6:15 p.m. — Weeknight chaos. We make chicken tacos with red cabbage and yogurt sauce. Last night I marinated chicken, and today my husband grills it and I chop it all up so we can put the leftovers in the fridge to use for future dinners. It's a good meal to get on the table quickly and doesn't require individually cutting up the kids' food for them when we're trying to stay on track for bedtime. I feed the baby and put him down to nap while we go through our evening routine with the older kids. As I type it up, this all sounds somewhat orderly to me, but just assume that, whatever activity I say we're doing, there is always at least one child wandering off, spilling food, or having a meltdown. I assume this is good training for becoming a professional cat herder.