What We're Missing

So, tonight I had a nice dinner (breakfast for dinner) planned. Camden helped when we made the menu this week, and one request was breakfast one night. I thought I would try a new pancake recipe that looked good and healthy all at once. I also had to use an egg replacer, of course. Now that I think about it, I really haven't done much of that lately... I tried a gluten-free, egg-free pancake once, and it turned out to be pretty awful, but we mostly blamed that on the flours used in the mix. Anyway...this turned out to be a flop.

Out to dinner we went. It was already late, and we could have gotten something quick, but I felt bad and wanted to give Camden his breakfast for dinner, so...we went to IHOP about 15 or so minutes away, which meant it took at least a half an hour because we had to deal with diaper changes and packing some food in case there was nothing Aiden could/would eat, etc. Dinner was fine, but while there, I got a bit of a reminder of what we are missing being where we are...

Right next to our table sat a huge family, three tables pushed together to fit them (basically I was facing them...looking down the entire length of the tables). There were three generations - but more than just grandparents, parents, and kids...some aunts/uncles/cousins perhaps, too. I couldn't help but keep looking over at them. I noticed some of the older kids (teenagers) joking around a lot with the grandparents, and it really stuck out how close they must have been to be talking and laughing the way they were.

I'm not typically one to get "home-sick"...but man, it sure made me wish we were with our families back in KY and WV. It made me think, we could have that. We could live near our families and be able to go out to eat with them on a weeknight and laugh and carry on like that. It would be nice to see our families so much that it wasn't considered a special occasion. I guess it did make me a bit home-sick. And there we were, our little family of four, quietly eating our dinner.

And might I just add, on a sweeter note....our little Aiden is such a blessing when eating out! We've had a couple times lately where he wasn't his normal self when out (b/c of teething or being overtired when traveling), and while he wasn't terrible and probably nobody else thought he was bad at all, it was quite stressful for us. But he was back to his angelic self tonight. I never take that for granted and am always amazed at how well-behaved he is when eating out! Thank you, baby boy! At one point, I couldn't help but thinking (and I might just have said it out loud) that he was behaving better than the ten-year-old...