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julie@absolute-wellness.co.uk
Firstly, anyone having 3 children from 8-14 years will recognise the challenge and battle of getting everyone sitting together to have dinner. But seriously it is the ONLY time (not withstanding ‘Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway) when we all sit together and ‘communicate.'
It’s not always an easy or pleasant experience, let me tell you….often there are tears, shouting and insults; but on those occasions when we are all laughing so hard we nearly have the dinner spluttering back out again, they more than make up for the dramas.
Tonight is Monday night and I’ve made it a routine to have ‘fresh fish night’ on a Monday. Something I never thought I’d be doing would be sticking to a routine with dinners, but I’ve learned that this is about the only way I can continue to get my kids to eat fish every week.
My negotiations based on the fact they’ve had plenty treats over the weekend and now need to refresh and start the week with some wholesome food and nourishment. I’m not going to lie, for about the first 6 months of this routine I had arguments and fallouts EVERY WEEK. But amazingly now its expected and they just accept they get fresh fish on a Monday. Persist when they resist. You’re boss.
Most meals come with some compromise, as you ‘ll see in the photo we have agreed they don’t have potatoes but pasta with the fish and I get to have as much salad and vegetables as I want. They have to eat some too but not everything I eat…that would be ridiculous! The boys have seabass as they are intolerant to salmon; my daughter has salmon but chops both ends off!! So I get to eat the ends of said daughters dinner and the crusty skin of the seabass.
Tonight was a good night, better than that it was hilariously funny. Dinner time really is a time to discover what the hell is going on in their lives and what secret plans they are making. With 3 kids, there is always one that tells on the others secret plans, try’s to embarrass another or to find out any troubles they’ve been in.
Tonight the oldest decided she was walking my 8 year old to the school bus in the morning, with intent to fill his bag with sweets. Of course this was only to win back the girlfriend that apparently dumped him last week. He took it very graciously when he was told she had met another boy in her street during lockdown, but I could see the disappointment in his wee face. Big sister had a plan though, plenty sweets in the school bag and she’d be running back to him. Otherwise she’d go out and look for another for him.
My words of wisdom, of course “plenty more fish in the sea son”. Then the jokes about plenty fish still on his plate, or still a few fish left in his fish tank (he’s lost a few since he got them at Christmas). Much laughter.
The chat seems to move quickly from one subject to another with no warning. Almost always leads onto chat that is not pleasant, most likely because I have 2 boys. So, my daughter loves milk, she drinks loads every day which is great. The youngest tells her how the cows have 4 wullies which they pee the milk from and “did she not know this?” He doesn’t touch milk, never has! She couldn’t finish her milk.
Then onto the camping holiday I’m threatening (I mean planning) to go on with them all. The cows come back into the chat and how there might be a few hanging round the tent leaving cow pats for us all in the morning. My daughter brought up the camping, as we are awaiting the delivery of our first tent, saying she categorically won’t be going. She doesn’t mind the back garden for sleepovers with pals, where she has access to a toilet but no-way will she be going further. I’ll work on it!
A major conversation they all seem to get along with is the game Roblox. I feel like a total outsider, I have nothing to contribute. Chat about ‘legendaries’, ‘flying unicorns’, ‘neon dragons’ and trading ‘ultra-rares’. It’s like a different language and I’m not included, but they are all getting on! Its what happens when kids are ‘home-schooling’… for much of the time they are skipping between Roblox screens and school work!
Through all this chat we get there, we finish the dinner! It’s a success, but not always. But tonight it was and I’m so so grateful. I know one day very soon this will all just be a memory and I’ll no doubt long for the nonsense, the noise and the challenges of The Dinnertime. So I’ll keep on insisting that we all sit at the table and eat together, except on Saturdays of course for the TV dinner. As they leave the table, my parting request to “clear their plate and to say thank-you for dinner”.
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