“I don’t think quantity time is as special as quality time with your family.” – Reba McEntire

A couple of weeks ago I told you about mummy’s guilt. I got some comments and likes on this quote (both on my blog and on my facebook account), so I can safely say that I’m not the only one suffering from it! 
Actually, today’s quote is about my solution to mummy’s guilt… at the end of my thoughts on Donna Karan’s quote (which you can read here), I told you that if you can build on memories, you can always look back on those memories whenever you have a guilty mummy moment.

Well, we do try to fit in some special moments in our family life, moments in which we make time for eachother. With the kids growing up, going and finding their own ways, I think it is ever so important to spend time together as in all of our busy lives we would end up living next to eachother instead of with eachother… As a mum I think it is my job to prevent this…

One way of spending more time together as a family  is organising regular family diner dates… every couple of weeks on Saturday evening we set our table in the dining room (not in the kitchen)… we use our good crockery (not our everyday plates), we use our good glasses (not the hotchpotch of glasses we got for free with a bag of crisps),…

We take time for an apéritif, we enjoy our diner which is a bit more elaborate than on other days and after diner, we make time to play a board game whilst we’re enjoying our dessert. We talk a lot, we laugh, we share our troubles,… and our cellphone only comes out briefly to share a photo on Instagram.

And although we eat together every evening, we certainly notice a difference between those rushed weekday meals and our family diner dates. During those diner dates everyone is much more relaxed. No homework or ironing to be done,  no getting up early in the morning, no running to the Ipads after the last bite,… and those who want to, can enjoy a glass of wine (or two…),…  I honestly can say that each and everyone of us relishes these evenings and I certainly treasure them!

I could organise these diner dates weekly… but I’m afraid it might quickly become a habit that way and the magic of these special evenings will disappear. So I definitely prefer quality over quantity!

These family diner dates are well and truly quality time with my family… and I wouldn’t want to skip them for anything! They make me feel proud, content and oh so rich…

Love, Kathleen

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