It's done? I'm finished?

He's ready?

He's all raised?

Clint's impending 'move out' has me power parenting. There's so much he (and his brothers) need to know ...

- like, meal time, for instance. I know he's moving in with a guy, and the etiquette rules will likely not apply. But someday he'll get married. And there are things he needs to know. Like - If someone calls you to the kitchen saying, "supper's ready"; don't saunter in 20 minutes later because you were "in the middle of an MSN conversation". Don't ignore her. Don't yell, "start without me. I'll eat later." Don't yell, "what is it?"

Come right away.
And when you do get there, don't sit at the table and say, "Well?" If you see that she needs a hand putting things on the table, offer to help. And if you don't offer to help, but she asks you to, don't say, "I emptied out the dishwasher yesterday. Get someone else to put the milk on the table."

And once you're all sitting at the table, wait for the cook to say, "go ahead", before taking food off the serving plates. Don't have your meal half-eaten before she even sits down. If you notice something missing from the table don't look at her and say, "salt" - get off yer ass and get it yourself. Oh, she'll probably ask you every single night to turn off the TV while you're eating because she can only take so many hours of Homer 'n Bart - why not turn it off before she has to ask? Unless the Canucks are in the semi-finals, she's not going to say, "Hey, let's watch TV while we eat."

And if she tries to start a conversation or six, work with her. Be polite. Engaging. Conversive. Friendly. Human. And if you've finished eating 30 seconds after she finally sits down, don't remove your plate from the table and escape back to your computer, leaving her sitting there alone, talking to the tulips. Would it kill ya to visit for 10 minutes? It's for your own good.

Ok. Maybe this isn't about some fictional future "she" in my boys' life. "She" is me. And I'm bagging on them about table maners because I want them to delay having sex. Simple as that. According to Time Magazine and CNN; "Studies show that the more often families eat together, the less likely kids are to smoke, drink, do drugs, get depressed, develop eating disorders and consider suicide, and the more likely they are to do well in school, delay having sex, eat their vegetables, learn big words and know which fork to use. A meal is about civilizing children. It's about teaching them to be a member of their culture."

They will become civilized if its the last thing I do this month.