Managing the Meal -Time Monsters

a friend sent this to me
sums up me to a tee!

Oh yes, the time has come! I am harnessing in these monsters (aka my children) and these monstrous moments (aka meal times) and this is how I am taming them.

After much deliberation and discussion (mostly with Braveheart, and a few child directed very leading questions) I have created a list of meals the kids will eat, no fuss ahem read ''very little fuss'' there!

1. Macaroni cheese
2. spaghetti bolognaise
3. sausages/chipolatas
4. grilled or grumbed chicken
5. scrambled egg on toast
6. crumbed fish
7. 2 minute noodles
8. pizza
9. braai

Yip. So there you have it. I then sat down, totaled what I had already in my freezer and started planning a menu. Now I don't know about you, but I very seldom feeling like cooking at the end of the day In fact, if I can I prefer to make dinner at some point in the morning, or at least prepare for it - then my afternoons can be stress free and kid centered. I loathe deciding on a recipe or an idea and then finding I don't have half the ingredients. So that, coupled with the fact that I actually just find it way cheaper to plan meals for a week, and make a trip to the shops once instead of going to the shops every day to buy something means I have planned the next two weeks of meals and this week it looks like this (pretty much every meal is accompanied by raw veggies or most often salad, that's one thing my kids do eat well):

Monday : macaroni cheese

Tuesday : 16 fish fingers (half a packet of 32) (Braveheart and I will have crumbed fish. Fish fingers? Bleugh!) A quick meal as its park day, not that I've got there recently but still, the intention is there!

Wednesday : friends coming for dinner then will babysit kids whilst we watch my nephew's play, so hamburgers all round.

Thursday : chipolatas and egg (B and I will have a chicken/mushroom pasta)

Friday: Sausages (left over from previous night) and salad (B and I will have left over pasta)

Saturday: spaghetti bolognaise

Sunday: vegetarian toad in the hole

I'll keep you posted on the progress. In all fairness, they've been really good at watching their reactions to food at the dinner table - long may it last!