Should We Eat This?

I cannot be the only...who has slaved away in the kitchen, with multiple pots on the stove top, the oven a'baking, and even the BBQ smoking away outside, to finally sit down at the dinner table, look at the food and think, "is this cooked enough?"

As a mother of a finicky eater, the persnickety Sonny Boy,  I threw in the towel a long time ago on the idea that our family would all consume the same meal every evening. With this resolve I have managed ways to produce meals that are half leftovers of definite "will eat" foods, you know the Mac and cheese or slice of pizza, mixed in with my planned main course.  This method has been working for some time, but every once in a while, when the moon is full or maybe I am just distracted, the meal doesn't work out according to my plan. After placing all the plates on the dining room table, chasing Sonny Boy down to get him in his seat, and making three trips back to the kitchen for hot sauce, juice, and ketchup, I realized the chicken looked slightly under cooked. Faced with the immediate dilemma of forcing feeding possible salmonella or scrapping the main course and we all eat left overs (Sonny Boy's dream come true), I had to face the facts. The facts are that one night of re-heated pizza won't ruin all of my attempted brainwashing, that is the explanations of how eating healthy will help Sonny Boy grow to be six feet tall and invisible (don't snicker, I had to tell him something he would actually care about), and tomorrow is another chance to make a healthy meal.

As much as it angered me to not serve the questionable chicken, and wasting all that time standing in the kitchen tirelessly working over the hot stove, choosing to not play Russian roulette with the possibility of projectile vomiting was the right choice. I am sure many of you have had a "should we eat this" moment and have also served your family an exquisite meal of dinosaur chicken nuggets, butternut squash, and fresh green beans, after all learning to go with the flow can be as important as a eating a healthy meal sometimes.