Nacho Night

The kids picked dinner today. I don't let them do this a lot. I learned very early that giving children too many choices is not always a good idea, and putting them in charge is even less so. I never have asked them, "Is that okay?" because it doesn't matter if they think it's okay. I'm their Mom. I make the choices. I make choices that will keep them healthy and whole throughout their childhood. Not that all of my decisions are correct or even good all of the time; however, my job is to keep them alive long enough to be able to make their own decisions as adults. Right now, I will make choices, and I don't care if it's "okay" with them.

(But here comes the bad part about being a decision maker) I'm not really a good meal planner. The biggest stress in my day, most days, is deciding what to prepare for dinner. (I know, I know. If that's my major stress, what do I have to complain about?) From the time I wake up in the morning to the time we sit down at the table in the evening, I'm worried about dinner. Will they eat it? Will I make enough? Will I make too much? Will I have the time to finish it? Will I have the ingredients? Will I like it--because I have to eat it. It's not an option for me to refuse to eat something I cooked. A chef who won't eat her own cooking isn't a chef you can trust.

Sometimes I luck out. Turns out my kids like edamame. Who knew. They just sucked those soybean pods dry and asked for more. I don't get that with a lot of vegetables. I've also learned that they don't like quiche, which I find funny because they both like scrambled eggs although Caleb prefers sausage over bacon.

Another reason for my unreasonable stress is that dinner, being the one meal of the day when we all sit down, is the meal that I use to teach table manners. We use napkins. We use utensils. We don't slurp. We behave. Dinner is a test for me as a mom, and for the kids as savages. It's a rite of passage for them from the kids' table to being able to dine with adults. I don't know if I ever passed it when I lived at home. When I was growing up, dinner was a successful meal if no one was dismissed from the table for making nose jokes.

Conversation circa 1980-1990 in the Kusar Household:
One of us kids: "What's green and goes backwards at a hundred miles an hour?"
Mom: "You can be excused now."
Dad: "Leave!"

Once when my kids were little, in an effort to foster their interest in dinner and hopefully to encourage them to behave, I gave them the privilege of choosing the dinner menu. This only happened once because they decided that they wanted 'corn' for dinner. We had corned beef, corn bread and creamed corn. This is why three and five year olds don't run restaurants; the themes are a bit simple. Honestly, it wasn't a bad meal, but  they refused to eat it.

But today I was feeling adventurous, and "corn day" being five years past, I once again let them choose the dinner menu. Today was Nacho Night at the Brohlin household. We had blue and yellow chips, taco meat with black beans, re-fried beans, salsa, and queso with jalapenos. Hannah and Caleb set the menu. I did the shopping and we all sat down to eat. I'm always thrilled when they eat things. They've become much more adventurous lately. We've come a long way from 'corn' night. The only thing left uneaten was the salsa because you could actually identify the vegetables in it.

And I had fun. I relaxed. We dipped our chips and laughed at the towering layers of cheese and beans and salsa and more beans. Hannah made a refried bean road on her plate and created hazards with black beans in the road, and then scooped up the hazards with chips. Caleb did a blind taste test to see if he could tell the difference between yellow and blue chips. I didn't harp on napkins (although they were there.) I didn't nag about slurping (although there was surprisingly little.) or using utensils (it was nachos for pity's sake!) Of course, it wasn't the healthiest we've ever eaten. There were no green vegetables, and I forgot to put out the baby carrots to snack on. But, when the studies are published that show that eating dinner with your family stops kids from getting into drugs, getting into trouble, getting kicked out of school, driving drunk, joining the circus, becoming carnies, or majoring in art history, this is probably the kind of dinner that does the most good.

I'll give them a crash course in table manners when we're invited to the White House for the award I'll win someday for being a good Mom. Until then, I think we'll build some more refried bean highways and take them to a stress-free place...until I have to decide what to eat tomorrow night.