askyermom

So much effort goes into feeding our little nuggets. It is difficult to feed people every day, several times each day. I certainly did not imagine I would personally spatula eight million fish sticks in my parenting career. My lack of imagination directly and certainly led to the reliance on fish sticks for a decade, but there were also extenuating circumstances.

There are going to be times when food adventures and complex plans are just too much. If you spend every dinner handing out emergency backup food like, say, frozen pizza that may not even been completely heated, consider a bit of pause for cause in your frenzy. In that situation, you may have bigger problems than food, and food can totally take a back burner for a bit while you attend to the bigger issues.

Ultimately, food is a support system, so some times you have to simply let it support you with very little system. Maybe let the neighbor give you their basic lasagna and be nice about it.

We have a lot of food choices if we’re lucky, but that’s also unlucky. Decisions are hard. We are already deciding on timelines and strategies and managing relationships and making sure the dog doesn’t have a chance to become rabid. Food decisions are like a relentless low hum under all the other decisions. Tinnitus for our tummies.

Because I fed too many people, I had boring themes, Mexican Monday, Tuna Tuesday, Waffles or Whatever Wednesday. This spared my tiny brain from much complex dinner strategy. I have forgotten what Thursday was and that’s okay; Maybe Meatloaf? The point is to have a lot of decisions pre-made and a shopping list that is simple and memorable.

Simple nutrition is key. We don’t need everything every day. I’m not recommending we try alternating between feast and famine, but we can have high protein in some meals and not others. If it averages out, we’re in average territory, which is fine and simple and worries no one.

In the spirit of take my advice I’m not using it, I wish now that I had figured out how to enjoy preparing food for the horde. It was generally like an irritating strategy game of trying to find the easiest way to plate nutrition with little margin of error. Keeping spare ketchup and frozen vegetables on hand was vital, along with a stack of local restaurant menus for the evenings where I just could not face it.

It’s possible that dinnertime is full of drama for many families mostly because cooking is difficult. Imagine, at the end of the day having the stamina to produce a better than average meal and then not having the stamina to hear complaints about it. If you’re a parent, you have no need to imagine. It happens.

Everybody is possibly at their most tired, even the highchair baby has had just about enough of you people. By dinnertime, she is rarely going to be in a mood to congratulate you on the crispiness of your bean tart or whatever.

If you can find a way to keep meals friendly and welcoming for everyone, it’s not going to matter if the napkins are random and rumpled and the dog eats a few sweet potato portions. With peace at the table, you have already won dinner in any case. It doesn’t have to be perfect or ideally balanced or assembled with flaming joy.

A friendly and welcoming meal is a lovely, doable goal.

If you have extra of the sub-par casserole, just give it to the neighbors who are more interested in the may than the gourmet.

Love,
yermom

I am itching to carry on about my new book, but I have been waiting for the proof for two weeks!! I happen to know that Tennessee is not that far away. Perhaps it is coming by donkey. Okay, it takes 14 days to get here walking, so it must be a laden donkey. Poor thing. Anyhoo, if you want to live dangerously and buy Don’t Eat Your Children, it is apparently available everywhere online, even though it might be a collectible errata edition. Let me know what you think!! It’s up on goodreads and everything!! If you don’t want to pay $33 with all the fees, sign up for my newsletter for a chance at a freebie!! Also if you subscribe via substack (also free!!) you will double your odds of a freebie!!