The Dinner Table

Sometimes our dinner table resembles a group of special needs children as so gently pointed out by my husband last night after the kids had cleared out.

The night was a little hurried in that we had school conferences and needed to get supper in before the hustle to get to school, talk to teachers, pick up fundraiser purchases and then get another child off to dance lessons.

I need to give you a little preliminary on our kids before I tell you Dan's description of the scene at our table. First, there is Tori who is generally stuffed up even after removal of tonsils and adenoids years ago, this makes it nearly impossible to chew with her mouth closed. Then there is Morgan and she has been sniffling almost non-stop for the past month and a half, this seems to be a nervous habit rather than just a cold creeping in. Libby just simply doesn't eat and it is a battle over whether or not she will try something that I've made that night.  Then there is Nick who we darn near have to tie to the chair to keep him sitting and he makes noise non-stop and not just the cute little four-year-old noise but annoying airplane, gun shooting, repetitive noise that is sometimes accompanied by him swaying his body side-to-side until he almost falls off the chair or in circular motion until we're all ready to throw up. Danny...well he refuses to sit in his high chair these days so when we put him at the table with everyone else he is up, down, up down, up down and I can't imagine where he learns his crazy table manners from. When he does actually eat, half the food just lands on the chair or floor. Sometimes he just throws his body up on the table so he can reach the fruit bowl or whatever else he wants that we've moved just out of his reach. Last night he tossed the salad in the bowl for the entire meal. He would scream like an animal being tortured if we took the bowl to dish up some salad.

So after dinner was over Dan looks at me, totally defeated and he says "Do you ever think our dinner table resembles the short bus?" (Disclaimer: We know this is a totally inappropriate and asshole comparison...I KNOW it sounds mean but we have great love for the mentally challenged).

I laugh and ask him what he means...he then says while pointing to each kids empty chair..."This one here chews like this (mimics a cow chewing it's cud), that one there is constantly (sniffles extremely loud), then there's that one and he's all (rolls his body in a circle and makes some insane noise) and then there's that one (gets down and then up and then stirs the salad left in the bowl). Then there is this one (makes a few circles on his plate with his fork which made a horrific noise). He looked at me with so much seriousness that I couldn't help but break down laughing.

Many nights this is how it is at our house. The kids are loud, they are unique in their good and their annoying ways. I love every minute of it but somedays it just simply feels...well...CRAZY!

Thank God we can laugh about it.