Pretty Dinners

(WARNING: THIS IS SUPER LONG BUT I FEEL BETTER NOW THAT I WROTE IT!)
My mom is a fantastic cook. She's currently the executive chef at a ranch for executives and other such big wigs. Growing up my Mom was an at home caterer. We did all kinds of fancy shindigs along with weddings and large banquets for important people like governors and higher ups. As I worked side by side with her through those hard and long hours to produce these feast of perfectness, people would always say to me "You must eat like kings at your house." I would always laugh along with my mom and shake my head no. We ate normal stuff like mac and cheese, frozen pizzas, and casserole galores. Don't get me wrong Mom could bake the heck out of anything she wanted but we always ate just food. Nothing fancy like Apricot glazed chicken breasts with a side of almond rice pilaf, parsley baby carrots, a crisp dinner salad and black forest cheesecake. I knew my mom could make all of that stuff in a snap for crowds of 50 none-the-less. Yet we ate Hamburgers and frozen french fries for dinner. I never really understood until today. I'm kind of pretty good cook, not like my mom but I can hold my own. Today I was craving something that looked pretty. I know that sounds weird but to me sight is a very very important part of eating. So I decided to make Cream Chicken with mushroom Pillows, Steamed broccoli, Rice with an easy chicken gravy. It's not a hard dinner to make but it sure looks pretty on a plate. I mean when those pillows come out of the oven lightly golden brown and the steamed broccoli is that vibrant color of green it's very pleasing to the eye and thus more appetizing to the palate. As I started on this meal of course the house is in slight chaos as usual, after all what can you expect with 3 kids under the age of 4 the youngest two both under the age of 2. Will has been going through what I call Heaven Withdrawal all my kids go through this at about 3 months where they just cry and the only thing that calms them down in to hold them. I think they seriously are just figuring out how hard life is going to be and they really miss Heaven. Anyhow Will has been doing this for the past couple of days, to top things off Abby is well just Abby. It's not a bad thing it's just a lot of time and energy consuming mommy stuff. Lizzie is on this 20 question thing not to mention the whole "Mom Mom Look at Me!!!!" as she does a little twirl or she's done something with my hair etc. But I can all take this in stride because my knight in shining armor is on his way home to whisk the kids away. My knight in shining armor came home and was stricken with some sort of plague. I couldn't believe it. My dreams of eating a pretty meal where faltering quickly. I gave Jeremy the 3rd degree just to double make sure he was really, really sick and then after the obvious he was sick answers (biggest give away was he lost his appetite) I sent him to our bedroom to rest. I was still determined. Will began to cry and cry and cry then Abby thought she would help then Lizzie thought she could help then they fought over who could help Will the most. Soon enough I had three children who needed help. But there I was chopping my chicken. I figured if I chopped loud enough everything would work itself out. Then sweet Lizzie started singing I am a Child of God. Which made me feel a little better but really didn't help the fact that Will was still crying. So I started humming along. Then Lizzie and Abby decided to "help" Mommy. Now i'm trying to blend the cream cheese and butter while Abby is hugging my leg like she'll never let go and Lizzie is "doing" the dishes a.k.a splashing as much water with a single utensil as humanly possible. Finally I mix all the ingredients together and hurry and pinch off my dough and sprinkle them with bread crumbs to give them a great professional look. Set the timer and run to Will who has been crying and screaming this entire time. When I pick him up his head is soaked with his own neglected tears. I try calming him down and try to find something for the girls to do for the long 25 minutes that dinner will be cooking for. I usher them downstairs and hope to find a movie or something to entertain them but Lizzie wants to watch Toy Story and Abby won't watch it unless it has a twirling princess in it. I decide to cave into Lizzie and pray that Abby will find the cowboy doll entertaining. I run upstairs to feed Will while the rice is cooking in the microwave (thank you minute rice). As soon as I get upstairs Abby starts crying and sure enough in a split second her head is laying on my lap while I'm trying to feed Will. I keep telling myself to breathe and it's all going to be OK. Will finishes eating and spits up everything all over me and himself and he is now soaked, but I have 4 minutes till the pillows will be done so I've got to get the gravy going. I've mastered bullion gravy and whip that up as fast as I can. The pillows are perfect nice and golden and I realize I forgot to steam my broccoli so I decide that frozen corn is going to have to do it tonight. I get Abby and Lizzie's plates out dish up there food and it looks really good minus the corn yellow was just the wrong color but the kids like corn. I call Lizzie up from downstairs and get Abby in her highchair and we say a prayer. Lizzie takes one look at her masterpiece on her plate and says "Yuck! I don't want to eat this." Abby pushes the food around and then dumps her water all over her food and proclaims that she's done and wants down. Lizzie takes two bites and I make her and I mean make her swallow them. Then she whines and cries that she's done and she doesn't want to eat any more. So alone I sit at the table with my almost masterpiece dinner and it was like a light bulb went on. This is why Mom didn't cook like this for us. 1. the kids don't appreciate it. 2. It doesn't seem like it takes that much time but when you're on your own anything longer than 20 minutes is too long. 3. I'm tired! I put all the kids to bed a little bit before 8 and I felt like I could just fall down on the ground and sleep. But no I have a baby and then the clean-up......No I can't complain anymore. I had a pretty dinner and that's what really matters here. And I also had a great enlightening moment on why my Mom did things the way she did. I think I'll go to bed now and plan on something like Mac and Cheese or a frozen pizza for dinner tomorrow.