Growing up, Steve and I ate dinner very differently. His folks would tuck into their meals silently. The food would all be on the table with place mats, and they would all hunch over their plates and just eat.
In my house, my mom would be moving back and forth between the table at the stove putting food on the table. For years, I thought that moms didn't eat. My dad would be conducting family conversation. He would tell stories about growing up, and the kids would all compete for attention. Sometimes he would use dinner time as an opportunity to teach us stuff. For months, he made us memorize the presidents in order holding up flash cards of their faces. We would chant, WashingtonAdamsJeffersonMadisonMonroe and so on.
So now we've got kids of our own. On most days, Steve gets home too late for dinner. It's just Jonah, myself, and the Mute Kid. When Steve's home, he reverts to his old tucking into your food style of dinner. I look at him and say TALK. And he's like, what? I'm eating.
Silent eating drives me insane, so I've had instituted certain rituals to get the gang talking. The first ritual is that everyone has to say one thing that happened that day. This evening, over fish sticks and sweet potatoes, Jonah talked about having lunch with his friends. Ian told me that his day sucked because his Pokemon wrist band was in the wash. Well, he said, "I lost my Pokemon wrist band and I sad." I told them about my classes today.
Then I asked them if they knew the song, "I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumble Bee." They didn't. So I sang all the verses and Ian pretended to sting me in the foot. Jonah was shocked and appalled that his mom was singing a song about mashing up a bumble bee. Turns out the kid doesn't know the classics. What are they teaching kids today? He doesn't know the diarrhea song or even my dad's classic "Beans" poem. "Beans, beans, they're good for your heart. The more you eat, the more you fart. The more you fart, the better you feel, so let's eat beans for every meal."
I have a new mission before me, I see. My kids must learn the classics. What else do they need to know?