Dinner at our house is a few steps shy of a circus. It starts when I walk in the door with the girls. I've got the two of them, my work bag, the empty bottles that need to go in the dishwasher (which is currently broken, by the way) and extra milk from school that needs to go in the fridge, the milk I pumped during the day that needs to go in the freezer, the bag of Hannah's soiled clothing, the "nannies," the reports and art work from school... And Oliver jumping at us. Yeah, craziness. We get jackets off, hats off, shoes off if I'm lucky, and then Hannah wants whatever snack she grabbed from the basket on the way out the door from school. Then Emma is screaming at me because she wants to eat. So then I'm feeding Emma, and Hannah wants to get down from her chair because she's finished her snack. "Just a minute, sweetheart. I'm feeding Emma," I tell her. Then maybe, just maybe, I can start dinner. And by dinner I mean warming up some soup or pizza or something very easy. Which Hannah won't eat, anyway, because she is so picky.
Jim gets home and we have a couple minutes of "Welcome home, Daddy" before we kick it into high gear to get some food on the table. We're finishing preparing food, setting the table, and listening to Emma start screaming because she wants food, too. We get Hannah set up with something to eat and she inevitably wants something else. So she barks at us until we give her what she wants just so she'll stop yelling at us.
Finally, we sit down. We usually get up a few more times for something (milk for Hannah, a towel to wipe, Emma, etc.), all the while enduring more yelling from our two darlings. Emma wants to sit on my lap to be fed, or she's just fussy because she's tired. Hannah wants something different to eat, or she's finished and wants to be excused. Here's what the scene usually looks like (although Emma is quite calm here, which is not always the case):
And when everyone gets what they want - that is, a seat on Daddy's lap - all is well.
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