I hate TV trays

When I was a kid, we ate about 75% of our meals in the car, somewhere between softball practice and home. I would guess that 24% of our meals were eaten at TV trays. The other 1% - Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter - were eaten at "the big table." Growing up, I never thought much about it. It's just the way it was. When you were involved in everything under the sun - from drill team to softball to band to Latin club - there wasn't much to be done about where you ate your dinner. I never thought to myself, "Man. I sure wish we ate more meals at the table."

When I met Doug, I'd heard about these legendary "Carey Family Dinner Discussions" and I was intrigued. What would we talk about? Was there an agenda? Or did you just sort of wing it? We didn't discuss much over dinner in my home. We watched Family Matters, we listened to 104KRBE, and we rushed from place to place. I'm sure we talked about the latest report card grades and wondered out loud about the Astros game on the TV, but sadly, I cannot recall one single TV tray dinner conversation we shared as a family. Shockingly (note sarcasm), I can recall, in detail, many of our dinner table conversations with the Careys. Now that "the Careys" includes my little family, I've become a dinner table Nazi.

Because we never ate dinner at the dinner table, I never understood needing to be dismissed from dinner. It baffled me that anyone would have to ask permission to take his or her plate to the sink and flop down on the couch to watch TV. Thinking back on it, that's because when I finished dinner, I pushed my TV tray around the side of my recliner and continued watching TV until the next commercial break. It was understood - commercial equals dinner's over. Now that I'm a wife and a mother, I can't even fathom allowing my child(ren) to just get up after he believes he's finished his dinner to move on to something else. The total lack of respect for not only the meal I prepared but also for our quality family time would send me through the roof.

When Doug, Daniel, and I moved in with my parents, we miraculously moved 99% of our meals from TV trays to the dinner table. It was so ingrained in my psyche after just 4 short years of being a Carey that I forced my parents to become a part of my dinner table world. I couldn't stomach the idea of spending the entire day alone with Daniel only to sit yards away from my nearest family member, half enjoying the meal I'd worked so hard to prepare and splitting my attention between family discussions and what happened to be on prime time.

In the end, I guess it's not so much that I hate TV trays. I suppose it's more that I can't stand the idea of ever going back to a world where my family is separated during one of the very rare set-aside times that you can actually spend time as a family. To me (in my old age), dinner is a time to spend together. It's a chance to talk about your day without having to worry about who's doing what or how many minutes are left on the meatloaf. It's a designated window where we can focus on each other, not on Baloo the bear or Steve Urkel. Perhaps I don't hate TV trays - I've just come to despise what they represent.