Welcome to Dinner With the Moore Family

What's the best thing to do when you have three birthdays and a play in one week?  You invite out of town guests for a visit, of course.

March is always a stressful Month for me--it might as well be Christmastime.  I love to go all out for my kids (even though they beg me not to year after year).  Why should I deprive them of something that I love, Right?  So I selfishly spend hours and hours planning and stressing over each and every detail to make them suffer--um, I mean--happy.

By the end of March I look and act like a crazed lunatic.  My mind starts shorting out, and I basically turn into a zombie.

When Easter is in March, I become a basket case.

This year "The Play" was in March.  The same week as the three birthdays.

Alex was starring in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing as Benedick, and opening night was on his birthday.

I invited my parents and our friends, the Atkissons for the same weekend to see the play and celebrate the birthdays.  I panicked later as I wondered where I would put everyone and how I would get everything done for the  birthdays.

I decided to save myself some sanity and have everyone go out for dinner on the night of the play.

I had recently scoped out the only place in our small town that could house a gathering so large; Me N Stans.  Yes, I know, the grammar is incorrect, but the atmosphere was a homey, country 1963.  I mean, nothing had changed since 1963.  The chairs wobbled and the table had lost it's shine years before, but we were all together and that's all that mattered.

I was sitting next to Emily--a very dangerous spot to be.  When we eat at home, the children use plates with their names on it, and I always do the old switcheroo so that Emily is sitting next to her daddy  (he wears darker colors than I).

The moment the waitress came out to take our orders, Emily tipped her water over.  I immediately jumped up and started sopping up the mess with the little cocktail napkin.  It was insufficient.

Ice cubes scattered and water splattered across the table and onto the floor.   I had a moment of clarity just then, thinking back to when Alex wrecked the car and then the next week I wrecked it, and since people were watching, I decided to make a joke out of it rather than screaming.  I said, "You are only supposed to spill your drink AT HOME, not at a restaurant!"  And with a grand flourish of my hand, I knocked over Emily's red soda!

My mom, dodging ice cubes and flowing red liquid was laughing so hard that she was tearing up.

I laughed too and I was a tiny bit glad that I hadn't gone Loco Mom-o on Emily when she spilled her water.

After all of the mess was cleaned up and our dinner was served, our out-of-town guest could not be outdone, and she knocked over her drink as well.

All I could say was "Welcome to dinner with the Moore Family!"