A little crazy on the side

We had good friends over for dinner tonight for homemade pizza and dessert.  I spent all afternoon cooking, which for me is pure pleasure, while the kids watched a movie (it was raining), the baby napped, and Mark motored around the house picking up little messes that had turned into one giant blended disaster. Around five o'clock our friends pulled in, two year old daughter in tow, and the fun began.

The pizza dough (that I had to make from scratch) stuck to the (greased!) wax paper I had rolled it out on.  Then another batch of dough ended up, well, too doughy, and no amount of flour would solve the problem.  The homemade dough became what our friend Doug dubbed "rustic focaccia," after I scraped the dough off the paper, smoothed it into a pan, sprinkled on some fresh rosemary, salt, and garlic powder, and very roughly tossed it into the toaster oven (imagine, I was mad at dough).  While that was baking and filling the kitchen with yummy smells, I broke out the store bought crust.  Should have listened to Mark in the first place.

We also decided that grilling, not baking, the grown up pizza, was a must. This took an hour, and the children became hungry, so some of that goof up dough turned into a kid pizza that also baked in the oven.

So, while the dads did battle with sticky dough and pizza toppings in the rain outside, the moms wriggled three little children into their chairs for twenty minutes of feeding frenzy.  This was so the grownups could eat after and have a chance to talk.  It all worked out fine, and we did get to sit and talk, but with one caveat. The background noise of three children taking flying leaps off our sofa and onto the hardwood floors did not make for the most relaxing mood music. As you can imagine, we had a couple of tragedies in the form of bumped heads.

Then it was time to distract them with dessert, which we all ate together.  The kids at the table, the adults standing and having conversation that went something like this: "Did I ever tell you about the time...oh wait...hey, don't do that! What was I saying?"

"You were about to tell them about your crazy limo job while I was in Michigan."

"Oh, right. So I was supposed to drive this lady and all her friends..."

"Audyn, please sit in your own chair and not on your friend. Sorry, you were saying?"

And on it went. By the end of the visit, the children had become so loud, Mandy and Doug were practically running out the door with a screaming toddler, and Mark and I were shouting goodbyes from our seats in the living room while our two girls wrestled each other.

All of this is to say that we still had a great time.  There's nothing like combining families with young kids for a few hours to be reminded that we are all in this together.  Friendships are so important in this stage of life.  It's easy to feel isolated when parenting young children, to begin to feel as if you're the only one struggling with discipline or whining or just plain crazy chaos.  It's so good to swap stories, and laugh, and eat together, even when the Herculean efforts it takes to pull it off leave us tired at the end of it all.  So thanks, dear friends, for sharing pizza with a little crazy on the side.  We loved every minute of it!