My husband and I have seen the future and it isn’t pretty.
I was thinking, today, about food. When you have two children in your home it is hard not to think about food – especially on the weekend. For you see, it is the weekend when the meal plan for the week is born: recipe’s searched, options considered, daily activities listed, directions written and shopping list crafted.
In our house, this event typically takes place on Sunday afternoon while my husband takes a nap. Sometimes, I try and get the family involved. But, because I like a little variety in my diet, they are limited to suggesting meals for only one or two nights a week.
Our oldest is the healthiest eater of the bunch. This one will actually order side salads and apple dippers at McDonalds instead of fries. I still credit this to the fact that added sugar did not cross his lips until he was two years of age. He is, however, not a big eater. Never has been. He makes up for it by drinking his weight in liquids. Give that boy juice, milk, water or G2 and he’s got the bottle or glass gone in the first 2 minutes of the meal. We give him lines on his glass so that a drink will last through the entire meal.
My husband is our pickiest eater. He will not eat anything with cheese or milk in it – a flu in his early twenties ruined his body for anything containing lactose. He does not like spicy food (except for Pizza Hut’s mild chicken wings.) He will NOT eat fish unless carefully concealed within something else or cooked on the side so he can remove it. And pretty much likes all his food in large, recognizable chunks – which means NO casseroles.
I love food and will try anything – with the possible exception of liver. Even then – I would possibly be willing to experiment if someone out there has a recipe that can mask that incredibly nasty smell that gets on your hands and lingers there. I also don’t think that I would be very good at the Survivor challenges where they have to eat worms and bugs and stuff like that.
It is our youngest, however, that this article is about.
On Sunday, we eat lunch at Southwestern College. It is, by far, the best deal in town. It is an all-you-can-eat buffet brunch featuring two entrée options, two or three hot vegetable sides, a full breakfast, sandwich bar, salad bar, wall full of drink options, and a dessert bar that always includes ice cream. With my employee discount, the cost is $5 per adult and $3 per kid between the ages of 5 and 10. Kids under 5 eat free – but we don’t have any of those anymore.
This Sunday, my husband and I watched open-mouthed as our seven-year-old sat and ate most of a chicken fried steak, half of a pile of mashed potatoes, four raw carrots, two large pieces of raw broccoli, two link sausages, a bowl of applesauce, two cookies and topped everything off with a bowl of vanilla ice cream. My only solace was that all four food groups were represented.
Moving forward, we will not be sharing this information with the people who run the food service – they might change their prices.
