I’ve been working like an addict since January 1, lining up freelance jobs in neat parallel rows on the table before me, and then snorting them until my brain goes numb. It wasn’t that I wanted to give up the rest of my life for two months–family, friends, sleep–but that I couldn’t say no. Extra work = extra money, and extra money = less worry. The trade-off, however (and there’s always a trade-off), has been feeling disconnected, like an outsider in my own home, in my own family. I’ve watched from afar while everyone else went to Superbowl parties and the aquarium, while Daddy read bedtime stories alone (well, with the baby), and then ate dinner and watched the Olympics without me. Other families have it far worse and for far longer, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been hard.

And then the bomb dropped.
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A million and one studies have shown that families who eat dinner together–as in sit down, on chairs, at a table, with no t.v. blaring in the background–not only stay together [longer] but are closer, more communicative, more connected. The kids do better in school, the parents are less stressed out…heck, even the dog has learned how to retrieve Mom’s slippers without ventilating the toes. It’s as if eating together means feeding the family from an enchanted pot of magic beans. Got problems? Have dinner and poof! they disappear!
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