Thursday, June 14, 2007

table for four, please

When you're a kid you often lament your parents' demand that you be home by dinner time. And if your table experience was anything like mine, dinner was a yummy but very eclectic conglomerate of starches and ground beef, complemented by your father's jokes about constipation.

I look fondly on those times because they were as real as a family can get--all of us within 3 feet of each other, legs akimbo, licking our fingers and laughing at my brother.

But it is only recently that i TRULY appreciate what eating at the table can do for a family. There's just something about that spotlight that turns people onto being open and really funny.

Our baby H loves to eat, a trait easily identified in her family tree, um--mommy's side, so for her, the dinner table is like a mecca to which she would travel thousands of tireless miles on her chubby square feet for the pure enjoyment. She likes to go around the table saying everyone's name, then identifying what's on her own plate, which usually contains some form or fashion of her favorite word and savory treat--cheese. And in this picture, you ask? That would be of the parmasean persuasion.



And then, luckily for me and my fam, our eldest has inherited her pawpaw's talent for espousing mildly inappropriate butt humor at the table. Insert your own favorite butt joke punchline here:




And all of it--the intimacy, my husband never complaining about my barely decent cooking, and the kids, being sweet and funny and happy to be with us--it's a habit i want to keep up, and it's a show i'd pay good money for.

4 comments:

susan said...

the art of sitting around a table, with the TV off, making conversation and enjoying our food so easily gets put on the back burner, i'm afraid. it is my FAVORITE thing, too. and your mom's house was one of the only other places, except dear's, where we got to do such a thing when we were little. that is one of my fondest memory of going to spend the night with you. my little family has started a new habit within the dinner table habit. we go around and tell our favorite and least favorite part of our day. i LOVE to hear what mmv and mjv come up with!

carrie said...

you are a model raiser of sisters.
i love you.
c

Crescent said...

This blog is making me homesick...er. Homesicker.

sigh.

Kiss them for me!

Anonymous said...

Well written article.