I Feel Like I Won the Dinner Trophy

A Guest Post By Laurie Moore It’s not the Lombardi trophy or the Stanley Cup, or even the medal my daughter received at a recent soccer tournament, but it’s a victory for me. What I like to call a “Mom Victory.” It’s my own little proverbial Dinner Trophy. I have four kids. The oldest is almost 14 (yikes) and my “baby” is 7. I’ve been at this mom thing for a while and there are these moments, they are small moments, but to me they are big. They mark my tiny successes as a mom. Those I think are worthy of a mini celebration. For example, when my children could all sit through an hour of church (not perfectly, mind you, but reasonably quietly). That was a total victory for me. This latest victory, as you might have guessed, involves dinner. Dinner for me is a “to do” item. Planning it and preparing it is not something I have historically enjoyed, but rather something I considered part of my mom duties. Another part of that duty is making sure what I prepare is healthy, including the dreaded vegetables. I had gotten in a years long rut of making one of a short list of vegetables that were considered the path of least resistance with my kids: broccoli (I said it was a short list!). I occasionally made asparagus or spinach or mushrooms, but most often it was just steamed broccoli. That all changed in October when I started The Dinner Daily. Of my four kids, two are picky and two are more adventurous. I knew our venture in to sides that included vegetables like kale, arugula, squash, brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, summer squash, snap peas, zucchini, peas, corn and more might be rocky. I decided to take the approach I had taken many years before in my quest to make it through church: persistence. Try three to five bites of each vegetable with every meal. Some nights were easy, some involved “washing it down with water” for my pickier two, but after three months, it happened. My seven year old, my pickiest eater, said “Mom, I’m actually starting to like these vegetables we eat on The Dinner Daily.” Victory. I’ll clear a spot on the mantle for that Dinner Trophy now. Laurie resides in a suburb of Boston with her husband, 4 children and their English Bulldog.  She is a stay at home mom who devotes her time to volunteering at church and her kids’ schools in between her kids many sports and activities. Save Save Save]]>