It’s been a rough day. Not in the deep, devastating way of facing true hardship, just in the myriad of small ways that come with being a mom 24 hours a day, every day. I lost my cool this morning trying to get my two sons, sloth and turtle, out of the door for school. Why is this so hard? Why do I have to ask them to put shoes on 527 times? Why is it a surprise that we brush teeth and get dressed and go to school, just like every other week day? Why are their jackets and gym shoes and lunch boxes never in their backpacks? Why will no one go potty before getting in the car and then have me pull over in the snow because they have to go NOW? Why does no one know where they left that precious animal, rock, scrap of paper that is vital to their survival?…

EXCEPT ME!!  For some reason I the one keeping track of everyone’s possessions, whether they left them festering in the car, dropped them between the couch cushions, hid them under the bed, or put them in a ‘safe’ place?? Somehow I know all this and spend considerable brain power storing it all for those critical moments when we need to be somewhere on time. And sometimes the effort drains away my sense of humor and leaves just a cranky location system behind. That’s when I am like the ‘Nancy Neverlost’ GPS they used to have in Hertz rental cars (or maybe they still do for people without smart phones?). She often sounded a bit exasperated to me, like she was so tired of telling people the same things over and over again and then watching them get it wrong anyway. And then she’d have to tell them the same thing in a new way, hoping they would get it this time. That was me this morning, until even the exasperated GPS voice gave way and it turned into a spirited evangelical lecture about listening and responsibility and taking action, which may perhaps have been just a bit too much for a kindergartener and a preschooler…

On a more positive note, we had our second kid night tonight and the boys chose, wait for it… SHRIMP GNOCCHI!! We had a delicious – and very quick and easy to make – meal and everyone ate with gusto. I’ll post our version of the recipe in case  you want to try it. We discovered it through Blue Apron and I could not believe how much they liked it. Maybe you’ll be surprised too? Or at the very least, it should make a good dinner for you and your spouse! The kids never cease to amaze and delight me, which is really good design when you think about it. They say that’s why newborn babies are so cute too, to keep them safe in the hands of sleep deprived, shell shocked parents.

Enough with the philosophical stuff for a minute. We all want to be better parents and I’m sure, like me, many of you are constantly grappling with ways to do this – make dinner more fun, pack healthier lunches, watch less TV, play more, listen better… But for now I want to talk about all the STUFF and the endless picking up!!

I am sure I am not the only one who sometimes feels that parenting is all about picking up stuff, cleaning it off, and moving it around. Packing toys away, picking up marbles that have rolled into the kitchen to try and kill you while you rush to get dinner, wiping counters, cleaning pee off weird places (it may be that this is particularly true with boys), packing lunches, putting spare clothes into a bag for the 2 hours you’ll be out with the kids because you never know what might happen, loading dishwashers and washing machines, unloading dishwashers and putting dishes on thetable, putting clothes away, clorox wiping everything, picking up yesterday’s clothes, and socks from last week, cleaning out lunchboxes, hanging up soggy swimmies and towels and mittens and socks again…Oh, and trash cans!? It never ends.

Why is there so much stuff?Sometimes it is just relentless, and rather fatiguing.

Now if this blog had “super” in the name, instead of UNsuper, I would list 20 easy ways to organize the stuff “to make clean up a snap”, or “to keep your home beautiful”, or “to teach children about order” or some such. But this is not one of those blogs. This is the one where we admit that although we are constantly shopping for storage baskets, buckets, tubs, tins, shelves and cubbies, the STUFF gets out and finds it way into the furthest, deepest, darkest recesses of our lives. And under our feet, and in between the couch cushions, and sometimes, horribly, even into bed.

Sigh. I think all we can do is try to have a place for things (toy buckets, laundry baskets, stationery tins etc…) and try to teach kids that clean up is part of life (because it IS!!!). And then recognize that sometimes none of it works and we are going to spend more time than we like picking up stuff, cleaning it off, and moving it around.

Reflecting on kid night… I’d love to hear if any of you tried kid night in any way, shape or form. I think the key is just giving the kids some control, whatever that looks like. And some light heartedness around dinner. Let’s be honest, many of us just want to get kids fed so we can get them to bed and have a moment to ourselves. And they know! They can tell we are rushing through a predetermined plan which ends with being rid of them, so as soon as we start even talking about supper, they know their day is over and nothing fun will happen from here on. And they dig in their heels – they won’t come to the table, they won’t eat, they complain about bathing, they refuse pajamas (or in one particularly stubborn case around here, diapers) and so on…

Dinner can be fun and stunningly the ‘witching hour’ can be easier. I can even tell you my boys both slept better after kid night! This could be a coincidence, but I somehow think the lighter, more playful, loving atmosphere of the evening played at least some part.  But it is certainly not always easy to full of a ‘fun’ evening when you’d really rather stick pins in your eyes! We are all tired, parents and kids, and yet I think if we rally and have one last bit of fun together, the whole evening is easier on all of us. As parents, we have to forget the rush and the schedule for just a little while, we have to be a bit creative and lot loving, and we have to pull the kids into our team and get them to join our crazy little game. But how do we do this? And how often can we really expect this of ourselves?!

I’ve loved hearing ideas from you, and from our ongoing conversations. Here are a few…

• Giving the kids (1) a feeling of choice – this could be giving them real choices, “I have chicken or pork buns, what would you like for dinner?” or a sense of choice ,  “We’re having soup tonight; where would you like to sit for dinner?” or  “Would you like it in bowls or cups?” –
• (2) Involving kids in dinner prep – chopping, mixing, measuring  for a meal or  something like making pizza together, which gives them some choice and some hands on time together in the kitchen
• Involving them in other ways by (3) having them draw flags for the table to match the cuisine, making a restaurant name sign for the place they are eating tonight, or writing up a menu.
• Meals that (4) offer some choice can be constructed at the table can also be great – burgers, tacos, wraps, sushi.
• We also had a (5) group supper night going for a while where a few moms met once a week, with kids, and took turns to prepare a simple meal. The group dynamic, and peer pressure, often helped get kids to try new things, plus they were exposed to other families favorite foods and traditions.

There are many fun strategies if we can somehow make the time and find the energy! We will continue to try things and see how it goes. But you can be sure there will be many nights where we make sandwiches, or just toast, and virtually fling them at our offspring before flinging said offspring into bed… And of course there will be times when we really try and the kids just aren’t into it. I nearly lost it last night when trying to involve the kids in decisions about dinner and getting solidly ignored. I finally blasted out “I’m trying to give you a choice here and if you don’t answer, you will just get whatever I decide!” to which the calm response was, “I just won’t eat it then.” Pretty clear. So I guess choice or involvement of some kind really do matter.

What works for your family?

Reporting live! Our first kid night is under way… The boys wanted lamb lollipops and red, orange and yellow peppers. They helped cut the peppers and then said we should arrange them like flower petals. How cute is that? Then we needed something to go in the middle, so it would really look like a flower… They chose a big tomato. They have chosen their own napkins and elected to light candles for the table. Now we just wait for the lollipops (425F for about 20 mins) and see what happens!

It still took some work to get them to the table when it was time to eat – Dada was still on a call, a chess game required further contemplation, train tracks called for trains to explore them… the usual! But finally we were all assembled and the boys tucked in without further ado. We were doing the same old thing, and yet it felt different.

So what did I make of kid night? Well, I would say that overall, it was a great success. We ate 10 lamb lollipops between us and there was nothing left of the pepper flower – 3 bell peppers and a large tomato. While not exactly the most elegant meal we’ve ever had, with boys ferociously tearing at meat on a bone and stuffing tri-colored pepper chunks into their mouths in between, it was heartwarming. They said that what they liked about their day was eating supper… quite a turnaround from two nights ago! They said they wanted to do kid night every night and that they really loved it. They ate with gusto and without coaxing. They loved the candles being lit on the table. Why don’t we do that more often?? We had bran muffins for dessert and they were declared to be delicious, even though they were sort of healthy and filled with raisins, normally little squishy sources of tremendous misery.

Kid night has made me think. The prep for dinner could not have been simpler. There were only two things on the table – not so much variety as to overwhelm or confuse. Simple flavors, simple foods, easy to handle. It was very easy for me – low effort, high reward in terms of preparation and stress and actual consumption. And it was easy for the kids, because the pressure was off and they were not required to confront a meal that scared or overwhelmed or daunted them – in its size, complexity or foreign-ness. Most importantly, it was fun!

And that is the thing I want to hang onto; without having kid night every night, how can we make supper fun again? I do think it is important for them to try new things and discover interesting flavors and combinations and broaden their horizons… I’m also not interested in cooking 3 different meals every night based on everyone’s orders. And sometimes I want to pick too!! So I will not be having them plan every meal, but I do want them to feel that sense of control, ownership, playfulness that we experienced tonight.

So how do we bring in the fun? How do we make supper a time to enjoy, not just the signal of enforced eating followed by bath and bed, the end of play time and freedom for the day. I need more time to dwell on this, but look forward to hearing your thoughts and strategies… Good night!

We started an interesting conversation at the dinner last night because once again the kids came to the table insisting that they “don’t like supper”… Not this specific supper, because they hadn’t even seen it, just supper in general. Like somehow the concept of an evening meal offends their sensibilities. Evenings should be for wild games that end in grievous injury, TV shows, pop corn and ice cream. Not for SUPPER?!!! or baths or reading stories quietly before bed… The sheer indignity of these suggestions!

Anyway, it had been a long day. And week. And I was tired and cranky. So for once I wasn’t up for their moans. I insisted they try everything on their plates, to much further whining and protestation. Eventually we got through it. Their dad suggested that they need more of a role in choosing what we will eat. Perhaps they could help decide what will  be for supper each night. I nearly threw my supper at him. But after some back and forth among the 4 of us, I proposed a weekly “kid night”. Once a week they pick the menu for supper. I will serve what they choose. We will have to plan ahead, make sure we have the ingredients, and review the menu for acceptability. To get us started on the right foot, we made a list of foods that they find acceptable for this horror that is known as supper. We made it clear these things had to be “healthy choices”, not things like ice cream or candy. The list surprised me with is variety, thought certainly beige foods and carbs were prominent, and the exercise seemed to cheer them no end.

So, today was our first trip together to the grocery store to select the items for our first kid night, which will be tomorrow. They chose lamb lollipops (frenched rack of lamb that can be cut into chops which have a lovely bone handle and rather resemble lollipops) and red and yellow peppers, to be served raw. I can live with that. Plus prep will take about 5 mins! I am excited and nervous about this experiment and felt I had to share it somehow. I am curious to see how it all goes and whether they really will dislike supper less if they have had more say in the whole process. I am also wondering whether it will improve our supper experience in general and lead to more tolerance of the other meals I serve during the rest of the week. I am slightly terrified that it won’t work at all and they will suddenly hate lamb lollipops and the whole idea of having to take responsibility or participate in meals.

Please tell me you’ve tried this and it was miraculous, leading you to a new era of less stressed evenings, more harmonious meals as a family, and better eating habits for all… Or let me know now if similar experiments at your home led to a bitter war in which everyone went on a hunger strike and you ended up comfort eating bag of chips alone in the dark. Or just stay tuned and I will let you know how it goes here tomorrow, and perhaps you can try it too. Perhaps we can share successes and horrors about feeding children and keeping them alive from day to day.

I was just reminded of my UNsuper power this weekend. It is something I noticed several years ago, soon after becoming a mom. And it is still going strong! Now that we are all finally starting to feel better (PLEASE let this be the end of a month of sickness!!), we decided to go to our favorite breakfast place. We had a lovely meal, as always (thanks Snooze), and were getting ready to leave, when I noticed that I had several splashes of everyone’s breakfast on my pants. I looked at my husband and asked how he had managed to stay clean. He said something about two little barnacles on me… I’m not entirely convinced they’re totally to blame, seeing as I have an UNsuper power in this area…

Do you sometimes feel like you have an UNsuper power? Something you can do really well even though you may not really want to? My UNsuper power is getting covered in food. And sometimes paint, snot, playdough, and other mysterious crusty or slimy substances. But mostly food. It seems that since having kids, I have become a walking napkin. They wipe their hands on my pants rather than their own (or something as pedestrian as an actual napkin), they sit on me right after sitting in the blue paint, they put stickers on me when they are doing little art projects. And then I go out like that. Because really there is no point getting clean for just 5 minutes. Imagine the laundry! As if it isn’t bad enough already.

So now I just laugh when I find myself at the store sporting blue paint and stickers on my legs and some weird caked blobs on my shirt. It’s just my look. Maybe I should get a cape  to complement my ensemble… UNsuper mom!!! It could be designed and decorated by the food spillers themselves… with food or paint, or both. It could be a new trend! Or at the very least a fun afternoon.

And the sad truth is… I have started spilling on myself. My UNsuper power is pretty powerful! Even in the rare moments that the kids are not around, I somehow end up pouring tea in my lap or dripping soy sauce on my shirt… the one I don’t wear around them because they would spill on it. I have apparently lost the ability to wear a food free look for any length of time. I hope to regain it one day, but for now, I guess I’ll stick to old jeans and yoga pants. And of course, if this is the cost of having two little barnacles, I’ll take it! As my little one says, “Mama, you’re a lucky mama”. And that’s the truth!