Dinner Guests

Tonight we had company for dinner.  Company for dinner means that I spend the bulk of my day counting down the minutes to their arrival.  Because inevitably, no matter how early I clean or plan or prepare, really?  I'm not the one in control.  I like to think I am.  I act like I am.  I tell my kids I am.  But they are.  They can make or break me.

Because at any time, while I busy myself getting ready for company, my children can be magically undoing what I've already done or creating more for me to do.  Like today.

Today, 'Lil Miss put a dandilion in a cup on the table and Ally tipped it to the floor, dipping her plush unicorn (already dyed with green chalk - which, chalk, by-the-way, never gets used as chalk at my house.  never.).  Dipping her plush unicorn and then placing her now dripping unicorn randomly around the house.   

And that really was it. 

Really, when I look at the day and how it went, it went unpredictably well.

But it was me.  I'm the one who gets put out because I expect it.  I expect the baby to cry just when I cannot hold her;  I expect the youngest two to need diaper changes when I feel I can't stop to get away; I expect the bathroom to flood, somebody to find the permanent markers and then to color on anything and everything, the DVD's to be strewn about adding to a pile of toys and banana peels; half eaten apples to be abandoned in the bathroom along with the unflushed toilet, and everyone wanting me to help, watch, read, hold, listen, be, be, be.  And just the thought of it causes me to be counting the minutes the night before.

And I yell a little more.  And my daughter asks me why I'm mad at her when I didn't know I was.  And I manage to offend my boys.  Both of them.  On different occasions.  And I snip at my husband. And I'm a jerk, but I don't mean to be.  It happens.  It happens every time.

Today, we had company over for dinner and the floor was swept and mopped, and the living room was vacuumed, and a warm nutritious meal was placed on the table, and my family sat around the table with our company and listened to nice adult conversation.  

And what I really want is friends that come to dinner and they bring with them a heaping helping of grace.  Grace to see past the disasters and land mines and under cooked rice and overcooked pasta and hardened oatmeal on the metal folding chairs.  Friends with the grace to see me for who I am and love me for who I am trying to be, and then, come again.

I needed a little grace today for myself, huh.  And for my kids.  And for my husband and my company.  A little grace could have gone a long way.   Just a little.  Today.