Of all the best laid plans…

What do you do if you’re out of ideas? When your kids eat an endless supply of junk food that appears, seemingly, out of nowhere? When you just don’t have the ability or the energy to do something about it?

Or when you’re out of ideas for helping kids with anxiety, or with migraine headaches. Or both. Or Math homework. Because the parent in you wants to tell them to just get a good night’s sleep and eat some healthy food. Hey, it might not solve everything but it’s a start. Generally comments like that are not welcome in conversations with teenagers. Who knew?

Breakfast used to be pretty good. We had a system down. Mondays were this, Tuesdays, that. Wednesdays were these great egg sandwiches I would do with English muffins. But then my wife started fasting in the mornings, and the kids can barely get themselves out of bed on time, and it has descended into something really not worth doing. And a certain someone (not me, my goodness, no) was grazing on the English muffins so when I reached for them they were unavailable. It’s hard to cook when you don’t have all the ingredients.

One kid leaves the house, always late, always hungry. The other leaves the house on time but with not nearly enough food to keep her going through the day. And now that no one is going anywhere in a hurry due to COVID, it’s even more chaotic.

Then they come home and have a huge snack, or eat when they arise – some time in the mid-afternoon – and they aren’t hungry for dinner.

They’re getting to the age where they can’t be punished. Heck, they’re well past that age. I’m totally out of ideas. I want to say, “here, eat! It’ll cure what ails you.”

But to no avail. Oh well. What is it they say about ‘fighting the good fight?’ Is that a timely thing to say or think? I hope so. Gotta be something in that box that Pandora opened.