why families with little ones really do deserve to order pizza many times a month.

The resources it takes to just EAT sometimes are overwhelming.

You need a car to get to the store.

You need either someone to babysit your kids or the vehicle and moral fortitude to take them with you.

You need money.

You need recipes AND a menu or plan so you dont buy only fritos.

You need all the dishes to be washed and so someone to watch the babies while you devote your hours to this or some kind of drug habit to stay up till 3 am doing it alone while they sleep.

You need counterspace.

You need prep time.

more babysitting....

then you serve the magic meal.

3 out of 6 family members would rather eat poo and they say so.

But you make the meal. The healthy meal. It is hot on the table at 630pm

Nobody really liked it too much, but you tried---and now you have leftovers, clean up, dishes, floors, table, counters, and baths to give. It is 7:00 pm.

Since baby is climbing out of the highchair and the lentils are tumbling everywhere and he is stepping in them and he has also pooped out of his diaper you get to rush him into the bath, leaving the whole meal and his clothes and the beans and the other children all behind you. Tot needs a bath so he runs in, leaving a little clothes trail behind, and in some more beans.

You do the bath, the shampoo, the toys the games the flooded bathroom floor, the drying the lotioning the diapering the dressing and now it is everyones bedtime---keep the tot out of the beans mess! Keep the baby clean! Some are begging for dessert! They cant be expected to eat at the destroyed fallout dining room table with that diaper still stenching in its pants in the highchair....so they get to eat dessert on the couch. They spill it all and surprise you by cleaning it for you. (Are you gonna be the mean guy and tell them that maybe the vacuum hose doesnt do ice cream bars so well?) Can it really be 8:15?

Put baby to bed. Put big kids to bed. Rigamarole involving people fake having a nightmare and fake having to pee again.

Time to go clean the whole dinner. Poo, food, clothing, dishes, its all so gross, so cold. you pile the dishes up, throw away a full garbage bag of filth, starta load of laundry, take the poo garbage bag out to the garage, why are you so tired? Werent you gonna do all this STUFF tonight? Why is it 930?

Do dishes until the hot water runs out. About 1/2 of the dishes in other words. Sweep the floor. Crawl around on hands and knees and get up all the wet things on the ground. Now your only jeans have juice and beans and sour cream on them. And the toes of your shoes. Feel your back wrenching. Why is it 10:30?

Wipe down the table and the chairs. Spray the high chair trays with clorox. Get a drop of it on your jeans. Stare at the pink spot forming a little too deeply and start to nod off....why is it 11?

Put the clothes in the dryer, put your jeans in the washer with all the beans-clothes, put some wierd maternity pants on from the floor. (Why are maternity pants in rotation? your baby is 15 months old.) Check if hot water is back. It is. You finish the dishes. You are physically starting to black out. Dont you deserve a beer? but it is 12:15 am thats kind of weird or alcoholic to drink a beer on the Next Day, isnt it? Decide on one beer.

Sit down on couch. As the chocolate ice cream starts to seep into your undies through the fabulous maternity pants, you hear a distinct sound....wahhhhh.....You didnt lay out all your bills. You didnt email all your friends. You didnt take a shower or color your hair. You didnt fold the laundry. You didnt do an overdue yoga video from the library which is somehow missing its case even though noone watched it yet. You didnt organize your closets. You didnt watch any of the shows in your TiVo. You didnt call grandma back. You didnt make snacks for scouts or print out schoolwork for the kids tomorrow. You didnt do 10 sexy secrets to your husband. You didnt take your new vitamins nor do you know where they are. You didnt do your nails, eyebrows or zit removing mask. You didnt vacuum or dust or blog or download songs that you underlined in the magazine you get to read only on the toilet. You didnt turn that unused cupboard space into a handy loft, nor did you brush your teeth or hair. You didnt show your pet some quality time and you didnt go clean out the car.

You made a gross-ish rather expensive dinner and that is all you did. Wondering how and why it is 1245am, you go to sip that beer but the baby starts crying really hard now---he is gonna wake up the toddler if you dont hustle your chocolate pant-ed booty in there to go get him.

The brown glass bottle, full of beer, will sit on the floor next to the couch until morning, waiting for you to kick it over on your way back to the kitchen to start it all over, at 6:15.