We had a friend and her family over today for dinner, S and her husband and 3 kids. I was initially worried and stressed. Between S’s family and mine, we would have 11 people at the table counting all the kids!

At first, the kids were all a little shy and polite. Eventually by the evening they had all warmed up to each other and were playing together, leaving us adults to be able to talk (albeit still with some interruptions).

I seldom ask people over for dinner because it is really hard with kids…you are constantly interrupted by the kids and you often break off mid-sentence to manage your kids. And you pray really hard that none of them break into a temper tantrum! For those who have no kids, they are likely to find these dinners very distracting and stressful. Heck I find that distracting and stressful myself without the added burden of taking care of someone else’s need for meaningful adult conversation.

So it was nice to have S and her hubby around. They understood and were in fact also having the same issues as us real time around our dining table. So there was no judging, only acceptance and understanding and patience. And we were all relaxed: no pressure to put on pretences or to apologise for the kids. And somehow, we still managed the adult conversations in the pauses between the kids.  So even though we had 7 kids in the house between the 4 of us adults, it still made for a relatively enjoyable evening.