Sometimes... You just do what you gotta do.

In our tiny little kitchen is a tiny little table and four sticky chairs- one of them with a broken rung. (Rung... funny word.) It wobbles when you sit down it it. It shakes, it teeters, and it feels like it's going to leave you sitting in a heap on the floor. That chair has been fixed. And fixed. And fixed. And it has fallen apart again, and again, and again. So we gave up fixing it.

Well. Everynight I brew up a wonderful home-cooked meal and my family comes walking from their various locations around the house with smiles on their faces and pleasantly take their places at the table. Okay, so that's not exactly how it goes but it wouldn't sound quite as nice if I said I stand at the microwave burning hotdogs and yelling "I saaaiid supper. is. ready!" and then admited that they come shoving their way into the kitchen, fighting over those three good chairs while I'm left portioning out the mac-n-cheese.

Anyways.

As it always turns out, I'm always the last to get my food, and coincidently, the last one standing. (Which means it's "easier" for me to get the forgotten napkins, the extra fork, the milk, etc, etc. You know....Since I'm still standing.) Which means... by the time I get to the table with my cold supper... the three good chairs are long-since occupied and once again I get to climb my into the broken chair (which is wedged between the baby swing and the wall... so getting to that broken chair does require some athletic ability and delicate maneuvering).

Well.

One day, I came to my senses. As I turned from the stove with my plate of cold supper and saw my family gobbling down their meals on the three good chairs, I announced, "Yes! I get the broken chair!!" like it was some kind of reward or something. Well, let me tell you: never, never, my friends, underestimate the power of a little reverse psychology. All it took was to do that a couple of times and suddenly... Sitting on the broken chair is a luxary. Okay, okay. I didn't convince my husband... And Jack hasn't really caught on... But, Lydia? She now proudly announces, "I get the broken chair!" To which I reply, "Ooh! Lucky!"

And then? And then I sit down with my cold, burned supper in a sticky, unbroken chair. Ah, the simple pleasures in the life of a mother.