Ah, good luck!

That was the lovely sendoff that Steve and I received recently leaving a breakfast place.  It was quite a horrible restaurant experience, actually…probably our worst yet.  And, it was embarrassing, frustrating, exhausting, annoying, did I mention exhausting??  It all started with a feisty little one-year-old who flat out refused to sit at the booth.  I thought that walking around with her would keep her occupied until the food came.  Instead it just led to a cranky little two-year-old who insisted on walking around the restaurant with us.  So, off we went, parading in circles around the restaurant.  Mommy, 2-year old, 1-year old, repeat.  The host actually both greeted us and told us to have a great day 2-3 times before he realized that we were the same 3 walking in circles.  Upon realizing this he asked me if something is wrong (what I wanted to say:  Um, yeah…my kids are totally driving me crazy, care to watch them while I eat peacefully with my husband, what I actually said:  No, just taking a stroll…[insert forced smile]). After a few laps, we attempted to sit down and wait for the food (which I was sure would come soon).  Mia was very happy coloring, but Soph on the other hand, spent the next ten minutes devising ways to crawl over me and escape.  Each failed attempt resulting in some frustrated tears.  When the food finally came, both kids wanted to sit on my lap and eat it.  This would have been fine had they been willing to share my lap.  They weren’t.  Being sisters, they attempted to push and pinch the other off of my lap (who the hell taught them how to pinch, by the way, remind me to find that kid and teach his or her kids a thing or two someday).  This was accompanied by the squeals and fussing you would expect.  At one point the waitress actually came over and brought us the check.  She said, “I’m not in a rush, but I thought that you might be.”  What the….  After that we got the heck out of there.  But, this wasn’t incident free either.  I picked up Soph and started to walk to the car (Mia ALWAYS walks by herself).  Mia had an all-out meltdown because she wanted me to carry her.  UGH.  I would have done anything for a baseball cap and a dark pair of glasses…and maybe a nanny.

Having a 1 and 2-year old I guess you have to expect that sometimes a trip to a restaurant will go wrong.  But, my kids are usually well-behaved when we go out, to eat or otherwise.  It’s one of the things that I  think about when I get frustrated and the one thing that Steve and I are worried would change if we had another.  Being able to take them to restaurants (or stores, museums, the library, really anywhere public…) allows us to keep some piece of our old life even though our new life has changed dramatically.  We don’t feel trapped in our house, it allows us to eat out (something we both love to do), it gives us the opportunity to do all sorts of cool stuff with the girls and create awesome memories…it just makes a hectic life a little more manageable.  So, I panicked a little after the debacle of breakfast.

As the rest of the day went on, the girls’ attitudes were totally different and I ended up having a great day with them (including an amazing run on the beach).   So, I still have hope that this restaurant thing was a fluke (please, please, please).  The truth is, even though we might love our kids to pieces, as parents we still want to get out of the house and live life.  For Steve and I that means eating out every now and then (even if it is during the early bird hour).  We want to accommodate our children, but sometimes we need them to accommodate us.  So, Steve and I plan to keep attempting to go to restaurants but we are lowering our expectations as to what might happen once we get there.  We’ll have some hits, we’ll have some misses, we’ll probably be escorted out of a restaurant or two, but we need to keep going to feel like we are still living our own, old lives.  So, if you see the Kearney family out at a restaurant and dad looks like he is about to lose his mind, mom is frantically trying to keep two kids balanced on her lap, and the two kids are pinching each other repetitively…just send us a cocktail, NOT a dirty look.

Until next time...