Kitchen Lockdown

Corey arranged for some food intervention for our family yesterday. We have wonderful neighbors, and as usually happens after a baby is born, many of them have brought dinner over to us. Last night was the last night of meals (but we also still had 3 containers of leftovers from other meals cause the kids haven't eaten much of it yet). So last night, I think the tipping point came when one of the kids went to the pantry for a bagel as I was setting the table and Corey and I were both getting the food ready. That represents one facet of the problem we have going on. We have so many kids, with so many particular food likes and dislikes, that when it comes to meal time, they tend to make their own thing if they don't like what is being served. Another problem is after school - kids get home between 3 and 4, and everyone comes home hungry and is cooking their own thing and eating it between 4-5. So when dinner comes at 6, you can guess that a majority of them do not feel hungry. If they don't like what was made for dinner, they just don't eat and will make their own thing later around 7 or 8. So, those are several of the problems we are facing. Oh, and also all that cooking by all those people at all different times means there is always a mess in the kitchen and there are always lots of kids dirtying dishes.

And THEN, they've had the nerve to complain to us the past few days about how "We never have dinner!" Corey said "I don't know if you guys have noticed... but we've had dinner meals brought to us over the past ten days! I think the problem is you guys don't know how to sit down and eat!"

So, last night Corey made a run to Lowe's. He had an idea. I knew what the idea was cause before he left he took off a handle from one of the pantry doors. He was going to figure out a way to lock the kitchen up. My initial feeling was that it seemed like a big and rather drastic measure to take - to lock the pantry doors. Plus, that's not going to solve the problem, cause there's still the fridge and the fridges in the garage, and I don't think we should drill a lock in them or anything... "Trust me, I think this will work..."

He came home and I was upstairs with Peter, but I could hear the banging and drilling. Meet our new kitchen pantry handle...

And this locked door quickly led us to know one of our chief food mess culprits, or as Corey said "I think we found the leak..."

This little girl (who didn't eat her dinner last night, and who made a pb and jelly sandwich while Corey was gone at the store) proceeded to wail for food as she rolled around on the floor, crying for treats. We gathered for family prayer, Natalie was still weeping and wailing on the floor in front of us all, and Corey pointed to her to show all the other kids the reason for the now locked pantries "I think this represents that we have a problem..." They all agreed.

Today they have been a little surprised by how often they mindlessly go over to fridge and open it (although they can't open it right now - Corey got a bike lock for the fridge). Lily still went over to the fridge over and over again. She got a knife and asked "Can I cut this?" 

No, but thank you for asking. So we'll see how this goes. Corey felt much more relaxed last nigth when the kitchen was closed. Plus we have a ton of good food being wasted. This could help with that (there were like 5 open jars of spaghetti sauce in the fridge, half of them going bad) I have thought for years (from our experiences in Chile and Brazil) that a kitchen that could be locked was a beautiful thing, it just seemed to not be possible here in America. But maybe we can have the best of both worlds.

Although the bike lock is a bit of a pain since it has to be wrapped around 5 times. We'll see...

So today, I made an after school snack - vegetables with hummus, fruit - bananas and apples, a few peanut butter sandwiches and a few quesedillas, and a bowl of nuts and dried berries - then also two things of left overs - and all that was out on the kitchen island, and then the pantry and fridge were locked down until dinner. If the kids were hungry, these were their options -

It felt good to have control over the food! No top ramen, no potatoes or pizza bread or whatever dozen other things they usually make.

I had Orange chicken with rice and veggies planned for dinner and they all sat and ate it. We'll start with easy meals that they like, but will probably work our way up to more plant based meals as we ease our way into this new habit and concept of sitting to eat at certain times! Such a revolutionary idea.