma looked on, semi-interested, but far more pleased with the handfuls of grass she had pulled out of the lawn. Another idyllic afternoon in the neighborhood.