How To Make Dinner in 33 Easy-ish Steps

1. Put children #s 2 and 3 down for nap. Set child #1 up in front of laptop open to page full of math games.
2. Listen to child #2 calling from her crib: No nap! Up now! No nap! Up now!
3. Remove child #2 from her crib, with promises to play quietly without waking child #3 while Mommy cooks.
4. Wonder why you are attempting to extract promises from a one year old when you already know for certain she has no intention of keeping them.
5. Drink afternoon coffee (without which no cooking of dinner shall occur).
6. Go into kitchen. Dig through fridge. No meat.
7. Realize meat has not been thawed.
8. Retrieve from freezer; defrost meat in microwave.
9. Child #2 will be running in circles -yelling loudly and with great zeal- by this point, while child #3 sleeps next door. Shush her. She won't shush, but it's always worth a shot. (Optimism is important both in life and in the cooking of dinner.)
10. Continue digging in fridge. Realize there is no spinach.
11. Scavenge kitchen. Find partially rotting zucchini squash, halfway decent yellow squash, green and yellow peppers only slightly beginning to wrinkle and shrivel.
12. Good enough. Chop 'em. (Toss rotting parts.)
13. Heat meat in pan. 
14. Add veggies, 3 teaspoons of husband-made taco seasoning, half-cup of water.
15. Dig through cupboards. Realize you are out of black beans.
16. Continue digging through cupboards until you find a can of refried beans.
17. Good enough. Add 'em. 
18. Child #2 will by now have stripped down to a saggy, baggy diaper, and will still be running in circles, yelling: NAYKEE!
19. Wrestle child into bedroom. Change diaper. Re-clothe.
20. Attempt to impress upon child the need for quiet.
21. Futile. Child will grin winningly and yell at maximum volume in response.
22. Return to kitchen to find mexi-slop burning and sticking to bottom of pan.
23. Mutter a curse word under your breath. Scrape mexi-slop from bottom of pan (but not too much--best to leave bottom layer of burned mexi-slop as a further-burn-barrier; this has been learned from experience). 
24. Reduce heat, and cover.
25. Child #2 will -of course- hear the muttered curse word, and begin yelling it loudly while running in circles.
26. Child #3 will wake up.
27. Go get child #3 from crib; change diaper.
28. Child #1 -attracted to the sounds of chaos- will close laptop and race to join children #s 2 and 3.
29. They will run in circles, yelling loudly (at least the muttered curse has been forgotten)(recall the importance of optimism), until child #3 is retrieved by his mother, arriving to pick him up after work.
30. Husband will arrive home from work. He has 2 important steps to complete.
31. Make homemade guacamole to transform this dinner from mexi-slop to mexi-slop with delicious guacamole on top.
32. The final step is of utmost importance to the success of both the dinner, and the evening.
33. Send husband to store for beer.