Dinner at Our House

Dinner at our house does not look like those homey family dinners on TV.  First of all, there’s only three of us.  Secondly, there aren’t generally big serving dishes of stuff being passed around.  Thirdly, we like to relax at the table in some form of jammies or comfies, not our day clothes.   So our family dinners are an extremely casual affair.  Ax has cheese tortellini marinara.  Mike has something punishingly spicy and vegetarian he’s concocted for himself.  And I have a big bowl of greens with egg or veggie burger or sometimes pre-cooked chicken from the grocery salad bar on top.  

Ax drinks fizzy water, Mike drinks regular water, and I drink regular water with a splash of apple cider vinegar.  Ax sets the table, which involves one fork and one napkin for each of us.  

Sometimes he’s too busy creating a special “centerpiece” involving rocks or his latest lego creation.  I let it go.  Sometimes at dinner he has to get up and wiggle around or urgently show a karate move.  We let it go.

Last night though, it became too much for me. 

“Ax,” I said, “part of why we do family dinner is to teach manners so that when you’re at someone’s house where they care more about that you know what to do.”

Mike said, “Ax knows about manners, don’t you buddy?”

And Ax came back to the table, sat squarely on his chair, put his napkin on his lap, and ate a reasonable-sized bite — with his fork.  

He looked at me, smugly.  I said, “Very nice.  And what might you say?”

Mike said, “Don’t push it.”

I said, “Mmm this food is delicious,” in some kind of “polite” voice.

Ax parroted, “Mmm this food is delicious!”

And I was satisfied that he knew enough to step up when he needed to.  But our house is not that time. 

Our ambitions for Ax — that he feel good about who he is, that he feel confident enough to follow his own inner voice, that he understand the joy of living as a kind and compassionate person, these are our priorities more than which fork to use.  And I’d like him to be able to travel freely in civilized circles where forks are used.

We finished up dinner, Ax doing chair dancing while eating, then got to doing some floating pumpkin experiments in the bathtub.  I’m gonna keep going.

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