A Month of Dinners (A List of Shame)

I expect this post to be extraordinarily boring to most folks, so feel free to run away now. But if you have nothing better to do, let me explain where I'm coming from with this. As a stay-at-home mom, I am in charge of making dinner the vast majority of the time. As I attempt to plan meals and provide my family with something decent each night, I wonder. What do other people eat for dinner every night? How often do they order out or eat out? Do they ever resort to having cereal for dinner? Do their kids eat what they serve? How often do they make meals truly from scratch and how often do they simply heat something up? So, in case there are folks like me out there, I am sharing this List of Shame (which is made even more shameful by the fact that I didn't even quite make it the whole month of recording dinners: only 28 days). I am hoping that you will grant me just a little bit of slack given that this list is from the month of September when I was between 7 and 11 weeks pregnant. I was exhausted and nauseous and found it difficult to find both the energy to make dinner and the desire to eat much of anything.

I have tried to note when my dinners came from frozen (which was quite often). If nothing is noted, it was homemade. The boys actually ate it unless otherwise noted. In the cases where they did not eat it, it was not because they didn't like that particular dinner but because they were full of snacks, which is our downfall far more than pickiness, which enters the picture only rarely. I am especially ashamed of numbers 17 and 21. But hey, that's real life around here!

In return for baring my soul here, I am challenging you to bare yours. I would LOVE to have some of my fellow bloggers post A Month of Dinners on their blogs, or have any of my readers E-mail one to me to post here. Perhaps, if this is amusing to people, I will post another Month of Dinners in a few months during the energetic second trimester!

1: green salad with cheese, grilled chicken, avocado, and eggs
2. Pork Jambalaya (made from a mix) and sweet corn(Jack had late snack and didn't eat.)
3. Chicken nuggets, French fries, and broccoli (all from frozen)
4. Digiorno pizza
5. pasta with broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, chicken, and Parmesan cheese
6. (Jack's birthday party) cold cut sandwiches, green salad, fruit salad and Doritos
7. grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup (from a can)
8. chicken and rice casserole with broccoli (kids had late snacks and did not eat)
9. Slow-Cooker Beef, tomatoes, and noodles (kids again had late snacks and did not eat)
10. Leftovers of above dinner
11. Cinnamon Apple Pork Chops and potatoes
12. chicken nuggets and french fries (from frozen)
13. Papa John's Pizza courtesy of Justin's parents
14. Creamy Slow-Cooker Chicken over noodles
15. Chicken Patty sandwiches with sweet corn (both from frozen)
16. Chicken Enchiladas
17. cereal
18. egg noodles with spaghetti sauce (jarred)
19. Stromboli (store-bought)
20. fried chicken (from frozen), mashed potatoes, sweet corn
21. pears, cheese sticks and breakfast bars
22. straw and hay (fettuccine with a butter/cream sauce, ham, and mushrooms)
23. hot dogs, boxed mac-n-cheese, peas
24. rottini with spaghetti sauce (jarred)
25. chicken nuggets, french fries, peas (all from frozen)
26. Moms' night out for me, Pizza Hut for the guys
27. Stauffer's chicken casserole for boys w/ babysitter Aunt Eileen, Ruby Tuesdays for J and me
28. leftover casserole