Let’s kill two birds with one stone and include Valentine’s Day morning pictures in with a little story about our family, shall we?

A lady who attends our church and has four very well-behaved children, offers etiquette classes for all the other hoodlums.  ha!  Seriously, she does offer classes…two hour tea parties for ages 7 and under and then four hour classes for 8 and up that includes a four course meal and how to behave well in social settings.  She even touches on how to have good conversation.  I am intrigued and will be sending Ruby right after she turns 8.  However, I need a few months to teach her a few things before she could handle such a class.

The other evening we were all at the dinner table, and I was trying to nicely point out some areas we could work on as a family.

Here are some basics:

1) Sit on your bottom during dinner and stay in your seat until excused.  Our boisterous 4 year old boy has a very hard time staying on his bottom.  And any one of the three is liable to jump up and do some sort of dance that their Daddy just HAS TO SEE RIGHT AT THAT MOMENT.

2) Eat with your mouth closed…no smacking.

3) Use your napkin to wipe your mouth instead of your clothes.

4) Do not make random noises all through dinner.

5) Dinner time is not a race.  Take your time, breathe, put your fork down between bites and enjoy being together.

As I am talking to Ruby and addressing her annoyance with the etiquette conversation, I look over and realize Molly has been sitting at the table enjoying her dinner in her jeans.  Only her jeans.

I guess I need a sign in my kitchen that says:

SHIRTS and SHOES REQUIRED

but then I am sure they would think that means that coming without pants is perfectly acceptable.

I then decided to just stop talking about it.  I was clearing the table and then I hear a loud belch from Mack.  Dear goodness!

I have a couple of months to tame the wild beasts before sending Ruby to an etiquette class.  Wish me luck!!

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On another note, Ruby wrote me a little note on her math paper the other day.

“Dear Mom, Mack is NOT a baby.  He is almost 5 years old.  Love, Ruby”

I read it and laughed to myself and then at lunch she asked me if I had found it.  I told her I did and wondered what she meant by it.  She then proceeded to tell me that I baby Mack and that it isn’t fair that he doesn’t have to do as much school as she and Molly have to do.  I listened to the freckled-face cutie-pie and then told her that if she had issues with birth placement in our family, then she needed to talk to God about it.  He is the one who just knew she’d be the best at introducing her mom and dad to parenthood and that she was, indeed, the most well-equipped to be the leader of these three kids…you know, take care of them and boss them around keep things in order when Mom isn’t around.  I then told Molly that she was picked to be right in the middle JUST LIKE her dear Mom, to be second born like her dad, too!  And to be able to handle NOT being the oldest and NOT being the youngest.  And to Mack I told him he was picked because he would do the best at being rotten.  No, really, I just told him he was who God wanted to end our family with…a cute little funny boy that  we can all squeeze and hug.

They all added their own good things about their position in the family and it ended in a fun conversation.  I just love my three little kiddos.  They are sometimes a lot of fun to be around!  Imagine that.