From 6 to 4, it's harder than you think

Yesterday, we thought having some people at camp would make the shopping and meal planning easier, fewer people means less work, right? Well, not exactly.

We eat dinner together as a family every night. The timing is often fluid to make sure we are together; I once asked a babysitting client if we could move the regular weekly job to 5:30 from 5:00 so we could eat first (the mother said yes). One of the reasons I came up with this plan was because it is a never ending job to plan and prepare dinner for six people every single night, and I wanted some help and ownership from the rest of the family. Clearly, the kids have gotten the message about what a tough job it is, now we just have to work on techniques to do it well.

So, back to Sabine's plan. I don't know if it is my fault, or if she is not as skilled a planner as one might want, but it has been quite a struggle today to plan dinner for only a portion of a family. As we look ahead to tomorrow and Sunday, the two girls will still be at camp and Tim will be spending much of his time at the MLB All Star events in Minneapolis. I just can't bring myself to get excited about dinner for half the family, and Sabine doesn't seem to care that much either. She has good ideas, but neither one of us (or Andrew, for that matter) can get up the energy to make it happen. I'm sure we won't end up with takeout -- she only has $40 left -- but it certainly won't be anything fancy for just the three of us.

Funny how yesterday it seemed like a good thing to lower the numbers, and today it seems like a challenge we don't want to meet.

I wonder what this means for our future days as empty nesters? Potato chips for dinner in front of the television?