bringing dinner back

So it’s the week before my blog starts, before I spend a little more than a year bringing dinner back, partially by committing that my family will eat together one meal a day … every day. All I have to say is thank god it wasn’t this week:

Sunday: Clyde leaves for Rhode Island for the week. I drop off Noah at church at 2 pm and don’t pick him up ’til 7:30. Sawyer has a baseball game from 3-4:40 pm, we rush home, I’m starving so I eat leftovers in the kitchen while Sawyer gets ready for trunk-or-treat at church. Sawyer decides he’ll just have candy for dinner. I’m a single parent. Whatever. The boys eat leftover soft tacos before going to bed. Clyde eats in an airport somewhere along the way.

Monday: Sawyer’s football game was canceled because of storms (am I a bad parent because I was thrilled?). He and I eat with friends. Noah eats leftovers I’ve already served to him twice (he very kindly eats at least one of them) in the kitchen alone after rock climbing (7:45 pm) while I’m on the phone with a friend and Sawyer reads a book. Clyde eats in a hotel.

Tuesday: Picked up boys at school at 4:45 pm (tutorials for Noah, chess club for Sawyer). Last-minute conference with Noah’s teachers (12-year-old boys WILL learn good judgment eventually, right?) throws us off schedule. We miss guitar and are late for Sawyer’s football practice. But cook I will! Dinner (yes, the three of us did eat together): rosemary tofu (slightly overdone because I went to pick up Halloween decorations while it cooked), green beans and brown rice cooked in veggie broth (not quite right because I had to run and get Sawyer from football practice while it cooked). Pretty tasty, though, considering.

Wednesday: I’d hoped the homemade Romano/pine nut bread I threw in the breadmaker on the way out the door to guitar/rock climbing would make the jarred red sauce over spaghetti I cooked yesterday special. As we walked in the door at 8 pm and smelled the bread throughout the house, I realized I was right.

Thursday: Had a mini-nervous breakdown about Noah’s rock climbing schedule — which includes 15-plus hours of climbing a week and 5 hours drive time. But feeling much better after the two of us ate dinner at our favorite Vietnamese place (Mai’s). Is there anything a shrimp/tofu curry hot pot can’t fix? Sawyer froze his muddy butt off at football practice … but a hot bath and a bowl of beef pho warmed him right up. Clyde is on his way home. Yeah … reinforcements!

Friday: Family movie night! I had bruschetta in mind but a last-minute Halloween Eve trip to Party City (a complete lack of judgment the likes of which I haven’t seen since I let a cute boy pierce my ear in high school) meant we needed a quickie. Snuffer’s cheese fries it was. Watched Hancock; slightly inappropriate for a 9-year-old but maybe the mint green tea and family time by the fire overshadowed the damage?

Saturday: Halloween! Dinner is the traditional pizza with friends, followed by a nauseating array of wrapped candy. Insulin check anyone?