the child's table

Overheard at the physical therapy place:

I think we should put in the extra piece to the table and then put the two tables together.

She inquired about the number of adults and the number of children. 6 of each. The young girl tried to talk her mother out of having a child's table.

A young party planner in the making, I remarked. No doubt.

But it was also about being a tween and being tired of being a kid ... a little sense of powerlessness and yet the cunning to try to talk her mother into letting her be a grown up.

I remember the child's table in the kitchen. I hated that as well. When we still had a lot of people over for thanksgiving, my dad would bring in a big table from outside and when we put it together with the dining room table, it took up the entire living room and dining room. And we still had to put the children in the kitchen.

I look at my niece and nephew now and wonder if they wouldn't rather be at a child's table. Last year, we sat around the table telling stories about our history. My niece was really annoyed. No more stories she wailed. My nephew was entranced... another one.

It's the way I learned my family's history... listening to the stories around the dinner table, especially when we had visitors.

I thought today about all the children who won't know their grandparents and how would they learn about them? Do other families like to tell stories as much as mine? I was born about fifteen years after my mother's father died, yet I feel as though I grew up at his knee. My mom is really good at telling our history... and since she and my dad grew up together, she knows his family stories too.

Maybe it is time to start writing down the stories so even if we don't talk about the stories, they can still be passed down.