Making dinner twice

Last night a hockey mom told me she makes two dinners every night.

?

Lordy.

Her older son is on my son’s team, and her younger one is also a hockey player. I kind of get it, I got two kids in sports too. But two dinners? Why not just make one dinner extra large?

She enlightened me about some other things as well. Like how both her kids help with after dinner cleanup, and do other household chores. A third hockey mom, standing with us, had her jaw drop on the floor. Her two boys haven’t pitched in at all, and if they do, it’s under duress. We assured her that training kids to do chores isn’t without pain but once the habit (and expectations) are laid out and adequate consequences explained, things will settle down into a routine. It appears that our friend will be implementing some changes in her household imminently.

I shared this conversation with my son in the car after the game (we won! off to round 2 of the playoffs) and he was surprised to hear that his friend also has to do similar chores like him. I told him how proud I was that he was such a helpful, practical kid.

“See, I’m not the only mom“, I eluded to my prodigy.  He smiled a little at that. 🙂

But back to dinner. No way I’m going to cook two dinners every night. They can eat cereal or yogurt after dinner if they’re still hungry, or later. I do enough cooking around here.

All this talk about dinner makes me realize it’s 2 pm and I haven’t the faintest clue what to cook today. My freezer is full of meat I should have taken out to defrost but I had issues this morning and then an appointment and an errand and before that the internet was wacky and I didn’t get my work done so now I’m trying to finish it with the internet back and, and, and…

It’s 2 pm and I have no clue what to cook tonight.

But certainly, I’m not going to cook twice. I will however make enough to at least fill thermoses for school lunches the next day.

Off to the kitchen I go.