February 14, 2010

family dinner eludes us....

most nights our evening schedule looks something like this:

5:15 - lyle dinner (me grazing)
5:20 - ben sees lyle eating dinner and wants to eat
5:30 - lyle dinner clean up
5:40 - make ben's dinner (me grazing more)
5:45 - ben dinner/lyle bath
6:00 - ben post dinner clean up
6:05 - lyle's pre-bed prep (blanket, paci, lights, noise machine, dirty clothes in the hamper....towel hung in the bathroom....etc)
6:10 - make lyle's bottle
6:15 - lyle bed time
6:30 - ben bath, dry hair, brush teeth, PJs
7:00 - ben story time and bed time
7:15 - greg home...wondering what's for dinner

you might notice a few things...
1. it takes me 5 minutes to make ben's dinner. which means it's either cold, or microwaved.
2. lyle takes a bath at the same time that ben eats dinner. which means ben eats dinner mostly by himself b/c lyle can not be left alone in the bath for even a moment.
3. i graze a lot and am therefor not hungry for an actual dinner later
4. i am running around like a crazy person from 5-7.
5. we do not eat as a family. not even two of us.
6. i try to pitch "two (cold) chicken nuggets, a 1/2 bowl of yogurt, 5 string beans that have been sucked on but not eaten and sweet potato fries" or "a frozen pizza" to greg as dinner every night. if i open a bottle of wine i feel less terrible about this sorry excuse for a meal.

is there something that i am not doing that could turn this chaos into an actual family dinner, eaten at the table? with grace? and napkins?

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