Pasta - hold the noodles

Being a mom can be hard. I am not sure if all of you are aware of this, but moms are expected to provide like 3 meals a day for their children. I know, right? Can you believe this? Now, it is easy when they are babies. All liquid diet. Just put the formula in the bottle. Voila! Food for child. Child eats. Full child. Repeat in 3 hours.

As they get older, it gets more complicated. You have to introduce new foods. They get opinions. They like some things and not others. By the time they are the age of my children it is downright difficult.

OK, so breakfast is not too bad. There is cereal. That is not tough. Oh, but only if they wil eat it. . . Which may or may not happen. Yes, I have 20 boxes of cereal in my pantry because every time they express interest in trying something, I fall for it. Seriously, look:

And FYI, this is 2 rows deep. I could not find a way to get them all in the picture. And I drew the line at lining them up on the counter just for a picture. Plus, it may be embarassing.

I must confess that my children eat cookies for breakfast on occasion. Well, they eat them sometimes. Actually it's most mornings. OK, fine, IF they eat, it is cookies. BUT, I do bake them fresh. Well, I place the sugar cookie on the cookie sheet, and then place the cookie sheet in the oven for 10 minutes. But it is a HOT breakfast. And before you judge me, the cookies have less sugar than many other more traditional breakfast foods, like children's cereal, donuts, cinnamon rolls. Stop judging me! Their tummies are somewhat full when they leave. Block checked. I said don't judge me.


Dinner is not too hard because let's face it, I cook about 37% of the time for David and me. I can just give them some of what we are having. And I am pretty sure the "law" is that I, as their mother, have to provide 3 meals a day - whether they eat what I provide or not is up to them, right? You can look it up. During the other 82% of the time, we eat out. And every restaurant must provide a form of kid-friendly chicken, i.e. tenders, fingers, nuggets, filets. Yep, it's another law. (I am an expert at obscure fictitious laws.) And they are mostly happy with a form of chicken. Block checked.

Then there is lunch. Sandwiches are pretty easy, right. And now Jessa even eats her sandwich elsewhere most days. She does not even leave a mess! But my precious, discerning (that is a nice way of saying PICKY) kids will only eat PB&J sandwiches. OK, and I got Spencer to eat a girl cheese that one time. The same sandwich over and over can get boring, right? So maybe I, as the dynamic, creative mother that I am, might try to mix it up a bit.

Enter Chef Boyardee Microwaveable meals.


I have been giving my kiddos these Chef Boyardee Pasta meals since they had teeth. They love them. And boy are they easy. There is only one problem. They love the meatballs, but they do not enjoy the pasta.

Each container has 10 meatballs. (David once told me I should work for Quality Control for the Chef because I carefully inspect their products making sure there are 10 meatballs - no more, no less.)

I place these balls of meat on toothpicks. I learned a long time ago that my children will eat most anything if it is on a toothpick. But those darn noodles will not go on a toothpick, so you see my problem. They do not eat the noodles. Maybe sometimes they will eat a spoonful or two, but they always eat the meatballs and ask for more. I have thrown away enough ABC and 123 pasta shapes to feed a small army. Maybe even a large army.

So I think that Chef Boyardee should make these meals with just meatballs. I mean, they have a variety with just Pasta and no meatballs. Isn't it only fair to have the other option, too? This may be meat discrimination. I'll have to check with Adkins people and see if I have a case.

It worked for Honey Bunches of Oats, right?

Being a mother is hard what with the children wanting to eat like three times EVERY day, and that is not even counting snacks. They even want to eat on the weekends. The least the Chef Boyardee peeps could do is try to help a mother out. I'm just saying.