Thanks for the Support

The advice and support I've received regarding my kids and their meals has really helped pull me out of my slump. I feel rejuvenated to stick with the plan, at least for a little longer. I've added a few changes to my plan, thanks to some suggestions. I now require my kids to take one bite of the main course before being allowed to leave the table. I had avoided this before, thinking dinner would turn into more of a battle than it already was. Last night, with tortilla soup, it was absolutely not a big deal. Jackson even volunteered to make up a sign with the new rule on it.

"New Rule 1) 1 bite befor being exused"

I love that boy.

  

On a positive note, I have discovered quite a few new favorite recipes, some off of Pinterest, some from other blogs.  My most fav right now, is the Cajun Chicken Pasta off of Pioneer Woman.  I highly recommend the blog in general, but I use her site most frequently when I need a new recipe for the week.  I pick a recipe that has the most comments on it and am guaranteed a winner. 

Ellis loved the Cajun Chicken Pasta, too.  It was chock full of healthy veggies and great flavor.  As a side note, I could not find "Cajun spice" specifically, so I purchased "Creole" seasoning, and ended up with a delicious dish anyway. Maybe those two are the exact same thing, I'm not very clear on Louisiana vernacular.

The best, and most repeated, advice I've received is that "this too shall pass".  Kids have phases and this is just an especially long one.  If I stick with my guns, something, at some point in time, will change.  If I go back to how it was, than I am guaranteed that nothing will change.  Sigh. 

I have decided that I am going to write a book for new parents, so they don't make the same mistakes I did.  It will have only one premise.  If you want your kids to eat what you serve for dinner, serve it to them from the VERY BEGINNING.  Don't ever ever make them something "special" for dinner, unless it is a special night.  Maybe I'll just write a pamphlet.

My friend Hillary had a very good observation.  Our generation as parents have more dinner time issues, including but not limited to being "short-order cooks." This might be tied to distinct differences in how our households are run nowadays.  When our mothers got married, the cultural assumption was that they would have dinner on the table,every night, even before they started building their family.  When kids were added to the table, the dinner time routine was already established. 

Fast forward to modern time and, at least in my house, when a couple gets married, dinner on the table is a special event, not a routine.  My husband and I had (and have) such wonky schedules that sitting down at the table together was the exception, not the norm.  When kids were added to the table, we had to develop those dinner time expectations on the fly, and obviously didn't do too well.  What's the moral of this story?  Couples starting out on that family journey should establish their dinner time patterns early.  Dinner is dinner, if you're old enough to chew, than you will be eating what is served. 

Whew, that's enough of that.  Here's what else we've been up to:

Family pictures at Antioch Park.  The entire Schumacher side was photographed in all it's glory.  Thanks to my sweet sister-in-law for setting up the sessions, and my slightly metro brother who picked brown and "peacock" blue as our color scheme.  The Hubs and I haven't had a professionally picture taken of ourselves since our engagement pictures.  Yikes.

Deep cleaning.  I think my internal calendar thinks all this 60 degree weather means it's spring cleaning time.  I am slowly moving my way through each room, scrubbing, sorting, and throwing out ALOT of crap.  I've recycled and donated what I could, and am still left with several bags at trash time.  The environmentalist in me feels a twinge of guilt, but Lord it feels good to walk into a decluttered kids room. 

Another big clean out involved my craft "area."  Not just a drawer or a box, but an entire side of our basement.  That purge felt good, and also made me acutely aware of my hoarding tendencies.  I'm pretty sure I could of stocked a Hobby Lobby store with the amount of crap I had saved.  Need glass etching supplies?  Check aisle three.  Wood carving tools?  Right there next to the modeling clay.  Magnets, wire sculpting, scrapbooking, beads, embroidery floss, I got it all.  And I'm not even going to get into the piles and piles of yarn.