I Love Cooking... Said No Coach's Wife Ever

After working a full time job, coming home and cooking a meal for the family can be great... Or it can be quite the challenge. As a mom you always have the greatest intentions to make the world's most delicious and nutritious meal for your family. You know... The meal that includes all parts of the food pyramid or all of the colors (depending on which nutrition chart you want to use). You want to see a nice balance of meat, dairy, and vegetable or fruit (maybe both).

As you are making that drive home from work with them in the back of the car talking about their day, you are planning this in your head. You pull the car into the garage. You unload the unusually large amount of bags into the house. You put those away in their correct spaces. You make sure the 2 year old goes to the bathroom to avoid having an accident while you are preparing your perfect meal. You put away the dirty breakfast dishes that you left on the counter, only to realize that the dishes in the dishwasher are clean and you need to put them away. You put those away, then you can add in those dirty dishes.

Now the counters are clean and you are ready to cook. Wait... The little ones are hungry and need a little snack. So you give them a little snack to tide them over until you are done preparing dinner. They are playing nicely together so you can cook the meal.

Then it all starts to go sour... The dog ate their little snack. Crying sets in. You get another snack. They WERE playing nicely together and now they are arguing over the toys, tackling each other. Crying sets in again. Then you go back into the kitchen to continue cooking the delicious meal. Then you hear "You stink." To realize that the 2 year old has pooped her pants. Take her to the bathroom, clean her up. Put on clean panties and get her back to playing nicely with her big brother. Who will now play with her because she doesn't stink anymore.

Back into the kitchen you go... Not ready to give up on this dinner. But maybe now you are thinking. Oh, maybe they don't need BOTH a vegetable and a fruit. Just one of them. You finish cooking the meal, get it plated. Put in on the table and call the children to the table to eat. Call them again to come to the table to eat. Yes. You call them twice because now they don't want to stop playing.

They come. They sit. They look at it and say, "I don't like it." You respond nicely, "Just try three bites. After three bites and you still don't like it, you don't have to eat it. But you only get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich." One tries it and likes it, the other not so much. So back into the kitchen you go to make a pb & j sandwich.

You finally sit down to eat with them. Then one says, "I need a drink." You get up, you get them both a drink. You sit back down. Luckily this time the dog hasn't stolen the food off of the table. You are now all sitting and eating together. It is nice. Just as you are taking maybe your fourth bite of food, they are already done. Remember, the one who liked the meal ate it right away while you were making the other one a sandwich. Then you needed to get drinks and the second one finished his sandwich... Because after all it is just a sandwich.

You are sitting at the table, eating alone. Knowing you have maybe 2 minutes to scarf it all down because it is just a matter of time before they are pushing each other's buttons and the crying sets in and your job as mom is to keep the peace.

Then you think to yourself... I should have just fed them cereal. So much easier. Heck, I could cut up some banana and put it in it. Cereal: grains, fruit (banana), and milk (dairy). You would have covered all of the parts of the delicious and nutritious meal you were planning in your head on the car ride home.

So I love cooking dinner ... SAID NO COACH'S WIFE EVER!