Norman's original painting illustrated a quirky family eating tacos.

You've seen all of the commercials encouraging families to return to the dinner table, come together around the pot roast and bond once again. After a few dinners of spaghetti leftovers, the family relationship blossoms into a beautiful Rockwell painting.

The producers of those sappy commercials never ate with us.

Our conversations are over tacos and macaroni. A typical discussion begins with homework and recess, then moves on to lessons on Hitler, Hussein and the fall of dictators. It ends with a story about how Hubs once ate an entire box of Bugles.

It's like a segment of FoxNews.

The Bugles conversation led to a discussion of gluttony which led to a question from my daughter.

"What's gluttony?"

"It's when you eat way too much of something," I offered, "like a whole box of Bugles."

"Or an entire bag of chocolate covered peanut clusters," said Hubs.

Wow. That one sure came out of nowhere.

This morning over breakfast, my daughter and I discussed her current social studies lesson. They have been learning about Ben Franklin (who is one of my favorite Americans of all time, by the way.)

She said that they learned about the many jobs of Ben Franklin. In addition to candle maker, inventor, writer and more, one job listed in the textbook was "Great American."

When tested, the class was asked to choose three of Franklin's many jobs. My daughter listed three jobs correctly on her test. She chose not to list "Great American."

She respectfully told her teacher that she believed being a great American was not really a job. It's "who you are."

Maybe our family dinners are more like Rockwell than I thought.

Tacos, Bugles and all.