When I was kid, meal time just happened: it seemed sort of this instantaneous event where my mother would summon my sister and I from our rooms and there would be delicious food sort of miraculously at the table. As I got older, I realized that this seemingly magic trick actually required work, whether it was chopping vegetables for a stirfry, cooking the meat, washing and ripping lettuce for a salad, etc.
Now that I’m even older still (I’d say “grownup” but as an elementary school teacher, I still retain enough enthusiasm for things like Sesame Street and Disney that I don’t know how “adult” I actually am) it sometimes seems like such a vicious cycle: but I already ate dinner yesterday, why do I have to decide again about what I’m going to eat? So time consuming.