Suggestions on the Menu
“Spider soup for dinner!”
Scared of the scratchy real beasts,
She still suggests this
Bummed out by the renewed lockdown in our area, i didn’t muster enough energy to rally everyone around the table for a session of ‘planning the week ahead’. After all, between the options of ‘staying at home’ and ‘just the five of us’, there wasn’t that much to be discussed.
Yet today, I regret it. It’s a lesson – don’t skip it. Or at least, be very intentional about how and why you run it,e very single time.
But now we’re doing the next best thing, which is discussing what the plan is for the next day during dinner the night before. And tomorrow, we will go out in the morning. Hiking or to some playground. Something with lots of movement and fresh air and no people. As we did yesterday, spending over two and a half hours in the rain, exploring mud puddles and trails covered in fall leaves and mushrooms.
And before I let my self-criticism take too much hold: we did prepare for the week on Sunday. We did some light but verrry important planning, farming out the most dreaded question of the day to our kids: what’s for dinner?
Ah! Yes, dear underaged underlings, you are allowed to make these decisions! Yet there are rules: it must have vegetables; it can’t be pizza, fries or pancakes; and it must be something we typically do not make! I lost most of my audience with these obviously very boring rules, yet I did discover a hidden talent.
While I was turned with my back towards them, facing my kitchen countertop to prepare some food, I had heard suggestions flying across the table. But only when I heard my son say “that doesn’t look like bananas”, did I turn around to truly follow the conversation I myself had started.
Turned out, my daughter had started drawing every single suggestion she had made. And while the squiggly, crossed square boxes did not resemble bananas, I did recognize she had drawn a slice of (banana) bread. And every other suggestion she had made. I was impressed. Especially when she put her drawing up on the fridge so she could use it as a checklist.
The menu my daughter drew, spider soup being the upper right drawing. As you can see, this picture was taken later on, after having already checked off some of the recipe ideas.
And so today, we remembered to make spider soup. My daughter thinks spiders are icky, to put it gently, and she shrieks when her brother even says the word in broad daylight. But she got al joyful at the idea of eating this soup. I would love to say it’s because she transcended the natural world by elevating herself to the level of her imagination that knows no borders… yet probably, it has more to do with the fact that said spiders look more like meatballs with four long strands of spaghetti pierced through them, boiled and then served in a vegetable stock soup.
“Spider soup for dinner!” / Scared of the scratchy real beasts, / She still suggests this
When my daughter went to check this off her list, I felt like maybe we had made the best choice not to force this meeting. Because we weren’t mentally charged enough to do it, and because it made me rely on one of my strongest talents: improvisation. Trusting that the question will make the answers emerge. Trusting that a question that mattes to the people around me, will make us come closer together, regardless of the answer. The magic sometimes is in the question – even if no answer comes.
