5 Perfectly Acceptable Dinner Options

I am viewing the world through a Nyquil haze today. My bionic vitamins have failed me, and I have a head cold. I’m a little bit diva in everyday life. When I’m sick? I’m a big, old diva. I sit on the couch and read old magazines, which I generally find soothing except for the inevitable fall magazine features: “How To Jazz Up Your Kid’s Lunch”. And they’re filled with a million suggestions that your dog wouldn’t eat, much less your kid. In what universe is a kid going to eat a tortilla smeared with hummus and topped with pineapple?

These features make no real life sense, kind of like the outfit combinations in “Lucky” magazine. My personal favorite is when “Lucky” shows you several different ways to wear a cocktail dress. First, you could wear it solo to, oh, a cocktail party. (Thanks for the tip on that one, Lucky. Never would have figured that out on my own.) Next, for Saturday errand running, throw a wool sweater on over it and some booties.

Who gets all cocktail-dress-girdled-up on a Saturday afternoon? By this point you’re so annoyed with the out-of-touch fashion editors that you don’t even bother to peruse “Look 3”, which is probably something really logical, like throwing on your dress, a jogging bra and your Nikes so you can hit the gym for a sweat sesh*. (*And, who uses “sesh” instead of “session”?! That term is even more annoying than the outfit in the first place.)

How about offering us gals some stuff we can really use, like “5 Perfectly Acceptable Dinner Options, When You’re Sick But The Kids Are Still Hungry”:

1.     Ramen.

2.    Cereal.

3.    Eggs.

4.    Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

5.    McDonald’s. There. I said it. Publicly. That’s how brave I am or maybe it’s just because I’m Nyquil-addled today. It’s perfectly acceptable to let your kids have McDonald’s for dinner sometimes. The universe is not going to come to a screeching halt. Neither will the brain or healthy body development of your offspring.

The road is long, people. Kids gotta eat. Every day. Three times. This is a mantra at our house. What it means is: Relax. Today’s dinner might not be ideal, but you’ll have lots of opportunities to make it up. You can’t knock it out of the park all the time. But, all of the time, you can have the aforementioned ingredients on hand. Then your kids can get busy making dinner and giving you the hook up. Music to your ears, right? It would be music to mine too, if I could hear anything through this congested haze.