The spread.

I have a love/hate relationship with dinner. I hate that I have it hanging over my head every, single, stinkin' day. Yet I truly enjoy cooking. I love that I can convince my children to help me out in the kitchen. But then it stinks when they still won't touch the final product. I hate that there are so many steps to getting dinner on the table - planning, shopping, defrosting, prepping, etc. But, ah, when it's done - it's like I'm sitting at a restaurant and each delectable menu item costs around 50 cents per serving. Cooking dinner makes me feel fulfilled as a wife and mother - that I'm doing my part to encourage health, frugality and family conversation. But the conversation part sometimes competes with the din of me barking at the kids to stop fighting over who gets to sit next to the baby, to stop making noise during the prayer, or to please stay in your seat or I'll, I'll...
All in all, when I get it right and the menu is planned a couple of weeks in advance, the meat is defrosted by morning, the prepwork is done early so we can take a 4:30 trip to the pool, the finishing touches take a mere 15 minutes, the children participate every step of the way, and the husband oohs and aahs over my culinary skills, it's quite exhilarating, if I do say so myself. But since only 50% of that happens maybe 2-3 days out of the week and the rest of the time we're resigned to a grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup (vegetarian, anyone?) I'll settle for getting something on the table. Sure beats McDonalds.