Is there anything worse that the question, "What's for dinner?" One of the never-ending chores of parenthood that rarely gets talked about is dinnertime. Not all of us enjoy cooking, and definitely not all of us have the patience to cook for kids who love something one day and hate it the next. However we feel about it, making dinner most nights of the week is not going to go away, and many of us have become resolved to that fact.
It doesn’t matter if you like to cook or not, when it comes to dinnertime with kids around, there are several situations we all find ourselves in. Add in the whole health situation with the world, the fact that we’re stuck inside, can’t go out to a restaurant, and can’t just run to the store whenever we want to. And with those limitations, comes along even more mealtime frustrations.
To give us a giggle, we’ve rounded up 17 tweets that are super relatable in terms of these common dinnertime struggles. We are definitely not alone.
Didn’t Know, So It’s This
Trying to come up with something new to eat every night is not only stressful, but it gets really tiring after a while. Needing to keep tabs on who hates what and ingredients that will or won't get easy is a challenge. Sometimes it's just OK to say, "Enough!" and make everyone fend for themselves.
Fries, All the Time
If the only thing people in the house will eat is some variation of french fries, well, then go for it. Yes, waffle fries count as a dinner — and it's vegetables. Add a sauce or a banana with it and there, boom, a meal that the kids will definitely eat. That's what we call a win-win around here.
It Was Hard to Decide
If it's too hard to decide what to eat, give them a snack — or snacks — instead and call it a day. There are several ways to snack that are healthy, if that's something that is important. This way, we know our kids will eat because all they do is ask for a snack anyway. It's good enough and that's all people should be going for right now: good enough.
Rotate Between These Three
The thrill of cooking has been lost since we can't rotate cook days with going out to a restaurant and we're trying to limit takeout orders. If rotating among three choices is happening at home, don't stress about it. Chances are other families have a menu plan that looks like this, too.
A Timeline of Dinner
At first, the extra time to be able to make all those recipes we bookmarked but never got a chance to get around to sounded really good. However, as the weeks went on and our tiredness piled onto our stress, the interest in what to cook went down drastically, too. The timeline is exactly like this.
Whatever the Kids Hate Now, Apparently
How many times has the child eaten the very thing we're trying to serve for dinner? Why is it then that when we try to do good for them, give them a treat, the kid then decides that their very favorite meal is now the one they can't stand anymore? Argh!
Whatever I Got
Dinner plans are starting to look a whole lot less exciting now that we're making dinner again. Instead of carefully crafted menu plans that have been totally fleshed out, we're giving whatever we got in the cupboards and that's it. Ain't no shame in the pantry dinner game.
A Scramble for Dinner
Oh, we're sure that other parents have been in this situation, too. The plans to make dinner were there until time got the best of us and then we were left in a dinner scramble. It's so awesome that moms are really good at thinking on their toes and that kids don't have sophisticated palates and are OK with a mix of popcorn and chili.
The Same Thing All the Time
OK, it may look like we're sad because we've lost all our dinner flavor, but it is what it is. If all the family can handle is a bag of chips and something to drink, that's fine. Creativity was something we all had in the first few weeks of this, but not anymore.
Comfort Food Is In
Once we finally find something everyone will eat without complaining, we're all about it. Even if it means we are going to have pudding for every single meal for the foreseeable future, that's good enough for us. It's called survival mode — and we're all in it.
A Special Type of Pie
Getting creative when our sanity goes out the window is what this cooking thing is all about. We're either creative with the meal or we get creative with the name we're calling the most basic meal to help it sound fancier than it is. Chaos Cereal, anyone?
One Day We Will Figure It Out
If a parent has no idea what to make for dinner, everyone else is feeling that stress, too. It seems like the longer we spend trying to figure out what we're going to do, the longer it takes to actually figure out what that is going to be. It's a never-ending cycle of doom that's replaced that whole asking your partner where they want to go out to eat thing.
Whatever Works, Now
There were a lot of different ways to raise kids when it comes to feeding them dinners and we all have the best intentions, However, the reality of it all is vastly different than what we think it's going to be. When reality hits, dinner plans change for sure.
Keeping It Simple, As Always
We know that when we're trying to cook, simplicity is often the best strategy. Our kids don't like a whole lot of foods, we just want them to eat it without giving us too much grief. If that means they're eating chicken nuggets … again … so be it.
Simplify It a Touch
We're tired because we are all jugging way too much right now. And because of this, we want a mix of our comfort food favorites, but we also don't want to be spending the entire day in the kitchen. Yes, we had good plans, but as the day goes on, our expectations go down.
All About the Shape, Really
If it has to be cut into the shape of a nugget, so be it! Roasted chicken? Shape it into a dinosaur. Steak for dinner? Better get out that star-shaped cookie cutter. There are many times in life where all we want is our kid to eat. the. dang. food. So we go to great lengths to make it happen.
Leftovers
There is a reason we aren't planning to make dinner tonight for ourselves. We don't want to eat the healthy roasted vegetables … we want to eat the chicken nuggets and mac and cheese that we served to our kids. There are always leftovers and we're happy to eat it — just don't tell the kids.
