I’ll take my time and splurge in it too

“Take your time deciding.”
The waitress the other night at the restaurant has no idea how those words were so alien to me. Take my time? Not even familiar with that, Mainly around dinner time.

 It’s always barely finishing up cooking the dinner, while plating, cutting, already picking up, plating another, and repeating all the while the kids are like circus animals. It does get crazy, but they do settle down. It just seems like and sounds like a herd of beasts took over our dinning room. Those are my beasts, and I do love them even if they don’t know how to keep food on the plate or in their mouths.
 There’s something else though that’s happened at dinner time. I’m never sitting. Honestly don’t know when the the time I sat at the table was, to eat my own food, while not getting up every few seconds to get something, pick up, clean up, or get the kids more food. They go in circles it makes you dizzy, but I still love it.
 I’ve grown used to just standing near the table, taking a few bites here and there while getting their plates done and making sure they get fed. By the time dinner is over, I’m too exhausted to realize not only did I not even fix my own plate I don’t even bother grabbing a plate for myself. I have no place setting anymore at the table. Sad in a way, but at the same time if I try to sit and fix my own it would end up being cold by the time I do sit. At that point it’s shower and bath time anyways. You get the idea, taking my time just doesn’t happen. I really don’t own “my” time. My husband is rarely here around dinner time, so he misses all this but he rarely gets to sit and enjoy his dinner when he gets home either. The kids pretty much swarm around him and yap his ears off till his eyes start flipping around in his head.  It’s funny to watch, and yes I laugh each time, but it still points out that “Our” time just doesn’t happen. Until the other night.

Sunday night was Our 9th Anniversary, and we didn’t plan on going out but last minute plans had us shuffling out the door without the kids. It was odd, right from the start, no kids yelling in the car, no arguments, no one kicking my seat, no flying debris behind us. Just silence. We even sat in the car for a few minutes to enjoy the quiet, it’s not that we hate the noise, but you have got to get time away from the kids. It’s been years since we got away. We had to take our time and just enjoy that.

  We took our time alright, we took about 15 minutes just to figure out our food. I.  Had appetizers, pre-dinner drinks! All the while I just kept spreading my hands on the table going, “Look no spills, no one is even shoving me out of my chair.”
 We finally had our time. With grown up food and drinks too! Conversations as well. Can you imagine what it felt like to get through an entire sentence without one or four kids interrupting with “Mom, Mom, Mom,” every few seconds! I love my kids no question about that, it just felt great to have a simple conversation with no interruptions at all.

 We splurged on ourselves, something we never ever do. We ordered lobster, shrimp cocktails, steaks, stuffed mushrooms, things that we just can’t afford to get to eat with the entire family. The best part of it was, we were sitting and eating our own food that no one was rushing us through. It’s so rare we sat there staring at the plates a few times, the waitress asked if something was wrong. She had no idea how right everything was! We took our time, finished off our bottle of wine, shared a huge chunk of cake and ordered an extra one to bring home to the kids. An end to a rare, peaceful and slow dinner, that I didn’t even have to clean up after.

Once in awhile you just have to take your time, even splurge a little to feel like human again. 🙂