<p style="text-
align: right”>Blogger at Late Enough
We have dinner together as a family at the table most nights of the week. We make exceptions for movies nights or if the kids forgot to watch their favorite television shows until later or if Scott and I are dying of exhaustion, but for the most part, we are sitting at the dining room table together.
I believe in setting the expectation early (my children are 5 and 3) that we come together at least once a day to be a family, to catch up or just to laugh and eat. This usually lasts for 10-15 minutes with kids as young as mine except the nights in between when our dinner time looks like this:
My kids: Mama, I’m so hungry!
Me: I just put food on the table so please get out of the refrigerator.
My kids: But I’m so thirsty!
Me: Well, get your cups and I’ll pour you milk.
My kids: You get our cups.
Me: No.
My kids: Can you PLEASE get our cups?
Me: That is a much nicer way to ask but no. You have legs and arms for a reason. Go get your cups please.
My kids: Oh look! Here’s a cup.
{gulp}
Me: That’s MY cup!
We finally move towards the dinner table with homemade pizza and corn on the cob (what? it’s grocery store night which means we eat whatever is left that hasn’t gone bad) and no drinks when I realize that my son is in Scott’s seat. (yes, we have assigned seating because I got tired of the cup fight being a preliminary for the seat fight)
Me: E, you’re in the wrong seat.
My son: I want to eat by myself please.
Now, we are a big proponents of taking alone time and my son is definitely teetering on the edge of EVERYONE IS ANNOYING ARGH and the fact that he noticed and doesn’t want to take it out on everyone else is something I want to reinforce.
Me: That’s fine.
My daughter, my husband and I start to eat together while E eats in the other room.
Within minutes, my daughter pushes her plate away and announces: I’m done.
Me: You have hardly eaten anything, N.
N: I have things to do, Mama. I’m a hero you know. I need to train. And save the world.
My husband and I look at each other because it’s difficult to argue with her logic and awesome career choice.
Me: Fine.
Now our family dinner looks a lot like Scott and I having dinner together. Sometimes we have to make fight to enforce ideas, but, other times, we just supposed to enjoy the quiet.
