June 24, 2006
It all started around 4:35pm yesterday. That is the time that my 10 year old son arrived home. I should have just locked them in the bathroom and ran away. But no, I just had to be a (insert air quotes here) good mom (insert air quotes here) and let them play and run free. Someone smack me upside the head.
Ryan and Maddy are outside playing on our deck, taking turns laying on my hammock. That lasted all of 5 minutes when they decided they would remove the chains from the base of my hammock and throw them somewhere and then claim they had no idea where they went. Ryan insisted on taking all the cushions off of our new patio set chairs and threw them on the floor of the deck. That meant, all the peeling paint from the deck ended up on the nice, spanking new cushions. I was so not impressed.
I go out and put all the cushions back and try to locate the chains for my hammock. No luck in finding them. Then the two spawns of satan angels, decide to have a screaming match with each other. I go back out to break that up and at that point, pulled them both in the house to take a time out. My son starts acting like a diva and throws himself into his room, telling us that noone loves him. Ya we do, now get over it.
After the crying stops and some, slight, sort of semblance occurs, they decided to trash the playroom. Well, okay, it is the playroom so I try not to have a complete mental breakdown at this point. It’s not quite working. They are being loud and loud and loud. Did I mention they were loud?
My husband and son show up from work and by then I’m sitting on the couch, in a trance with drool dripping from my lips. The kids are running around me, doing some kind of rain dance.
What exited my lips next, shocked even me. I suggested we go to Applebee’s to eat. WTF? I must have hit my head at some point and didn’t know it, that’s the only thing to explain such foolishness. With them my husband asks me…….and to my amazement, I say yes. He reluctantly agrees and we get ready to go. By this time, it’s after 7pm. We get to the restaurant around 7:40 and are told there is a 20 minute wait. No big deal, and since they are paging people, even outside, we’ll go wait out in front.
Right beside Applebee’s is Second Cup coffee shop and they have a little patio area so we decided to sit along the wrought iron fence and wait. The 3 of us, me, hubby and 18 year old all stand and watch in horror as the two freaks younger children we brought with us, rearrange the chairs on the patio. And the patio floor is cement. And the chairs are metal. So you can imagine the scraping noise the chairs make on the cement. Not pretty. Not music to your ears. It actually caused our ears to bleed. Ya. I’m not even kidding.
There was another couple with their 8 & 10 year old waiting outside as we were. They were speaking French. And although my French is limited to ‘vous la vous couch avec moi se soir’, I just know they were saying bad things about us. Oh ya I know. And we kept getting dirty looks. Listen, if anyone is gonna trash my kids and roll their eyes over them, it’s gonna be me dammit, not you. So pfffffffttttttt.
My children continued running around, moving chairs, climbing the ledge outside the windows of the coffee shop, all the while, my husband and other son are questioning my sanity. Quite honestly, I’m questioning my own sanity at this point. I tell my husband to punch me in the neck and face and gut if I ever suggest taking these kids to a restaurant after 5pm again. Or ever for that matter. Maybe when they’re 20 and 24 or never. Something like that.
The 20 minutes has long past so I send Matt in to ask them how much longer. The chick at the front said, oh we called your name a long time ago. Ummm ‘scuse me? You were going out front to call people’s names and decided not to do that when you came to our name? Nice. Super. My kids have had an extra 40 minutes to wind themselves up. Well then, any situations that may arise due to their being able to run amuck for like almost an hour, will be on your head, waitress girl. Be warned. You should have called our name outside like you did for everyone else. It won’t be pretty lemme tell ya.
We get a seat and I’m thinking, whew, okay we can do this. They give out little activity books and crayons, so that will settle them down. No sooner had we sat our asses in those chairs, we notice Ryan and Maddy are not in theirs. Now where the hell did those little monkeys go? We are about to go searching and they come running back with balloons. They had gone back to the front of the establishment to get their apple shaped balloons. Great. Now sit on your butts and don’t move or speak until we get our food and eat it. Mmmmkay?
Surprisingly, they are well behaved for the duration of waiting for our food, during our meal and for a few minutes after. There was a little spot just before we got our food, that we had to tie them up speak to them. Ryan did a few too many loud ‘woot woots’ because he solved his word puzzle and he also helped himself to too many cocktail napkins to draw on, but hey, whatever will keep him occupied. Then Miss asked me to take her to the bathroom. That would be the public bathroom. I’ve got a fear of taking her to the bathroom while dining out or at a mall etc. Why? Ha. Well if you click here and here, you will get an idea of why.
Anyway, I take her and I’m silently praying to the bathroom God, don’t let her talk to me while we are in there or better yet, let us be the only 2 people in there. Of course, neither prayer was answered.
Miss: Mom do you have to pee?
Me: Nope. Just do your thing. Let’s be super quiet okay? Like mice.
Miss: Mice? What do you mean? Mice aren’t super quiet, they make squeaking noises. Silly mommy.
Me: K, mommy is silly. Now let’s be sooooo quiet.
Miss: Mom, why do cats have different kind of diarreah than people?
Me: Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Miss: Mom, why do they? How come cat’s poop is like different, especially when they have the diarreah? Here we go.
Me: I have no idea. I’m pyscho whispering. Let’s sing a song.
Miss: No I don’t want to. I have to poop so I can’t really concentrate on singing. Plus my poop is going to make a splash, so that’s not being quiet.
Me: K. Let’s just be quiet. Can we do that?
Miss: Ya I can but my poop will make noise and I still want to know why my diarreah would be different from a cat’s. I guess ’cause we eat people food so we get people diarreah and they eat cat food and get cat diarreah.
Me: Ya. Can we just be swallowed up now?
We get finished our meal and by then the kids are being very antsy and squirmy. Our waitress is taking forever to bring our bill. I suggest to hubby to take them to the van and I will stay and pay the bill.
Matt and I go out after paying the bill to find that my husband has apparently forgotten that he was supposed to be parenting our younger two and has gone to the van, while Trouble one and Trouble two are standing in the middle of the roadway in the parking lot trying to squash and bust their balloons. Hmmm. Maybe hubby had told them to go play in traffic and they actually listened. I highly doubt it though (that they would actually listen) but hey, miracles can happen.
We get them buckled up and head to the grocery store, which is closing in about 30 minutes. I tell my husband that he must not let them out of the van, that I’m going in with Matt and the 2 demons will be sitting with him. He says fine. I go in and there’s not a cart or a basket to be found. I go over to the fucking old old woman who is standing at the front of the store (she’s there to give people change or answer questions or be stupid) and tell her there’s no carts and no baskets. She tells me that the carts are outside all over the parking lot in the cart corrals. Ya, I know that but it would be nice if there were carts inside for customers to use. Then she tells me there should be some baskets at one of the cash registers. Ya, that’s dandy but as a customer, I want to walk in and grab a basket at the front of the store where they’re supposed to be. She chuckles. Oh now that’s super helpful.
Matt goes back out to get us a cart and we pick up a few things. We get finished as the store is closing and as we got out into the entrance of the store, old bitty is standing there, directing people to only use the left hand door. Since we only had a few bags, and hubby was parked just outside the door, I wanted to put the cart back inside and not go way over to the cart corral outside. There are still no carts inside but there are chain/locks attached to the wall so I can still get my $1 coin from the cart without there having to be another cart to do so.
Bitty says to me, as we are taking our bags out of the cart, “you have to use the left hand door”. I nod my head that that’s fine. Then she starts talking again and by the end I want to, oh I don’t know, choke her maybe?
Bitty: You have to put your cart back.
Me: Yes I plan on it. I wasn’t going to take it home with me. Give a fake laugh, to make her think I actually like her.
Bitty: Well you have to put it outside.
Me: No I don’t. Smile. Keep smiling.
Bitty: Yes you do. There are no other carts in here so you won’t be able to get your change back out of the cart without another cart to attach it to.
Me: Ummm, there are chains on the wall so I can use those to get my money back.
Bitty: No you can’t do that.
Me: Why can’t I? Why can’t I choke her? Cause you’ll go to jail. Remember that.
Bitty: You need another cart to do that.
Me: No I don’t. *More fake laughing, like we’re now friends or some bullshit*. Some cart has to be the first cart in the line of carts, therefore that’s why there are chains attached to the wall, so that the first cart in the line up can be hooked to it, thus releasing the $1. So I’m going to do that because I don’t want to go all the way out of my way to put the cart back outside. Keep smiling. No. Choke her. Choke her. No. Keep smiling. No. Choke her. That would be wrong. I don’t care. Keep smiling. Choke. Smile. You’ll go to jail. She’s not worth it. But it will make me happy. Keep smiling.
Bitty: Oh yes you can certainly do that.
Me: Oh can I? Thanks for suggestiong that. She must be on old people crack.
Bitty: Good thing they have those chains there so people don’t get upset that there is no way to get their money back out of the carts.
Me: Good thing. *Blink Blink Blink*
So today I’m drinking heavily lemonade and enjoying the sunshine while my kids gear up to put me in yet another drooling trance. How’s your Saturday going?
