T is for Terrific

I could list a hundred ways that our third baby boy has brought joy into our household over the last two and a half years. Eight years younger than our middle son, his arrival meant revisiting soft blankets of babyhood on which we would lie around entertaining this adorable little one. Then he turned two. 

Indeed we admire his spunk, but he is capable of wreaking havoc on the household in a way we hadn't seen in our first babies. He is a child that will skate across the kitchen table when I turn to open the dishwasher and proclaim proudly, "Mommy, it's slippery!" He will walk right out the back door, escaping into the wild without a thought of his own survival. Although I started out behind the camera for the holiday picture, he overthrew my leadership, pushed me into the shot, and took about twenty pictures on his own. His brothers let him push them over for a wrestle on the ground; it's no wonder he behaves as if he's as strong as them.

We couldn't have planned it ourselves, but one domino in our schedule fell tonight, and all five of us landed in one car on our way to a dinner out. While we've survived many outings with our wild one, most events were invitations, obligations, and the effort itself actually caused muscle burn, so we've preferred take-out for some time. Not tonight. That's right, the five of us sat around a table with plates, flatware and even glasses. A server took our order, it arrived, and we all ate it at the same time, no need to take turns. We didn't have to rush the check. There was a minimal amount of debris on the floor beneath the high hair, and we didn't feel like we needed to leave an extra large tip to make up for the extra labor we caused. 

Was it a fluke or is our family transitioning yet again, this time toward a time when we can all sit 'round one table to talk and to eat? On the drive home, he wanted us all to look at the sliver of moon out the window because it was smiling. The moon was not the only one smiling tonight. 

Life lesson: Change can be a very good thing.