Fend

Ryan’s favorite Sunday lunch, by far, he simply calls “Fend.” This is short for “fend for yourself” and is a parental cop-out.  We don't have "fend" too often as the nutritional value is very small, especially relative to caloric value.  But I realized several weeks ago that this wasn’t the part that bugged me. It was the selfish nature of the process: find something on your own, preparing it, and then inhaling it a fast as possible. Where is the family time in that?

A few weeks ago Kara and I discussed a possible variation of “fend” and I introduced the concept today on the way home from church. I told them we were having a roast for dinner, but I had no lunch plans as of yet. Ryan pumped his fist and said, “Yes! Fend!” I told him that we were going to have “fend” but with a twist: We were having “Fend for your sibling.” I explained that you could eat anything that a sibling prepared for you. Poor Ryan groaned and said, “No one knows how to make quesadillas the way I like them.” Yeah right. We’ve watched you make 1,000 quesadillas. Tortilla. Cheese. Tortilla. Nuke. Not that complex. He ceded that point but then said, “But what if no one offers to make me anything? Do you want me to starve to death?” OK, I already said that we were having roast at 5:00; I doubt death by starvation will happen before then. The bigger issue is that he was totally missing the point of this drill – it is to practice not worrying about ourselves.

Anyway, we arrived home to find that Kara had prepared lunch, so the FYS idea will have to wait for another day.