Fishstix Verboten

Every year when I was growing up, as if it were an edict from the Pope himself, we always had fishsticks and macaroni and cheese for dinner on the Fridays of Lent.

I really don't like fish, in any form, except alive and swimming. I hate the taste and I'm allergic to shellfish. When I was preggers, we couldn't even go NEAR the seafood section without me retching. (Don't tell me I just haven't had fish cooked the right way for me to enjoy it. I sampled everything under the sea when I worked 4 star seafood restaraunt; I'm pretty sure at almost 31 that I don't like fish.)

I hate fishsticks with a passion. Every Lenten Friday and Ash Wednesday of my childhood was purgatory and Catholic sacrifice wrapped up in soggy, oily batter. Even though all five of us HATED fish sticks, our mom would ALWAYS serve them. God bless ketchup which could almost drown out the taste.

The worst Fishstick Fridays? My birthday (April 21st) which always seemed to fall on a Friday during Lent. (I know this is mathmatically impossible, but hindsight is fuzzy/fuzzy). The absolute worst was when my birthday fell on Good Friday. Hard to be excited about a birthday when you have fishsticks, mac n cheese for dinner and it's the day Jesus died. That's a bummer, lemme tell ya.

That's why I vowed before DD was born that I would never subjugate any child of mine to such a horrible dinner.

I'll be damned if one day when we picked Darling Daughter up from daycare the baby sitter told us, "We had fishsticks for lunch and DD LOVED them. She ate 4!" Handsome Hubby (who shares my distaste for fish) just looked over at me and burst out laughing.

So....am I a bad parent if I don't give her fishsticks? I don't know. I do know that I won't be eating any. YUCK!