Our Dining Room Table

From very early in our relationship, Eric and I had brunch every Sunday with my family after Mass.  We also shared many other meals around that table as we all got to know each other.  Thus, it was very fitting for my parents to give us money to purchase a dining room table of our own for a wedding gift. 

I remember very clearly going to Nebraska Furniture Mart a few weeks after our wedding and looking at various tables.  The vast majority of them were too ornate for our tastes.  I wanted one that was pretty simple and we eventually found it.  Compared to the others around it, it looked very plain and we talked about how one day it would work as a kitchen table if we 'bought up'.  That day we also opted to buy two additional chairs looking toward a future where our family would fill them.

For the first several months of our marriage, Eric dutifully set the table with our wedding china on Sundays and we ate our weekday meals at that table as well.  Feeling a tad ridiculous to have such a big table for just the two of us.  The other 2/3rds generally had a thin coating of dust from lack of use.  Then we had Dominic and our table started to feel a little more complete.

Being a cheapskate and also not having a whole lot of extra space, we opted to not buy a highchair, but just buy a booster seat that attached to a dining room chair.  The added bonus of this, is that at very early ages our children could really join us at the table.  Not just be in the room, but be pulled up to the table.  Dom may have been moved out of the chair a little prematurely when Will grew big enough to join us at the table for meals, but as is Dom's way, he didn't mind and loved having a sibling to joke with at the table.  Our table started to get a little more crowded and our mealtimes a little more loud, but there was still plenty of room for guests and other family members.

When Molly joined us at the table, it was a big event.  We had started to end our meals by having the boys tell us three things they had done that day, what they were thankful for, and who they loved.  Then they would each take turns interpreting Molly's gibberish (said very solemnly, I should add).  Our table was feeling more complete and our mealtimes were full of laughter and songs (and the occasional yell).  And, yet, there was still one more seat to fill.

Well, that will change sometime in the next year.  A few months ago, Eric and I learned we are expecting our fourth child.  We are very happy, but not nearly as excited as Dom and Will (and trust me, Molly will be over the moon when the little sibling arrives).  At Will's birthday, we mentioned how he was 2 and a half when we had Molly and now she is 2 and a half.  He immediately wanted to know where the next baby was.  At the time we didn't know for sure that there was a baby on the way, though we had been praying for this miracle. 

We are looking forward with great excitement to meeting the 6th member of the family.  Coincidentally, shortly after we learned we were pregnant, Molly decided in her way that she preferred to sit at the head of the table, opening up a seventh spot at our table.  Perhaps it is for another child down the road or just an open spot for a friend to join in our meals.  Either way, for the time being about 1/3 of the table still doesn't get quite as thorough of a cleaning as the rest of the table.  It's nice that even with all of the changes in our life, some things still stay the same.

Please keep our little one in your prayers.  My pregnancies tend to end with a great deal of excitement followed by uneventful births.  You know, except for that whole miracle of life thing :).  Be on the look out for the newest Buschelman in early April!