I lost my favorite pair of jeans today. They aren’t in the washing machine or in my closet or in my bathroom or on the floor…anywhere. I’m sure they will turn up someplace ridiculous, like the time my wunder unders were in Isabella’s pajama drawer which is really weird because I’m the only person who does laundry in our house.

The funny thing about losing this particular pair of jeans is that it’s not the weirdest thing I lost this week.

No.

I somehow managed to lose my crock pot.

Really, I did.

The talents I posses are staggering. I was really annoyed too, because I had plans to make this chicken that my friends in food (and all other important life decisions too, like where Buzzfeed thinks I should live—Los Angeles and Portland, by the by) were raving about. Like a good lemming I had to try it too. I had bought all of the ingredients and was ready to set it and forget it. Only there was no cooking receptacle to be found.

Right when I was about to give up hope and order pizzas for dinner, I found it.

IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM.

So, I made a lovely chicken, rice, and green vegetable dinner. That I ate by myself while my three children looked on in horror as if I had dared to serve them salmon patties on top of herring on top of chopped liver. 

“Do you like chicken?”

Nods.

“Do you like honey garlic?”

Nods.

“Do you like DELICIOUS THINGS?”

Double nods.

“THEN YOU WILL LIKE THIS. Please just trust me.”

But no.

They did not. Trust. Or taste.

One pushed it around on her plate. One said she was off of chicken these days. And one simply crossed his arms and harumphed.

So, I sat and enjoyed the heck out of a wonderful well-balanced meal.

(It’s also the face of a mama who doesn’t want to be at swimming lessons any more than the child who feigned an illness to get out of it and a child who cried legit tears to get out of it…)

Dinner sure has become a nightmare in our home.

They do not seem to like anything. They refuse to eat the foods that they loved a month ago, a week ago, a few days ago. They whine, thy cry, they complain. They eat nothing and then at 9pm come around begging to be fed like irritating dogs and then they tell me that their stomachs are going to eat themselves if I don’t feed them at that very moment.

“We are having baked ziti again?!?!? The food situation in this house is bad news, Mom. I’m quite literally going to starve.”

“If you are unhappy with what I have chosen to shop for, cook, serve, and clean up, I suggest you come up with a lengthy list of non-bad news ideas. I’m all ears.”

Sushi.

Pasta with homemade cheese sauce.

Sushi.

Sushi.

Sushi.

FIN. 

Now, on some other type of blog you’d probably find a listicle telling you exactly how to get your children to eat dinner. Think Your Children Won’t Eat Dinner? What You Will Read Will Blow Your Mind And Change The Way You Think About Meal Time. 

But not here. Here, the only thing that blows my mind? How ridiculous my children are about dinner. These are not overly picky children—and yet. If I make it, they don’t want it. If it’s not sushi, it seems, they don’t want it. They’d rather pout and be hungry. Nobody likes spaghetti and meatballs anymore. Nobody likes grilled cheese and tomato soup anymore. Nobody wants breakfast for dinner, or stir fry, or chicken pot pie, or homemade pizza, or tacos, or baked ziti, or any of our tried-and-true go-to meals.

And don’t get me started on what I want to send them in their lunches because every idea is exactly wrong, even down to the bread I buy.

I’m out of ideas. And I guess I’m a bigger loser than I thought—it’s not just jeans and crock pots.

My jeans are probably in the kitchen, I’m thinking. 

I’m going to look there—just as soon as I cook another meal that only I am going to eat.