An Experiment

Still on the theme of dinners.... something that we find very frustrating is the amount of moaning and groaning that goes on when the little Sawatzky’s find out what we’re having for dinner. 

And ironically, the better the meals, the more the whining goes up.   These are kids that whine about the food before they even really realize what they’re whining about. 

(insert whiny voice) Pork Parmigiana???  Ohhhhh…. I don’t like that…..

Coleslaw?  Why do we gotta eat coleslaw with our fish and chips?  Do I have to have some?  Why so much????

Gasp! Why are you putting 2 scoops of that on my plate???  I don’t like that…..

Honestly.  It’s enough to drive anyone mad.  And clearly, serving better dinners that you think they’re going to like doesn’t work because then they get used to a higher standard of dinner and whine about the regular meals.  Ridiculous.

Finally, Aven said to Hope yesterday after another round of whining:  “If you don’t like it, tomorrow you will make your own dinner.”

You should have seen her face – I have rarely seen such GLEE!

Then Aven laid down the rules.

1. It has to be healthy and include fruits and/or veggies.
2. She has to be able to make it by herself with no help – this won’t become an exercise where I suddenly find myself making two dinners.
3. If Mav sees what she’s making and would rather have that she has to make enough for him, too.  (I actually added this one on the fly this morning when Hope and I were talking about it some more)

That’s basically it.  More guidelines may be added as she finds loopholes. 

So tonight she’s already planning what she’s going to make for herself.  It sounds so far like a peanut butter sandwich with apple slices and carrot sticks.

We’re having a chicken and black bean nacho bake so we’ll see what she actually ends up eating. 

I can see that she’d be excited the first day with all this freedom to eat what she wants – I guess we’ll see over the long term how fun it is to make dinner every night.  And how long it will take to get tired to peanut butter sandwiches because that’s all she can make without help

Life and Dinners

It’s a common theme – the weeks are long but the years are short.  I’m really finding that to be true.

By Thursday, I’m pretty much yawning every 5 minutes and actually aching for the weekend.   But then looking back, I’m surprised by how fast the year has gone by.

These days I’ve been thinking about September and Mav going to Preschool.  He’s been going to Strong Start with our nanny but he has never done any type of program that requires him to be away from either myself or Miss Bertha (our nanny, and yes that’s really her name, and no she does not look like what you are most likely imagining)

My issue lies in getting him to the preschool as Miss Bertha does not have a car to use.  There is a preschool fairly close that she can bus to but it starts at the same time as Hope’s school so that means I need to find a way to get Hope to schools so that Miss Bertha can leave with Mav to get to his preschool on time.

I don’t really want to do an afternoon preschool as Mav still needs his nap but then again, maybe by September that will have changed. 

Before I know it we’ll be registering him for kindergarten.  Holy shit. 

Aven is now acting Foreman at a jobs site in Richmond.  I’m so proud of him.  But it means long days, higher levels of stress, and site plans and paperwork being studied at home after he finally arrives. 

Thank goodness for my new schedule to keep me and the kids on track! 

Do you ever just get tired of thinking of what to make for dinner?  Haha – of course you do.  If you don’t well, I’m jealous.

I look through websites of food and recipes and menus trying to get ideas and as I’m reading them….

I’m thinking one of the following things…. Kids won’t eat that, Aven won’t eat that, I won’t eat that, what the hell is that?

And I find I’ve gone through the whole list of dinner ideas and not found one new thing to make. 

I try to make healthy foods for us – we eat a solid dinner together every night… a sample weekly dinner menu for us (well, I’ll just use this week’s) would be:

Saturday – we went out to Uncle Herb’s for dinner!  Yay!

Sunday – Roast beef, Yorkshire puddings, gravy, nugget potatoes, steamed green beans.

(Mav eats one bite of the beef then calls it a day for dinner; Hope mostly likes the dinner – has to choke down the green beans; both Aven and I like this whole dinner)

Monday – Italian Sausages, Hot for Aven, Mild for the rest of us, homemade macaroni and cheese with cracker crust, and peas.

(Mav has decided he does not like pasta and won’t try the macaroni but eats a whole sausage, he deigns to swallow one pea as long as he doesn’t have to chew it; Hope like this meal and in fact requested the macaroni and cheese; Aven does not like the homemade macaroni and cheese; I like this meal)

Tuesday – Baked Wild Salmon, rice, salad

(Mav eats half the rice and one piece of carrot from the salad; Hope eats her whole plate; I love Salmon, Aven tolerates it occasionally)

Wednesday – Frozen meat cannelloni, toast, goat cheese and pecan salad

(Mav eats one bite of the meat, spies a piece of shredded parmesan which he usually loves and refuses to eat another bite, also one bite of goat cheese and pecans; Hope manages to eat most of the dinner – she does not like goat cheese or the béchamel sauce on the cannelloni; Aven eats one cannelloni because he’s starving but I can tell he doesn’t like it; I thought it was OK)  This was a cop-out meal because I didn’t feel like making the beef barley stew and biscuits that was actually on the menu 

Thursday – today we’re having fresh Olivieri fettucine with Alfred sauce, baked chicken breasts, and steamed carrots

(Hope is looking forward to this meal – fettucine alfredo is one of her favs, Mav will probably eat a bite or two of the chicken; Aven doesn’t like cream sauces on his pasta but will choke it down, he also prefers dark meat to white; I like fettucine alfredo and chicken breasts.  This is a girls meal!)

Friday – Hamburgers and fries.  In the winter I broil the hamburger patties in the oven.  It doesn’t compare to bbq’d but it’s still a burger!  (Everyone likes this meal!)

I see a pattern here – I like all the meals (as I should – haha – I never make anything I don’t like!) Aven likes about half the  meals, Hope likes most of the meals, Mav likes hardly anything. 

What do you eat for dinner?  I’m always so curious.  Day to day, what do you eat?

Is it similar to what we eat?

Scheduled!

On Monday, I was sitting on the couch in the evening talking with Aven. 

"How are you doing?"  He asked me.  I answered truthfully, "Not great".

"Why?"  He asks. 

I thought about it…and told him - I was unhappy with how afternoon/evenings were going.

I felt un-energetic and un-inspired.  I felt like there was too much time right after school before Aven got home and not enough time after dinner. 

The kids and I would do just whatever after school – basically killing time until it was time to make dinner.  The kids would invariably end up watching tv or playing on the ipad and I would read for an hour or two.

After dinner suddenly there seemed to be tons to do – clean up the kitchen, make lunches, tidy the house, take out the garbage/recycling, make sure Hope had everything ready for the next day, etc.    

And then I’d be late going to bed, crabby about it, and somehow pissed off at the lack of time/stuff getting done. 

"Why don’t you make up a schedule for after school?"  he casually suggests.

Huh?  BRILLIANT!  Of course!!  Why hadn’t I thought of that?  And truly, I don’t know why I didn’t have one – I used to be the master of schedules and lists.  That’s what keeps me sane and happy, for heaven’s sakes. 

So the next day, Tuesday, (yesterday) I came home with a schedule for us.  This is what it looks like:

3:00 – 3:30PM	SNACK / HOMEWORK
3:30 – 4:30PM	HOPE AND MAV PLAY TOGETHER
4:30 – 5:00PM	CLEAN UP
5:00 – 5:30PM	DINNER PREP
5:30 – 6:00PM	DINNER
6:00 – 6:30PM	DINNER CLEAN UP
6:30 – 7:15PM	TV / IPAD / COMPUTER
7:15 – 8:00PM	BATH / GET READY FOR BED

At first, the kids (especially Miss Hope) were appalled that there would be no cartoons after school.  I was a little nervous, too, but we jumped right in to item #1.  Kids had a snack and Hope did here homework.  We were done that part in 20 minutes so we started playing a little early. 

Hope and Mav played some “Sleeping Queens” while I rested on the couch and watched them.  When they were tired of that they roped me into playing hide and seek with them which we did for 45 minutes and then ended out the hour playing “Car Tag” with Hotwheels on Mav’s town rug. 

Then it was on to the clean up half hour.  I wanted to spend this time just spending half hour tackling one small project.  I figure if we can just put half and hour every day into it, the house should stay looking not too bad.  So yesterday we elected to tidy up upstairs.  Hope dusted all of the furniture in the bedrooms with a damp cloth and me and Mav vacuumed.  At the end of the half hour, it was all vacuumed, wiped clean and toys picked up upstairs. 

We went downstairs so I could start dinner – baked salmon, rice, and salad.  Hope set the table while I got going on the food and Mav pouted in the living room because he was upset about something.  Eventually I would like both kids in the kitchen actually helping me prepare the food, but for the first day I decided that might be pushing it a bit. 

When Hope was done setting the table she decided to do some sewing – she has recently starting sewing fabric scraps together and loves doing this so that’s what she did and Mav ran back and forth, the length of the house to show us how fast he was.

Aven came home, we ate dinner and then it was time to bring Hope to Brownies.  She didn’t get any TV/Computer time yesterday because it was Tuesday and she was disappointed about that but got over it fairly quickly – it helps that she loves Brownies!  I took Mav along with me for the ride to give Aven a minute to himself and he tidied up the kitchen while we were out (did I mention he’s amazing?).

Mav got his cartoon time in (hello Toopy!) and then I got him started in the bath and headed out to pick up Hopey while Aven finished getting Mav ready for bed. 

Got home with Hopey – her meeting ran a bit late so it was just into jammies and brushing her teeth to get ready for bed.

Then…bed time! 

Overall, I was happy with how things had gone.  Everything that I had wanted to get done got done – I felt more energetic and purposeful.  It helped having the schedule to provide a time frame for things.   

Today we’re not going anywhere, so we’ll get the full schedule going today and maybe I’ll have the kids helping me in the kitchen a bit more for dinner.

I always find it amazing how something so small – letters and numbers on a page, really, can be such a game changer in a positive way.

Hope wanted to know if we would have this schedule FOREVER.  I told her we would use it until it was no longer useful.  Then we’d get a new one!  Bwah-hah..