then there were two…

As my good friend Max (mom of two busy bees) would say, “dinner time is such a rat race”. It’s too bad that the typical nine to five work day leaves us scrambling to get our kids fed, bathed, and into bed by 7pm…ish… and it sure doesn’t leave very much room for family time together as a whole! That’s why for our household, it’s so important that we try to sit down to have dinner – even if it means taking the extra effort to bring everything over to the dining table (breakfast usually happens at the island in the kitchen!) and having to deal with cleaning it all up after the kids have gone to bed. By the time my husband gets home the boss (our 7 month old) is usually so hangry that I can barely get food into her fast enough, and as I’m doing that pie pie is running around us wild and trying to help “I want to feed my baby sister!”. It’s definitely a team effort and sometimes once we sit down pie pie announces, “my belly’s full”, or it’s almost 6pm which means only 10 minutes of “togetherness” at the table since the boss needs a bath ASAP and wants to go to bed at 6:30pm. The truth is, sometimes it may seem like it’s not worth the effort for those measly 10 minutes (or, chaotic 10 minutes!), but even though our dinners are short now, I am hoping it’ll build a solid habit and routine for the future. I grew up in a family that sat down every night together for dinner, and I have so many memories of good food & family time because of it. I have two brothers that are quite a bit younger than me, but we are close and such good friends despite our age gap (5 and 8 years!), and although my dad worked a lot when we were in school, he did always sit down with us for dinner. I really do believe part of our amazing family dynamic is due to spending time together everyday around the dinner table.

So, here’s this week’s challenge! Try to have dinner at the table…even if it’s a rat race to get there for 10 minutes! 🙂