My late-afternoon routine is, well, very routine.  I usually get started making dinner between 5 and 5:15, and dinner hits the table about an hour later.

But my eight-year-old has two baseball games a week these days, and his games start at 5:45 and go for two hours.

I can't make an eight-year-old wait until almost 8:30 to eat dinner, especially when he needs to be in bed by 8:45.  So on game days, I need to really concentrate on getting dinner on the table at 5.

It's really tempting to serve peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on days like today.  There's a minimum of prep involved, and they can be on the table in a snap.  That's not really enough to hold a kid through a ball game, nor is it enough for the teenagers and adults in the house.  So I have to buckle down and serve the meal early--so early that some people around here are still munching on their "just off the school bus" snacks.

Good thing everyone in the family likes tacos--that's one of the few things that I can manage to have ready early enough for our little second-baseman before the game.

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