I try to cook foods my kids will eat. For example, I know my toddler-aged “ours kids” will devour mac-n-cheese and applesauce. I know my teenage step kids will only eat certain veggies (broccoli and green beans), and please no weird sauces. Certain people in my house will only eat low carb (you know who you are!). In other words, no pasta or bread (my favs). Well, tonight I rebelled. After feeding the babies their baby-appropriate food, I moved on to cook (hope you are sitting down, wait for it, wait for it)…lovely squash ravioli with heavenly chicken sautéed with Italian herbs, and topped with a wonderful cream sauce. I paired it with pan seared brussel sprouts in a delightful red pepper, Parmesan and garlic infused oil. (Gasp! Not vegetables my step kids hate! Not carbs!) Needless to say the crowd was not thrilled. My husband even launched into “Supper Hero” (you know the one, the Veggie Tales song about the hero who comes to eat all the food no one likes).

There are times we do “dinner on your own” night where each person makes what they want. Tonight didn’t work that way.

I’m really not sure if tonight was an epic stepmom fail. It could have been. Or did I teach my family:

*You don’t always get your way, sometimes we have to let others get their wants and needs met too.
*It isn’t always about you, sometimes other people (like stepmoms) want a say in things too.
*Broaden your horizons, people! Try a new veggie!
*Appreciation of new foods, someday you’ll be all grown up in a nice restaurant on a date or at a business dinner and things might not seem so foreign because good old stepmom exposed you to new things.
*You will not die from eating brussel sprouts.

Who knows. Maybe it was strike three for me (oops I mean strike #338 by now, but who’s counting?). Luckily God has good plans, His plans are much better than mine, and this whole blended thing is going to work out just fine. I trust Him in that and am thankful that God is in control, not me.

Matthew 6:25-27 (NIV) says: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

What are you thankful for today?