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With Dale gone, dinner has been a pretty unimpressive event for the last month. Not that it was impressive prior to Dale’s deployment, but at least I was forced to cook something. Last week Gabe asked what was for dinner to which his sister replied with a bit of eye rolling “probably sandwiches”. Since they can’t roll their eyes at school, I feel I must allow it at home, so that they have some level of preteen normality. That comment spurred me to action and I made a commitment to myself that I would cook decent dinners this week. I made meatloaf on Monday, chicken and rice on Tuesday, spaghetti on Wednesday, sloppy joes on Thursday, and by Friday I had run out of momentum. I watch the food network, I buy cookbooks, but I am just not someone who likes to cook. It is a chore to me. Sunday is probably the worst day to try to get me to cook. After church on Sunday, my Mom makes a big Sunday brunch of bacon and eggs and fried potatoes. Everyone gets so full that my Dad eats popcorn for dinner. I decided to be my Mom today and made bacon and eggs and biscuits after church. However, the kids wouldn’t agree to popcorn for dinner and ruined my plans. So, instead of cooking a decent dinner, I made pancakes. Eating breakfast for dinner is one of the unifying characteristics of families with a spouse deployed. Cereal or pancakes for dinner is a standard meal. Australians, however, do not accept pancakes as a meal. Pancakes are a dessert to be served with ice cream and sauce. The only time they eat pancakes for dinner is the Tuesday night before Lent starts. When my kids saw that Australians put ice cream on their pancakes, they decided that was a great idea. I, however, refused to allow it. They already spread peanut butter (Dale’s family), chocolate chips (my family), and syrup on them. Ice cream is out of the question. I have to draw the line somewhere. Josiah asked me the other day, “What would it be like to live in a family that ate healthy all the time?” As long as he’s living with me, I’m afraid he’ll never find out.