A new season (Another new season)

Tonight was our last family dinner as we know it... 

We have two touch points during a week, when all eight of us (maybe nine or ten if a friend or girlfriend is around) are expected to eat together. Sunday lunchtimes, we're all together for Roast chicken, and Thursday evenings, (recently changed from Monday evenings to fit in with football scheduling) we are together for whatever the budget allows, or whatever the Lidl coupons were for that week.

The rest of the week, some of us are around to eat together. Sometimes in shifts, sometimes grabbed on the way out, and sometimes saved on a plate for midnight snackiness. It works for us; not expecting too much family time from the teens, but not allowing for none. Family is important to us, and so is eating it seems. We also throw in a game or two and even a bottle of fizzy. 

Tonight was family dinner night. Special family dinner night. We had Gammon cooked in Coke with a peanut butter glaze, chicken wings and chocolate fondu. We played the car rolling game, where you roll a car along the table to win the prize it lands near. It literally brings the worst out in all of us... if the car hits a prize, you're disqualified, if it rolls off the table, you're disqualified. Tonight you could win a Pot Noodle, 9p or a packet of Pickled Onion Space Raiders. So the stakes were high. We also played the strawberry laces game, where you have to chew it as quick as you can. (There was gagging at one point, which wasn't pretty to watch). 

Theo gave us all a handwritten note, personal to each one of us, and we went round the table to say what we enjoyed about living with Theo. Theo, the eldest boy, the newly engaged eldest boy, the newly engaged eldest boy who is moving out of home on Saturday, to live with buddies before he gets married! Gulp. The answers ranged from, "you eat the vegetables off my plate, so I don't have to", to "the chats we have, and you asking about my day". The littlest, who is finding his leaving a bit ouchy to say the least, was very cuddly and said, "it's all the little games we play together". 

I realised the different relationships they all have with each other. There are nuances, inside jokes, pet peaves, memes they laugh at, words that set them off, songs which connect them, Playstation games or TV shows which will be a memory for them. (Two of them shouted 'Tron' last week, when the circular cardboard pizza bases were on the side). Knowing my kids have that with each other, is fun to think about. Some things, I probably don't even know about. Sibling secrets. It's lovely, and I wish I knew them all. Although I probably don't actually. 

Tonight I sat back and watched them during the craziness, and the bickering. During the disqualifications and laughter. During the fight to be heard and the quiet watching. Some of them naturally click better with each other, and some I'm not sure would hang out, if they weren't siblings. I wonder what they will each take from our home, into their own homes. 

To be fair, that eldest boy of ours is seeing what he can literally take with him, asking for his bed, the shelves, the storage unit... The eldest will have his own room at long last, just not in our house. The sibling discussions of who should sleep where have begun. A new season is upon us...another new season, as it always seems to be with a quiver full.

"Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them". Psalm 127v3-5