Meal planning. I cannot tell you how many times I have said or mumbled those words to my husband, a friend, or myself. It’s a popular topic for blogs and social media platforms and a focus for stay-at-home and working moms (or dads) because, let’s face it, it’s supposed to make daily life simpler. For me, that remains more of a theory than a practical application so I will have to take the experts’ word for how it can simplify my life and create margin for other pursuits.

But, I’ll also let you in on a little secret—I don’t actually need to meal plan. Why? Because my teenagers have pretty much taken care of that task for me. Now, before the inklings of envy begin making their way into your mind, let me clarify what I mean by that. No, they are not creating weekly family meal plans I then need only execute. Rather, except for the occasional homemade pizza or a night of pasta, my teenagers eat the same thing every night for dinner: sausage, hash browns, bacon, and waffles served with a glass of whole milk and love.

When we first had our girls, I had visions of family meals, all of us gathered around the table spooning heaping servings of steaming vegetables and meat dishes onto plates while we shared stories about our days. And, when they were younger, we had those kinds of meals, perhaps without the in-depth conversations I envisioned, mainly because the girls were pretty young at the time. As they years progressed, however, their palates changed and their diets became a bit more restrictive. This made more sense as we realized the role of autism in each of our lives; autistic people can tend toward a more limited array of foods for a variety of reasons and this is something our family has embraced, especially after listening to actually autistic adults about their journeys.

So, while there is some variety in the snacks our teenagers enjoy and while they sometimes will have a different dinner option, we realized their standard waffle dinner worked just fine for our family. That tends to translate into me mixing up waffle batter every 3ish days and running two waffle makers while cooking up the bacon, sausage, and hash browns (oh, and melting dark chocolate chips, because we prefer melted chocolate drizzled over waffles here rather than the syrup option). This waffle-making process tends to produce enough waffles for two and a half or three days, something which causes my oldest to apologize for regularly—that I have to make waffles so often.

But, here’s the thing about this process: if I were not making waffles, I would be making some other entrée. I would still be standing in my kitchen and I would still have to cook a dinner of some kind, so, what difference does it make that I’m making waffles? What difference does it make if I just made waffles a few days ago? Making and serving food is something all parents have to do. 

The difference here, for me, is this dinner process is a built-in meal plan. It means my husband and I can enjoy a fancy dinner or, if we don’t feel like it, sit down to a bowl of cereal. And it means I don’t have to think about what my girls are going to eat for dinner. (oh, and before anyone gets overly concerned about diet and nutrition, these two have rarely been sick over the course of their almost 17 and almost 15 years and we have pretty awesome supplement options in the mix.) 
Sometimes, it’s how we choose to look at the things in our lives that makes the difference between seeing something as a chore or as an act of service. Making waffles for dinner every night for my teenagers is absolutely an act of service. It’s also an act of love. And, as I’ve said previously, love is an action; so why wouldn’t I choose to see waffle making as a pretty simple and easy way to love my teens?