Gleanings from the Table

These are some of the things that crossed my mind at dinner tonight.
No one told you before being a parent that:
1) It would be easier to feed the 7 month Sophia in a straight jacket. We don't have a straight jacket-- instead my husband Kevin used one arm to hold an arm down and I did the same while filling her with baby food peas. It's fun to watch her take the spoon and for peas to fling everywhere...but when you have meetings to run to after and a sermon to write-- it is less fun.

2)Dinner time music used to be some hip new band or cool background music Kevin found, then with Baby #1- now our Toddler Grace it became NPR (our only time to really get some good news). Now we listen to the Sesame Street Platinum favorites! My favorites are "Doing the Pigeon" by Bert and "Monster in the Mirror." The latter is quite theological....

3)Themed Bibs: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter will not just be used on those special occasions. You have a clean bib? You use it. Tonight we dined with Grace wearing a Halloween bib and Sophia happened to get an Easter bib. Hmmm... Death and Resurrection?

4)Prayer without Ceasing: Grace loves to bless the meal and say AMEN with a head nod always. We pray several times throughout dinner. We all hold hands. Sophia is sitting on the table in the Bumbo seat, "BABY! BABY!" We must MUST have her hand. But that's not all-- "DOG!!DOG!" We call the dog. We need the dog' paw too. Then we pray. Everyone holding hands. Everyone connected. Every five minutes.

5)And speaking of the dog-- Wonderful Built in Hoover! We never realize how much until we actually go out and do our best to pick up always wondering, "Did we tip the waitress enough for all that?"