Meanwhile, the younger girls insist upon Liz’s attention in the bedroom. They are showing her things. Lots of things. Things they want to be sure Liz knows belongs to them separately. They share the bedroom, but nothing else, it seems.

“This is my crayon,” Kate says.

“This is my book,” Pressly says.

It’s a race to show us all of their belongings. Maddie sits on the bed and watches with respectful boredom as Pressly and Kate begin showing us their respective collections of panties.

Sherie and I used to work together, but it’s been around five years since I last saw her. We talk about where we’ve been and where our coworkers have been in the time since we worked together. We both lived in Louisiana at the same time, but we never got together. It’s weird how that happens. And by weird, I mean normal. People don’t get together unless they have a pretty good reason, even if they say they want to get together. I’m thankful this blog has brought us together again. I enjoy seeing Sherie and how her family has grown.

I never really spent much time with Sherie’s husband who worked with us too, but I did see him from time to time. My coworkers and I thought he might be a hitman. He had the stoic, mysterious look belonging to someone who could probably kill someone without much thought or effort. When he walks through the door after work tonight, though, he has three girls running excitedly toward him. They take turns jumping into his arms. When he picks up Pressly, her elbow accidentally lands on his nose. He takes it in stride, only pausing to stretch out his face to make sure it’s not bleeding. All in a day’s work of having three little girls who think he is the greatest man walking the planet.

When the excitement of Ben coming home wears off, the girls drag Liz back to their bedroom, and Sherie begins making the girls’ plates. The youngest girls eat on cafeteria-style plates, the ones with the dividers. She puts the macaroni and cheese in the biggest part, and she adds salad to another. For Kate’s salad, she walks to the refrigerator and gets more cherry tomatoes. She empties the container onto her plate.

“Kate loves tomatoes,” Sherie says.

“Yeah, if you want the tomatoes on your plate, you better eat them first because she’ll come eat yours, too,” Ben says.

On my way to tell the girls dinner is ready, I come around the corner to find Bella sitting on the edge of the table. When the girls come running by, it seems no coincidence the cat has learn to stay elevated for safety's sake. She watches calmly as the chaos runs by her toward the kitchen.

The girls eat their dinner at a small table in the breakfast nook adjacent to the kitchen. Liz and I sit at the bar next to Spike’s fish bowl, which is covered with a piece of sheer cloth held on by a rubber band because Bella likes to drink Spike’s water. Sherie chooses to eat standing up in the kitchen while Ben takes a seat in the den, but stays involved in our conversation as it jumps from work talk to parenting talk to talking about the importance of community, no matter where you choose to live.

When the girls are finished eating, they disappear into the bedroom, even though they know there’s banana pudding for dessert.

“We don’t let them get dessert until everyone has finished dinner and the kitchen is clean,” Sherie says. It’s impressive the girls don’t beg—they don’t even mention it. Sherie washes dishes and puts the leftovers into the fridge.

“Who wants banana pudding?” she calls out toward the hallway.

The girls come running, and she dishes each of them out a bowl.

When she hands me my bowl, I think there's too much banana pudding in it for me alone, but it's not long until I'm scraping the last lines of pudding from the bottom of the bowl.

When everyone's pudding is gone, Sherie starts dropping hints to the girls about bath time. Liz and I gather our things. Pressly follows Liz to the front door and we say our goodbyes. Sherie and I agree to make plans to not wait so many years before seeing each other again, and who knows if we'll hold each other to it, but I like to think we will.

"That was a blast," Liz says when the door closes behind us.

No matter where you are, if you want to invite me to dinner, I’d love to come. In return, I’ll do my best to be a good conversationalist and document a small piece of your everyday life. I’m a fun dinner guest, people. Kids love me. I’ll give your pets a lot of attention. If you want to invite your weird uncle over for dinner, too, so he’ll stop bugging you, now’s the time! I’ll talk to him so you don’t have to.