Momma's Table

Our new dining room set arrived yesterday afternoon. It really fills the dining room, but I love it. It has a 24" leaf so we can easily seat eight. Maybe not easily. We won't be able to put chairs on the ends in this dining room if we put the leaf in. But remember this house is a rental for one year. I plan to keep the table. Which leads me to the real story behind this post.

I have a lot of memories attached to "stuff." For instance, the last time I visited my Grandma I came across this salt shaker.

When I saw it my mind was flooded with childhood memories of holidays and family gatherings. My cousin and I sat down to look through all of my Grandma's pictures and we came across one of my Grandpa sitting at the kitchen table and there was the salt shaker in front of him.

P.K. took all the kids to the YMCA with him last night. I asked him to call me when he was leaving so I could have dinner ready when they arrived home. Aaron had an informational meeting for scouts but I wanted to eat at our new table first.

The family arrived to the new table set with my fine china. The dinner menu included grilled steak, baked potatoes, grilled asparagus and homemade cheesecake for dessert. We took pictures of the family and our first memory at our table. The kids were so polite and kind to one another.

In my mind I was picturing all the times family and friends would come to visit and we would sit around that table. I thought of the first time one of the kids would bring a special someone home to meet the family. I thought of our grandkids sitting around our table. I thought of a time when my kids would discuss who should have Momma's table with all the precious memories.

Then reality set in. The kids came bursting through the door yelling, "We're home. Where are you?" I said, "I'm in the dining room. Look, I have dinner ready." It was actually cheesy chicken and pasta with veges. Aaron walked in the room, looked at the table and said, "That is gross. I'm not eating that." I told him he had eaten it before. I picked out as many of the cheese covered veges that I could and he could just eat the pasta and chicken. He opted for the strawberries I had put out. Did I mention the veges were covered in cheese? You couldn't even taste them.

After several complaints about the dinner being served, I told the family a story I had heard a minister sharing on a radio program this past week. In his story a mother had prepared a new meatloaf recipe for her family. When the family came to the table they immediately realized this wasn't their usual meatloaf. The complaints came. The mother was exasperated. After all she had worked hard planning and preparing a nice meal for her family. She picked up the platter with the meatloaf, walked to the back door and gave it a pitch. I didn't listen to the entire radio program so I'm not sure what the minister's point was, but I asked my kids what they thought the moral of my story was.

Rachel was sure it had something to do with Aaron being a picky eater. Hannah let us know she didn't like "fried" broccoli and carrots. They weren't fried. They were gently boiled. She only likes them raw. Then before we realized what was happening, Rachel said something about Aaron that had him in tears. She has been asked several times over the last couple of weeks to try to be extra kind to her brother since he is having a hard time adjusting to our new home. As Aaron ran off to his room to cry in solitude, I gave Rachel a good talking to and P.K. excused her from the table to go sit on her bed and think about what had just happened.

I didn't take a picture of us during our first meal at our table, but oh what a memory!