The Perfectly Flawed Dinner
Authors note
English is not my first language, prepare to dance through a few mispronunciations and misspellings.
I made a rule recently in my house, that during dinner no one was allowed to bring their electronics to the table!
Call me silly or crazy, but I was sick and tired of watching everyone glued to his or her phones, texting their friends or playing games. If I’m making the effort to prepare dinner then I demand a conversation, or I wont cook!
The initial thought was, to be able to sit down as a family, and have a nice home cooked meal once in a while during the busy weekdays. We often times come home eating on the run and very seldom spend the time talking or catching up on our days.
I remember the first official dinner we had, with my new enforced rule.
I had spent a good amount of time in the kitchen, preparing dinner, thinking about how my little experiment would play it self out.
I often catch myself being quite the optimist, or I find that I have already made up a scenario in my head in how I see things come to fruition.
As I’ve realized with time, “that does not work easily in my household!”
I’m surrounded by a bunch of strong personalities, myself included.
All we need is one of us being in a funky mood, and we will have a conversation that ends up in a “big fight!” So, I’m learning to take things as they come, with some room for flexibility so to speak!
The dinner started out as a disaster of course, “whom was I fooling? “
Two of the kids were already fighting over one specific seat, they both had to sit in that particular spot! “there was plenty of pushing and showing”
“there’s plenty of seats for all of us, I yelled!”
I quickly figured out, that no one had taken me seriously, in regards to the electronics! Imagine taking drugs away from an addict,
“there’s something called withdrawals.”
Mommy seriously? they said…
The kids got so annoyed with me, and thought I was being ridiculous.
There was plenty of attitude and eye rolling towards my direction at the table…
I kept filling my glass with wine to numb my disappointment and inner frustration.
I’d be damned if I was about to lose this battle!
I stood my ground, and after some yelling and arguing, they finally caved in and put their phones away! And we could finally start to eat dinner like
“civilized beings!”
After it simmered down a bit, I suggested we go around the table, and let everyone say something about their day in school, or anything they’d like to share.
Works like a charm with the younger kids, they are always very eager to share, unlike the teenagers that think their lives are so private, until you see all their posts on:
“Facebook, Twitter or Instagram “
As we began to enjoy our dinner and listening to each others days, the kids decided to play a game where each one of us, would get up and imitate a family member, and the rest of us would guess who it was!
“A great way to break the ice”.
We surely have some comedians in the house, it was very entertaining to watch them “goof off.”
It is funny how we see each other as individuals, “ and scary at times!”
After we finished eating dinner, the kids were in charge of the dishes.
The rule of thumb in our house is: the person that cooks, “Is off the hook to clean!”
The grand finale was my own live entertainment show, watching the four kids crank up the stereo, then dance, sing and clean the kitchen, while I was sipping my wine.
For me it was a great way to end dinner, seeing them enjoy each other’s company, and being in the moment, something that is often forgotten in our busy lives today.
This was one of those family dinners, I can easily call:
The perfectly flawed dinner!
We had So much fun!
My Recipe to a happy meal is:
Bring music and creativity to dinner and all else is forgotten!
And please, “leave the electronics behind!”
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