A Valentine's Disaster

So, it's Saturday evening, the day before Valentine's. I got a giftcard for my birthday to Mimi's, which is one of my favorite restaurants. We had taken the boys to the park to play and everyone was hungry, so we figured since we won't be able to go out tomorrow (no one to watch the boys) that we'd just take the boys and go out to dinner. It was early enough that we were beating the dinner rush and knew we could get in and out in a decent amount of time. We got the kids out of the car, walked to the restaurant, and were seated right away. There was hardly anyone there, mostly older couples also hitting the "before dinner rush". Within minutes, we knew it was going to be one of the longest meals of our lives...

Eli began screaming before we could even get him in the high chair. It's always embarrassing when your kids are acting like little hooligans in public, but in a quiet place it's the worst. Eli hates sitting in highchairs, especially now that Silas doesn't have to. He is such a busy little boy that sitting still and being confined does not go over well. I thought, well, maybe he just wants to sit in my lap. Nope. He didn't want to sit in my lap, the booth, the highchair, anything...he just didn't want to be there period. Our waitress was pretty much the nicest lady ever and also recognized immediately that Eli was not happy. She ran over and got him some cheerios and crackers to try to cheer him up. Didn't work. She went and got him some fruit. Didn't work either. I got up and took him to the bathroom to try to calm him down and take care of business. Unsuccessful.

I let Dusty have a try with him. Dusty sat him on his side of the booth and I found a Lightning McQueen and a Mater in my purse for the boys to play with. This worked temporarily. They were pushing the cars back and forth across the table to one another and laughing. Dusty and I looked at each other and knew we were only buying a small amount of time. We had a few minutes of "relaxation" and before we knew it, faster than we could blink or realize what was happening, Lightning McQueen went flying through the air, over the booth and we heard a [crash!!] in the booth next to us. This was followed by, "What the **** was that" from the older couple sitting there. Complete and utter embarrassment. Dusty slid out of the booth with his head down and proceeded to tell the couple how sorry we were. I was sitting there wondering who the heck raised these kids and thought certainly they were not mine!! Every excuse in the book was running through my head. Eli was just having a complete meltdown. At this point we switched again, so Silas moved over to sit with Dusty and I had Eli.

Our lovely waitress soon came rushing over with the kid's food. Thankfully, they really were somewhat hungry. Our food came quickly after and we asked the waitress to go ahead and bring us our check... right away. She laughed and said, "of course". Eli then decided he was done with his food and wanted to pick at my salad with the fork he found next to him. He tried it and of course spit it out. I pulled out my giftcard and debit card, so it was sitting on the table ready for the waitress as soon as she returned. She came back with our bill and asked if I wanted her to just package up the muffin that came with my salad. I agreed, thankfully. We literally scarfed down our food as fast as we could, once I decided I was halfway full, I said, "Are you ready? Let's go!!". I grabbed Eli and we darted out of that place as fast as humanly possible.

Walking out to the car, we looked at our boys, looked at each other and said, "Happy Valentine's Day". Well, it certainly wasn't happy, but we are just glad we made it out the door without literally being kicked out. I am positive no one there enjoyed our loud, chaotic intrusion on their Valentine's meal. To anyone that witness this catastrophe, I offer my deepest apologies. My kids really are sweet and wonderful. It was just a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad night!