A Dinner Ritual!

Being a single father, one of the hardest and most time consuming chores I have found is cooking dinner. When I was growing up, I was fortunate to have a mother and father. My mother would do the typical house wife thing and my father would do the typical father thing. Mom would make sure we had dinner on the table all week. But, on Sundays, she took the night off! My father isn’t much of a cook at all, but he could make pizza. My mother would sit in the living room and put her feet up and kick back with a book, relax and enjoy being waited on. She deserved it! My father, sister and I would make home made pizzas and we would have a treat where we would sit down in the living room at the coffee table and watch the Muppets and Disney while we ate our pizza. This was a special treat every Sunday night. When we were done, we would continue to pamper mom by doing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen for her. There isn’t a lot of cleanup to do with home made pizza!

Now, being a single dad, we don’t have the luxury of kicking back and being waited on, but making pizza isn’t that hard, it is fun and the cleanup is a treat to us! I have continued this tradition with my daughter. Every Sunday we make home made pizza together, we sit in the living room in front of the TV and I watch a kids show with her. After we are done eating, we go into the kitchen and cleanup. My daughter is eight, she feels very involved in the whole process. She looks so forward to Sunday night, spending time together doing our special thing. She loves to help make the pizza and she even loves to help out afterwards. If you time it right, after the cleanup, bath time can be accomplished too!

This becomes one less meal to plan during the week! It is routine and kids look forward to the time they get to spend with their fathers. It becomes something special to them and they will remember it forever and may pass on the tradition to their kids as well. I also do Taco Tuesdays! Another great and quick meal to make and very easy to clean up. A great meal that kids can help make and help clean up too. Taco’s and home made pizza aren’t expensive. You can buy a lot of the ingredients in bulk.

Dinners don’t have to be time consuming, difficult, expensive and exhausting. They can be easy and fun! Believe me, simplifying things like this really has saved my sanity!