Family Dinners

Family dinners are important to me. I've read so many statistics about how important they are for your children. For the most part, growing up, my family ate dinners together. Even though my mom claims she is a bad cook, she's really not. And even if we were just having frozen pizzas, for the most part we would eat as a family. Tom grew up with family dinners as well. So it's something we agree upon that is important. But here is where I struggle...Tom has a job that allows him to be his own boss and set his own hours. However, some nights he meets with clients after they are done working, which means he doesn't get home until close to 6:30. And my kids go to bed between 7 and 7:30. So on these nights, we make daddy's dinner plate and keep it in the microwave for him to eat when he gets home and go on with our dinner routine ourselves. If this happens once a week, it's not the end of the world. But what is SO hard for me is hockey season. Tom won't come home until 6:30 every night, not including game nights when he won't be home after bedtime. Last year this wasn't a huge ordeal for me. I was pregnant the beginning of hockey season so I was eating at all hours of the day and just making Jack whatever I could scrounge up. And once Finn was born, well...let's not go back down that path OK? ha ha. I'm sure as my kids get older it will be easier to push dinner time back a little bit. But I've always strived to make dinner time family time. When Jack started eating baby food, I would time it out so I could feed him baby food while we ate dinner so we were all eating together (I know he was only 5 months and had no clue, but that's just me being Molly) and I've done the same thing with Finn. Some nights when Tom isn't around for dinner - I am too busy dealing with Finn's baby food and Jack feeding Bailey that I don't have time to eat myself.  I have one question for all of you with kids in booster seats or high chairs that are strapped onto the chairs...How in the WORLD do you keep the chairs clean? The back of Jack's chair is so sticky and has food stuck all over it. I take the high chair off at least once a week to clean the real chair and the next day it is back to being just disgusting. What gives?