Cleaning up the dishes

Last night was a great night. We did homework, we swam, we had dinner. For those of you that may not know, we have a dinner ritual (which luckily, we get to follow most nights). We sit, we eat, we talk about our day. No TV or electronics allowed. We typically ask the children 2 to 3 questions. The standard 2 are "What was the best part of your day", and, "What was the worst part of your day". Lately, for comic relief, we have thrown in "What was the funniest part of your day". Believe it or not, we actually get a better picture of our kids lives with these simple questions than we do with any others we throw at them at any other time during the day.

Tonight, we were regaled with tales of "100 lashes with a wet noodle" (Ainsley's teacher's hopefully comic response to non performance in the classroom), and with "I hate Spanish" from Sydney. Of course, the families response to that was to start talking in any other language except English. Mark, well, he does Spanish (or Mexican to those in Texas). Graham is quite adept at Chinese. Ainsley, well, she does a chinish - a nice mix of Spanish and Chinese, both of which she's had since pre-k. Me, well, I can do any language in a wonderful Southern accent. I really don't get it - English and I, we do quite well, not but a small hair of southern influence, regardless of growing up in Alabama. But listen to me "try" to speak another language, and you would swear I grew up in backwater Alabama with a banjo on my knee.

So, dinner wraps up with us all speaking in horrible tongues, and moves to the clean up phase. Mark and I have made the determination over the last month or so that there is no reason for adults in our family to clean up dinner. After all, this is why we had children (I did warn you that Mark is PC, and I'm not, right?). So, amidst kicking, screaming, and plate slinging, dinner clean up commences. I must comment, because last night was a rare event. The children cleaned up with only 1 fight amongst them, we had one cleaning the table, and 2 putting the dishes in the dishwasher. Life is good. One day they may graduate to bus boys and girls, and the bonus is of course that they will be bilingual while doing it.

Here's to the future!