We have family dinner. My husband works late M-Th, but the kids and I still sit down and eat dinner together. Water to drink 99% of the time, TV off, no phones/cell phones. It's kind of one of our non-negotiables. Even if I'm just grabbing fast food or ordering pizza, we still sit at the table and eat together.
We do eat lunch in front of the TV, especially on days like today when the kids and I are home for a snow day (and all summer long). We each make our own lunches, too... including the 10 year old. Lunch is very light here.
Dinner is usually a full blown meal. I'll cook or my 14 y.o. dd will cook, or we'll do it together. My two oldest are fairly picky -- son doesn't eat much meat and dd only eats what she deems healthy -- so they are welcome to eat something else. However, they must fix it themselves and it must be ready at the same time the main meal is ready. Last week when I was at the hospital for a portion of each day, I only missed dinner once. Otherwise, I ran home, ate dinner, then went up to the hospital. The one time I was going to totally miss it, my BIL made sure someone took over for 2 hours so I could come home and eat with my kids. That's how important it is to us. It's the one thing I can do to keep our family together.
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