imperfectly perfect

This is dinner at my house...

"Boys! Dinner!" Me with polite first request. The term 'Boys' includes husband.

Hear nothing in response and yell sweetly again, "Boys! I-SAID-IT'S-DINNER!"

This time mummers come from the six-year-old who is busy writing Australia's next best novel or working on some mathematical equation he isn't supposed to come across until eighth grade. I'm joking. He's bright, but he's more likely to be drawing Ben-10 characters over and over again. You know Ben-10 right? Course you do!

Husband appears at the back door with a sodden toddler tossed over his shoulder.

"What happened?" I ask. I shouldn't have.

"He might have found the hose and wet the dog and then buried the..."

"Okay, okay, I changed my mind. I don't want to know."

"Should we bath him before dinner?"

Me looking at dripping sand and diaper hanging down between the toddler's knees...

"Yeah, that could be a good idea."

I sigh because I had high (if not naive) hopes of a hot dinner served straight to the table.

But I see the grin on the toddlers face and the smile on husband's.

Imperfectly perfect.

"Cool, does that mean I get to draw for a bit longer?" six-year-old head appears from the office.

"No, go have a bath with your brother."

"Ohhhh! I don't..."

"I don't want to hear it!" I finish for him, re-guiding the misguided sentence that was about the leave his mouth.

Fifteen minutes later the oven dial is still switched to 'keep warm' and when I peak in dinner is looking dry and more unappetising then it was prior.

But I hear the gleeful squealing as the dog joins the splashing in the bubble bath... and close the oven door. Even though I don't think husband has a lid on the bathroom shin ding...

                                                                                                       Imperfectly perfect.

Twenty minuets later and the bathroom floor needs mopping. Two boys are running down the hallway butt naked and Matt

 (husband I included with yelling for boys earlier) is chasing their giggling right down to their bedrooms and all the way back again. I am wondering if we are ever going to eat tonight.

But I see the chubby little legs running faster than they really should be, followed closely behind by the gangly boyish pair and their daddy chasing them with  arms snapping like a crocodile... and I smile.

Imperfectly perfect.

Then the phone rings. It's my mother. No, it's not a good time right now. Can she ring back later? 

When the toddler finally has his footsie jammies on and the six-year-old has the buttons on the front of his shirt nicely mismatched we attempt dinner. But I don't get the first bite in my mouth before a child dying of thirst needs his drink refilled. The dog takes advantage of me turning my back and eats the food the toddler was offering and the six-year-old delights in showing us how milk can come out of his nose. But we are all laughing. Even me.

Imperfectly perfect.

Eventually, food is eaten. Well, Matt and I eat, we bribe the toddler with the promise of ice-cream and the six-year-old takes the last piece of meat off my plate while I retrieved the toddler's spoon from the floor for the hundredth time. But the dinner table is full of cute toddler mispronunciations in attempts to talk that make us giggle. It is full of school day recounts involving a sand castle that Jimmy knocked down. How dare he?! And a rather teary tale of  losing a ball over the fence, yet again.

Imperfectly perfect.

"Glass of wine?" Matt asks when they run off to play until bedtime.

But he doesn't need to ask. I'm just getting up to find a bigger glass.

Family. 

Imperfectly perfect.

Self included.

Just the way I like us.

What about you?

What's imperfectly perfect in you life?