It'll have to do

Monday's kill me.  I used to love them--early out day, piano lessons (no practicing required) and Family Home Evening.  But Monday's have changed.  Piano was moved to Saturdays, so Emma signed up for an academic club called Odyssey of the Mind.  In this club the kids work on projects and compete with other kids around the state.  If they win at state, then they get to go to "world's".  Emma learned, to her disappointment, that if they win at state and go on to world's, then she'll have to miss the last week of school.  She loves school and doesn't want to miss a day, let alone the last week.  If they win, I foresee trauma.

The boys are taking Art, which they were taking on Wednesday, but they had basketball practice right after and one of them had scouts.  So Art got moved to Monday.  Here is how Monday now looks for me.

1:45  Carpool drops off the kids
3:45 Emma goes to Odyssey of the Mind
4:30 Anson and Nathan go to Art
5:30 All of the kids have to be picked up at two different places at the same time.

Now, you may ask, when do you make dinner?  Excellent question.  Lately, I don't.  This is a problem because my family likes dinner.  Now, obviously, it would be in all of our best interest if I got up in the morning and threw something in the crock pot.  But, in my head, I'm still on the old schedule.  So every Monday 'bout 3:00, I start panicking.

"Oh, no!" I think, "I don't know what we're going to have for dinner."

I spend the next 45 minutes wracking my brain for what I can make that I have all the ingredients for while simultaneously helping everyone with homework and piano.  Last Monday, I picked up Wendy's, then the kids.  They all didn't mind that I was late.

Tonight, Wendell voted that we go to Jason's Deli.

I love Jason's Deli so it sounded like a great idea.  Long about 6:30 we strolled into the restaurant.  We learned that, sadly, they had no pepperoni, so that child opted for a cheese pizza.  We also ordered 3 hot dog kids meals, one bow tie pasta and two adult salad bars for Wendell and me.

We found seats and after 7-8 minutes some guy comes up.  "I have bad news.  And I'm going to give you all your meals for free, but we have no hot dogs, and no pasta."

"What do you have?"  I wondered.

He came back with a menu.  We changed our orders to two PB and J sandwiches (major eye rolling by me, I could have made PB and J), and three cheese pizza's.  I had one child in tears about the change.

"At least they have ice cream," Wendell ventured. I nodded.  All disappointment would be forgotten after they'd finished dinner and had ice cream in hand.

After we ate, I took Nathan to get an ice cream.  There was a little sign over the "swirl" that said, "Temporarily Out of Service."  No problem.  There's still vanilla and chocolate.  By the time Nate had picked chocolate, Anson had wandered over.  I couldn't figure out what to push or pull.

"You'll have to get Dad," I told them, "apparently, I'm not smart enough to figure out an ice cream machine."

So we traipsed back to the table and when Wendell went back, all 5 kids were with him.  Evidently, Jason's Deli was now out of ice cream, too.  The "Out of Order" sign was for everything. The two youngest were howling.  Wendell had just gotten himself a bit more salad, but I was out of patience.  While Beck and Annika screamed that they wanted cones, I pushed them all out the door promising that cones were on the way--we just had to go to this other place...

True to his word, the employee, gave us our dinner for free, and said that he wanted to give us gift cards, but--you got it--they were out of those, too.

We loaded up and drove to Arctic Circle and spent $7 on ice cream.  And that, my friends, became Family Home Evening.  Waiting around for dinner and driving around for dessert.  It was pathetic.  On the up side, everyone was happy when we got home. I also learned two important lessons.

1. Don't go to Jason's Deli for a late dinner.  Ever.
2. I need to figure out what's for dinner for next Monday.