Month: January 2014

A fondness for table scars

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Cleaning the kitchen table after dinner tonight I discovered all of the new scratches and scrapes. I shrugged and said to myself, this is life. We didn’t spend much on this table but the value it holds is immeasurable.

This table was the ideal replacement for the one the previous occupiers of our home had used when they owned this house. I remember loving their cute little table in the eat-in kitchen and we even offered extra cash at closing for it, but they wouldn’t hear of it. They had spent so much time and memories were created over that table and it was going with them. I never realized then what importance that table brought to them, I just thought it looked cute and we wanted to have that furnishing taking care of when we moved in.

Fast forward almost 7 years and I am getting teary-eyed over our current table. There’s nothing special about the furniture itself, but there’s no way I could ever part with it. Why? The chairs for one have seen baby booster seats strapped to them and have worn away the finish from the milk and countless other sticky items that have been encrusted under the seat. Both of our girls have stabbed the table with forks, we’ve planted countless herbs and vegetable seedlings, hosted parties, stripped some of the finish with nail polish remover as we’ve painted nails, and the grooves along the edge are filled with dried yogurt–yes this table is a keeper.

My oldest daughter in the past week has remained quiet on the car ride home and refused to tell me how her day was, what she learned at school or why she’s sad about something until our family is sat at the table so she can tell us all at once. I live for the moments at our table. Whether it’s a meal, a card game, a science project, a craft or playing under it with blankets and figurines, this is the precious time and memory that this table absorbs.

My youngest daughter likes to steal food, solicit hugs and kisses, climb across, jab and scrape with any sharp object, and spill any drink (on purpose) on this table so it must be important to her as well. This table is a living thing in this house.

Both kids without prompting (and mind you they are 5 and 2) both offer to clean the table and chairs when they see me cleaning it. They wipe the dirt, food smudges, drips and we start all over again the next meal, moment, memory.

Do you treasure your table like we do? Share your story with us!

Turkey legs and it’s a small world

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Our recent family trip to Disney World was both an exciting adventure for our little ones as well as chaotic!!
Most parents who have been there (and judging by the parental faces I saw there) would agree!

Our first day in Magic Kingdom was full of fun and a quest for princesses. Following my husband’s and oldest daughter’s wild ride on Splash Mountain, we were meandering back toward the castle and grabbed turkey legs to munch on. It was something I had my heart set on before we even arrived but they were so hot to hold and hard to eat–not to mention greasy! On our way to find a place to sit and snack we briefly ran into Tiana from “Princess and the Frog”. She is an all time favorite of our daughter’s but even princesses need a break and that’s where she was headed. Oh no, no photopass pic or autograph for our books?! OK Tiana, when will you be back? 5pm, ok we need to wait an hour in line; can we hang that long?

We did on a nice covered bench near her “station” and proceeded to try and eat those turkey legs. An older couple sat down at the bench near us with their sleeping grandson in a stroller. After a short while the woman asked me if my turkey leg was good as she’d always wondered about how they tasted. I told her it was all of the aforementioned things above and was ok. She then went on to ask about the ages of our girls, talked about her grandson and then said they were from St. Petersburg.

I’ve always thought that there’s always a slim chance people you meet know people you know. So I asked and gave the name of the cousin I found doing my personal family tree research (also living in St. Pete’s). This was the same cousin (if you read my earlier posts) that I went out of my comfort zone and state to meet in person. The one I had a non-stop fun-filled weekend with at casino, church and beach! Yep, this woman knew who she was, in fact she was so excited to tell me how their sons were best friends growing up. She asked me to take a photo of them and email it to my cousin and say “Hi”. Done. Right, this was was what I was thinking….It’s a Small World. But oddly enough, we never got around to going on that ride this trip.

Have you ever had what seemed like a casual conversation (in this case turkey legs?!) which turned into something much more meaningful? Did you ever meet an unknown relative or friend of a friend this way? Please post a response if you care to share your story.