Dinner with the Boys

Until my parents divorced when I was 12, my family always ate dinner at the dining room table. Every single night without fail, we would convene over dinner to talk about the day, the rest of the evening, future plans, whatever came up. I always imagined that my future family would also do this.

I'll admit, eating at the dining room table is actually somewhat of a rarity for my family.

My husband began working evenings when our oldest was about one years old. There are few things more dull (or even awkward) about eating dinner at the table with just your almost-toddler and yourself. Eventually, we stopped eating at the table completely. Over time, I began to see the dining room table as more of a staging ground and less of a place to eat, so even when I would think to myself that we should use the table, it was so covered in miscellaneous things that I never really pursued it.

This ends today.

It truly is important to me that my family eats together as a family every evening, with as many family members in attendance as possible. It's good for families to hit pause and spend even 30 minutes with each other to reconnect, especially during the hectic weekday bustle. Whole scientific studies confirm this. Now that the youngest is a year old, he is able to eat almost everything we serve for dinner. He's starting to try to talk, and the oldest can actually carry a decent conversation, so dinners together without Dad should be more enjoyable. It helps that the dining room is completely devoid of unrelated stuff since we hosted the youngest's first birthday yesterday. And so tonight, for the first time in well over a year (and the first time in the baby's life), my boys and I sat at the table and ate dinner.

It was nice to talk to my son without competing with the television or video games for attention, and I really think the baby enjoyed being part of it all. At the end of dinner, the oldest helped me clear the dishes, and I promptly cleaned up the kitchen so we could enjoy the rest of our evening.

Another bonus: Because the natural progression goes from clearing your plates to taking them into the kitchen, I was actually motivated to clean the kitchen right away, which is almost never the case. It's nice to have that chore done and now I can enjoy the rest of my evening without it hanging over my head.