I believe that families should eat dinner together more often than not however at this stage in our familial life that is a very difficult thing to do. Here is what our evening weekday schedule looks like:
Monday
I leave the office at 4:30
The twins are fed dinner at daycare at 5ish..
I pick kids up from daycare at 5:30.
I give the twins a bottle and throw something simple together for Lizzie
Lizzie eats dinner while watching something on Nick Jr. while I get the twins in the pajamas and up to bed
I then hang out with Lizzie until Greg gets home at 6:45
We take Lizzie up to bed at 7. She gets a bath every other night.
Sometimes I exercise for 30 minutes then throw dinner together for Greg and myself.
We watch an hour or so of TV while we eat dinner.
At 10 pm we make the kids bottles/lunch, unload and reload the dishwasher.
We are hopefully heading up to bed by 10:30 pm.
Tuesday
I work from home so I pick up the kids at 4:30.
At 5 pm I feed the twins and Lizzie usually eats dinner as well.
After dinner I bring all three kids upstairs for a bath.
The twins go to bed after the bath.
The rest is pretty much the same as Monday night.
Wednesday
I also work from home on Wednesday however my Mom has the kids for the day so I usually pick them up at 5.
I bring them home, feed them dinner, put the twins to bed and again it's pretty much the same as Monday.
I also have a weekly 9 pm conference call.
Thursday
I work in the office on Thursday so it's pretty much the same as Monday except sometimes Greg leaves work earlier and picks up the kids while I run errands on the way home.
Friday
This day is basically the same as Tuesday as I work from home.
So that leaves the weekends for family dinners. Somehow Saturday always seems to get away from me and before I know it the twins need to be fed and I haven't made dinner for Greg, Lizzie and myself. Which leaves Sunday. I usually go grocery shopping on Sundays and I'm now trying to be a bit more organized and get ingredients for a few planned meals.
I'm cooking one of those meals on Sunday evening so Greg, Lizzie and myself can start eating as a family. Once the twins are staying up later and eating table food they will join us as well. The things is though, in our current it's tough to make a decent meal with all the kids awake. Greg is a big help but Lizzie is usually clinging to me at some point and at 5 we need to feed the twins and start getting them ready for bed. I try to make it so we eat at 6 after the babies are asleep but before it is too late for Lizzie. It's really quite exhausting but an important thing to do.
I think I've also decided that Saturday night will start being "pizza night". We might order out or we might make our own but if I can be organized and have a plan then we can add another night of family dining to the week. I also plan on eating with the kids a few nights a week once the twins are eating table food for dinner. Once again though that will required lots of organization and cooking ahead.
Sometimes it is very hard and very exhausting to do the right thing.
3 comments:
Yes, it is. I feel your pain. The effort to eat together and to eat well is worth it though. My girls will be starting cereal this week. In some ways I am ready - in other ways, not so much!
Don't be too hard on yourself. When my twins were babies it was hard to eat together. I also believe in the family meal, and you will get there! I promise! I think you are doing great. Janna
It will get there.
We do dinner at 5 or 5:30, no later. If hubby wasn't home he had to eat alone. If I didnt' sit down and eat with my toddler she wouldn't eat.
Now that the babies are older we still eat at the same time, and everyone is in bed by 7:30. Can't wait to have dinner again with my hubby.
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