Friends Update & Dinner

Lily and Tony's teacher, who also had Allen and CW, last year reassured me that the children do indeed make friends at school. This I'm glad to hear. I'm still sticking by my story though as to the closeness of the sibs and their refusals and edginess about not being at home with the others. My "oldest" friend, Barbara, and I were way closer than my sister and I back then. I'm still close to my siblings emotionally but my children, with all their issues, gravitate to each other.

The excitement about tonight's championship soccer game is overtaking everything. I can't wait either.

How bout them White Sox?

Kids who never had food in their homes growing up have a challenging time with the concept of meal time manners. Literally the act of SITTING, rather than standing or running around with a full mouth spraying crumbs every whichaway, takes years to master. Everyone sits in the same place every night for supper, every meal actually, yet one would think I rearranged the kitchen every night so great is their confusion over simple feeding tasks.

The fork goes on the left and elbows off the table. Don't talk with your mouth full and SIT DOWN rival the stop yelling command every night. Every night. Finish your milk, put your plate and cup in the sink. These are not arbitrary, pulled out of the clouds, suggestions. They are basic, simple rules that do not change. I can speak them in English and in Spanish yet my children look at me often like I am from Singapore and do not speak their language at all.

We have a huge 30 gallon trash can in the kitchen to better facilitate the basketball throws to the trash yet there is usually a ring of trash around the trash can. Ceramic tiles are cracked after six years and the chairs splinter. How do restaurants stand up under the constant traffic?

OHHHHHHHH! Their patrons are more mannerly. I suppose my situation could be closer to a saloon where the patrons are disorderly, truculent, contentious, scrappy and trigger happy?

I console my poor beat down kitchen with the promise of someday the kids will be grown, the grandchildren are a generation removed from the justified outrage of former foster children. Someday we'll throw out the 4 kitchen tables and 32 chairs and I will have a nice oak table surrounded by plants rather than bellicose, warmongering diners.

Then my digestion will improve and I'll call up the kids on the phone because I'll then also miss the confrontational and aggravatingly interesting mealtimes.

Last night I was helping in the Children's Church when I noticed that there were 39 kids sitting quietly and listening to Miss Lisa. I have 39 kids but this 39 (only 13 were mine) looked like a LOT of kids. My 39, though boisterous at best, don't seem like that many at all. I do not have an explanation for this observation.

Martin's friend loudly broke wind into the molded plastic chair and I simply could not keep a straight face. Martin caught my eye and cracked up. Miss Lisa, who teaches first grade in real life, never missed a beat. I am so immature. But, quite possibly, that's a prerequisite to being able to live in this house and survive and thrive?