Stick with me here. Peanut butter is a loaded phrase these days. Some of my best friends are managing peanut allergies and it is NO JOKE.

So think of PEANUT BUTTER as a proxy for YOUR KID’S FAVORITE (healthy-ish) FOOD. In my house, that means peanut butter. Which they will literally eat EVERY DAY. All day. If I let them. Because, uh, I eat it every day. And what momma wanna do, the littles wanna do.

I really do eat peanut butter every day (for breakfast). And my boys kinda do, too (for lunch). At least when school’s in session. Which these days is (SIGH) never. But at home, I like to mix things up. How ’bout we skip the PB&J for lunch and have a ham sandwich? How ’bout we skip the PB&J for dinner and try some brussel sprouts?

But the heart wants what the heart wants.

Which means I have to listen to PLEAS FOR PEANUT BUTTER for days on end. Unless I let them indulge.

Enter Peanut Butter Tuesday

A couple years ago, to cut down on the peanut butter requests, I set a rule:

Tuesday is all peanut butter, all the time. This means no peanut butter the other 6 days of the week.

Y’all, I’m a pushover, so basically the rule only applies to dinnertime. But whatev. At least 6 days out of the week, they eat something else for supper.

Now, every Tuesday, we eat peanut butter sandwiches for dinner. It’s like Taco Tuesday, except different.

Does Tuesday seem pretty random to you? Well, hear me out.

You need to know what else happens on Tuesdays in my world to understand the brilliance behind that day of the week.

Here goes: on Tuesday, THE TRASH TRUCK COMES.

Tuesday is KING OF THE WEEK in the eyes of my boys because LOUD, ROARING, BOOMING, BANGING GARBAGE TRUCKS.

When the boys were little little and didn’t know that days had special names or that calendars existed, they had “Trash Truck Tuesday” to alert them that it was PEANUT BUTTER TUESDAY.

I didn’t even have to have a conversation with them. If they asked about peanut butter, I simply pointed to the window, with a “Have you seen the trash truck today?” It was like a flow chart:

YES = PEANUT BUTTER FOR DINNER!
NO = YO MOMMA GONNA FEED YOU SUMPIN’ ELSE.

Worked like a charm. Still does!

And nowadays, they even make their own sandwiches for dinner #proudmomma

Peanut butter on a spoon

Only they still want peanut butter the other 6 days of the week. So I head that off with: peanut-butter-on-a-spoon.

This involves, um, peanut butter and a spoon. In other words, I direct the child to get the jar from the pantry and a spoon from the sivaware drawer. (That’s “Southern” for cutlery.)

Then I tell them to “Go to town. But in a responsible manner.” Translation: only one scoop per spoon. If you want more, you gotta get a new spoon – or put a bunch of the goods in a bowl and have at it. (Momma don’t need anybody gettin’ the corona cuz somebody been double-dipping in the jar.)

This satisfies them occasionally. But nothing really satisfies like a peanut butter sandwich. So it’s a good thing they know about math these days and can countdown all on their own to the next PEANUT BUTTER TUESDAY. Trash trucks are now just a bonus.

What’s your kiddo’s go-to snack and how do you keep them from indulging all day, every day? Comment below or share your tips on Facebook at MothersRest.

Photo credit: Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels