Pre-dinner silence

On a particularly crummy late afternoon recently (remember my great misery during the pre-dinner hour?), I discovered the secret to TOTAL SILENCE while I'm cooking dinner.  I'm not proud of the solution but on a day when the whining was just too much and my patience was just too little, I was desperate.  Desperate enough to turn on the kitchen television (usually used only for Josh to catch up on SportsCenter while he does dishes) and scan the channels frantically for something to capture their attention.  The solution was not Sesame Street or Dora the Explorer or anything else kid-focused.  Nope, for my two little ones, the Food Network is where it's at.  There was 20 minutes of total silence while both Ella and Dash watched someone else chop and chatter (never mind that I'm usually doing the very same thing, live, in front of them). 

Riveted

This is not actually a new tactic in my parenting playbook.  Back when Ella was a toddler, at the end of the day, we would often watch Food Network together while I made dinner.  In those days, the 5:00 pm line-up was Ina Garten followed by Giada, two Food Network chefs I actually enjoy watching.  In fact, by age 17 months, one of Ella's words was "Ina", and she had mastered "Ada" by 19 months (I just checked her baby book to confirm).  These days, the 5:00 hour is the Paula Deen hour.  I cannot stand Paula Deen, but it turns out I can tune her out much better than I can the whining and screeching of my own two kids.