Table for 3

I am assuming everyone has kind of been in a situation that you know you should be grateful for and yet you still kind of take it for granted and just gobble it up a bit greedily, until, well it changes. That is right where we are.

I honestly knew how blessed I was that Miles made it home for dinner almost very single night at 6, sometimes even 5:30 and on a rare occasion when things were slower at work even 4:30. I could really depend on hearing his feet crunch the gravel outside of our door and know that all would be well, we had made it through the whole day, everyone alive, maybe a few coins needing to go into the theoretical therapy jar for the kids when they hit their 20's or 30's however for the most part a thoughtful, loving, needs being met kind of a day completed. I can't say I met Miles with the enthusiasm outwardly I felt inwardly each time he came home, sometimes I mentally checked out or talked about how if it had been a minute more it could of gotten ugly(yes I have walked to the end of the driveway and waited with the kids) however him coming home was a beautiful thing. A new energy, someone to talk to, play with, help blow on food at the dinner table and wipe down everything, again.
A God send of laughter would come from bath time and pajama time and new games would be invented, games I never would of invented because my brain had somehow just stopped working that way by 7, or maybe by 4:30. I'm being dead serious when I say how glad I am that I don't have an addictive chemistry in my brain because some days instead of music, a walk, or delving deeper into play with the kids, I may have started drinking. I think I get it a little, that need to check out, to get through, to depend on something, control something. Miles' being home for dinner was my control. I could mentally prepare myself, OK he will be home by 6 so just get to 6, play until 6, be filled with patience until 6, that was the magic number. I liked that dependability a lot, it made me a better mom in some ways, like an athlete who had trained for a certain event, I could make it to dinner time. I remember one night when Miles had to go to a work dinner and Eli got really really stuck in his high chair and I ended up calling a good friend of ours to help me, I didn't even hesitate to call, in my brain two adults made sense at dinner time. I did get Eli out by myself but with Leela screaming about it in the background and Eli crying at the top of his lungs I was not prepared, I had not trained for dinner alone, so inwardly, I panicked a little.
We are now almost 7 months in of Miles rarely being home by 6 or even by 7. I know he misses it, that time right between dinner and bed when the kids could soak him in, Love him completely and he them. Laughing and screaming not extinguished by a tired mom but kindled by dad. Eli barely got any of that time and although both kids if awake when he gets home are genuinely excited, there is a difference in energy. The magic moment between dinner and bedtime has passed when he comes home and he still needs to eat and shower(the difference between an office job and one fixing bikes ;) I know it's not forever and if our former rhythm changed so can this one, however I miss our evening routine. I am not so dependent now or controlling about making it to a certain time which in some ways has made me a nicer wife, just letting things be as they are. However I must say a dinner table with more residents 3 and under than over, is not quite the balance I once enjoyed.
There are lots of nights I am not really sure I ate dinner and Leela is running around wild while Eli works intently on a way out of his high chair, onto the table or into my chair to eat off of my plate.(note the pictures below)

 Post bath, I promise I went to help Leela for 10 seconds and this is how I found Eli. In his defnese I quickly grabbed the camera insted of the plate, not my first mistake of the day.

 As I went to rescue Eli and clean up the broken plate I turned around to find Leela cutting apples on the furniture. Yes I moved her, however I felt the need to document how much dinner and bath time has changed over here.

Miles does get dinner with the kids(without me) on Mondays one of his days off  of work and one of mine on, and we are gifted with some good breakfasts in there a couple of times per week, however I must say a table for 3 feels incomplete, distracted, disconnected, often disorganized for me at dinner time, maybe it's all the nakedness and imminent danger my young table guests get into when I am spent and dad is "almost" home.