What's For Dinner?

When I get home from work, dragging my tired, limping body through the door looking bleary eyed and beaten down by the world, the first thing the kids want to know is what's for dinner. I am convinced that this is not because they are hungry. It is because they want to be miserable about it.

"Mom, what's for dinner?" Christopher will ask running up to me.

"Chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn," I'll tell him.

His mouth will drop open. His face is confused and terrified. It's like suddenly he's in a nightmare that he can't wake up from.

"Chicken?!" he'll cry. "I HATE chicken!"
"No you don't," I'll remind him.
"Yes, I do!"
"What's wrong?" Emma will ask rushing to his side.
"We're having gross stuff for dinner!" he'll tell her.
She looks at me. "Again?!"
I'll close my eyes, and take a deep breath. "Yes. Again. I know it's not what you wanted. I'm sorry things had to turn out this way."
"Nooooooooooooo!!!!," she, Christopher and Claire (who has overheard the conversation) will cry and fall to the ground in convulsions, screaming something about how if we were a decent family we would have Subway.


In fact, Claire asked for Subway one night and when I told her that it wasn't in the budget for that week, the look of hope on her face shriveled and she said, "Does that mean we're poor?"

Interesting how fast food not being in the budget is a sign of poverty, isn't it?

So what do I want for dinner, you ask? I want Subway too. And inside I am kicking and screaming because it's not in the budget. I would rather not have a chicken that's been in the crockpot all day. I don't know if anyone else has this problem but I can't seem to cook chicken in the crockpot without it falling to pieces. And it's not a juicy, falling off the bone, tender kind of falling-to-pieces. The chicken just melts. My crockpot is not so much a covenient bit of crockery that cooks for me all day, as much as it is just a disintegrator.

This is what happens: I walk in the door to the good smell of chicken, and the horrified screams of the children who have just noticed that I am not carrying bags of fastfood. I ignore those people and walk into the kitchen. I lift the lid of the crockpot and there is a fully cooked golden chicken bubbling in the broth. Bits of rosemary, onion, and garlic crest the top of it. I poke it with a fork and all of the meat falls off of it at once, sinks to the bottom of the pot, and all that's left on my fork is bone. I don't know how or why this happens but it does. And then there is more screaming, and so I make them go sit at the table and we eat individual bags of chips.

But where's the fiber in that? The Vitamin C? All of those things that parenting magazines beat me over the head with? Where's the flax, damn it?? Well...it's at the bottom of the crockpot along with all of my patience and my sanity. And my budget.

So we gather at the table. We eat the chips, or the pancakes I've made, or the peanut butter crackers with dry ramon noodles on the side. And we talk about our day. And then eventually there's more screaming. But we're full.