Food for Thought

My mom had a horse when she was a child. I think the family had it for about a week. My grandfather, who was always up for a new adventure, bought a horse one fine day. He thought the family would keep it in a field on their property and the kids could ride it. He put the horse in the field with a bale of hay and thought, "There. That ought to be enough food for the summer."

The next day, the hay was all gone. The horse was sold two days later. Buying enough hay to keep him going would have cost a fortune. I think about that horse often when I'm feeding my kids. I'd be happy to throw as much hay at them as it took if only that would solve my feeding problems. You would think three square meals a day would suffice, but it doesn't. First, there's breakfast. Like the morning buffet at the Fairfield Inn, it goes from about 6:30 AM until ten. Xanthe has to eat as soon as she gets up or she falls into an irrepairable tantrum. She needs two kinds of cereal, not just one. Breakfast for everybody else starts 30 minutes later, at which time Xanthe eats again because she feels left out. Then there's my breakfast, which is either everybody's leftovers or something in a napkin on the way out the door.

Two hours later, it's time to feed the kindergartners lest they starve while they're learning their letters. As soon as they're gone, Xanthe is home from preschool, "weady for wunch." She gets the rest of whatever was for lunch, and then I have two hours before After-School Snack Time, during which I sneak chocolate chips and almonds at five-minute intervals from the pantry. And I'm not even counting all the fast-food pitstops and Coke runs. I would never admit to all of those! The after-school snack is a big meal at our house, because by dinner time, I'm pretty much out of ideas and/or food, unless there's something in the crock pot.

Dinner "hour" seems to be divided up into seven ten-minute intervals. Each person has their own time slot, depending on where they are going or coming from. Sitting down together at that time of day seems like an exercize in futility, but sometimes we try. Sometimes the ten-minute intervals overlap, and that's good enough for me. We'll see if our kids turn out to be delinquent losers. If they do, I know I can blame the lack of stimulating conversation around the dinner table.

By the time the little kids have consumed crackers and milk at bedtime and the big kids have fixed late-night chocolate shakes an hour later, I'm about ready to put a padlock on the fridge. If I did that, though, I might forget the combination and not be able to access the ice cream for my midnight snack or the juice for my 3 AM drink.