Dinner at Six

I know that nothing in life is perfect and things don’t always go according to plan and no one gets everything they want. I know about half-full glasses and silver linings and making lemonade.

But every day at six o’clock when dinner is disintegrating around me and the kids are fighting and the balanced meal I worked so hard to put together is all over the floor and I’m talking in my sweetest voice through my gritted teeth and it’s just me alone against five tired hyper cranky picky kids — I think it wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Moish calls around five today like he does every day to say he’s going to be home late. “Just come home for dinner ” I beg him. “You can go back to the store later you can work from home whatever. Just come home at six we’ll all eat together you can spend time with the kids. And me ” I add as an afterthought.

“Avigail you know I can’t. I have too much to do here.”