the second-to-last ​supper

March 29, 2024

When I mentioned my idea for the title of this blog post to ​my husband as we were walking out the door to go to ​McDonald’s, he actually snort-laughed. It made me excited ​to write this, even though I feel like a failure. Allow me to ​explain.

Yesterday was the day that hundreds of years ago, Jesus ate ​a last supper with His disciples. We’ve been studying about ​Jesus and the last week of His mortal life during this Holy ​Week, so I wanted to do a recreation of the last supper and ​use these cute cards that our friend Jessica who runs The ​Faithful Preppers account made. They have scriptures ​associated with all the things that Jesus and His disciples ​might have eaten: fish, olives, grapes, vinegar, salt, spices, ​honey, bread, water, and figs. I decided I would make

baked tilapia (which I’ve never made before) and matzah, which is unleavened bread (which I’ve also never made before). I also ​decided I would buy fig newtons, since you can’t really buy figs from Walmart.

Imagine this: it’s 3:00 in the afternoon. Your kids are fed, your oldest just woke up from a nap, and you’re ready to get a head start ​on this incredible feast so that you can still spend time with your kids and not be in the kitchen all day. You start the matzah with ​the recipe you saved on Pinterest. It’s going well. You do everything just as it says, and you’re left with this thick, rectangular ​hunks of something that’s not quite edible, so you bump up the temperature of the oven and try again with a recipe that seems a ​lot more reliable. Your littlest is now crying, and your oldest has had enough of you being in the kitchen.

You pull the matzah out of the oven and it looks great. Now you can spend some time with your kids before you start baking the ​fish. You have a great time playing, and you’ve even set up a bit of the table in the meantime.

Your husband texts you that he’s on his way home, so you get started on the tilapia. You turn on Bluey for your oldest, because ​she’s getting desperate and you’re trying to transition her to one nap but you forgot to try and put her down for a short late-​afternoon nap. This keeps her occupied for about 5 minutes. You’re racing around the kitchen trying to cook and clean at the ​same time. You grab her some paints and let her paint in her high chair for a while.

The tilapia is done and smells… like fish. Which is fine. You set it up on the table with the rest of the arranged foods and put the ​bread back in the oven for a while to warm up. Then you check your husband’s location, because he should be home by now, but ​for some reason, it says he’s 17 minutes away. So you get your toddler out of the high chair because the paint kept her busy for ​about 5 minutes, and now you’re watching Easter videos about the resurrection on YouTube.

Your phone says your husband is five minutes away, so you put the fish and the bread back in the oven for a bit, and you’re just ​pulling it out when he gets home. He notices all the food on the table and says it looks wonderful. You sit down to read all of the ​cards. Your toddler has eaten five fig newtons and is now sitting your lap trying to make you drink your own glass of water and ​keeps repeatedly handing you bunches of grapes. From what you can get out of the cards, they are really special and bring the ​Spirit to your meal.

You take a bite of the matzah (that you seasoned “generously with salt” because that’s what the directions told you to do) and it’s ​terrible. You try it with the olive oil & and balsamic vinegar dip that you made to go wit it. It’s still terrible. Your toddler up and ​down out of your lap and there’s now spilled water, cards, and fig newton everywhere. You try the tilapia. It’s cold. And still ​partially raw for some reason. You look at your husband and tell him that you’re taking the family to McDonald’s.

After a two minute bathroom cry, you get ready to leave the house and mention to your husband that the meal you just tried to ​eat wasn’t the last supper, it was the second-to-last, because it was so bad that you had to go to McDonald’s to eat the last one.

Hopefully that painted a great picture for you and you were able to step into my crazy shoes for a minute. I have to keep ​reminding myself that this blog is to show real life. Sometimes, things go really well and I spend ample time with my kids all day, ​do laundry, and make a delicious, healthy meal. But other times - maybe even most of the time - my days look like this: I try to do ​something elaborate and it doesn’t work out, and my kids need me, but I’m trying to get it all done before Jarom gets home.

My husband doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what the house looks like when he comes home. He doesn’t care if dinner is ready, in ​progress, or not even started. All he cares about is seeing his family after a long day at work. He cares about spending time with ​his wife and kids. And I bet yours does too. Does that mean you shouldn’t try your hardest to have dinner at least going and the ​house semi-put together when he gets home? No. But you can give yourself grace knowing that he just wants to be with you.

Nobody has it all put together all of the time. My husband said last night that that’s why he hates social media: it’s an illusion. If ​you are in a time of young motherhood, where your kids aren’t even able to talk in complete sentences yet, you do not need to be ​baking or cooking or taking on cleaning projects every single day. Your kids are so young and they rely so heavily on your for love ​and attention right now. You may not always want that, and you may not want to take that guilt trip of “they won’t be little ​forever,” but they won’t be. And, they won’t remember the time you made gross ancient-times food and then went to McDonald’s ​and made them go to bed a tiny bit late.

Do what you can. It will be enough. You’re doing great. Thanks for reading.