Dinner For Fourteen

The other night I received a text from a good friend of mine:

S: You wanna get some Chinese dinner for tomorrow night?
Me: You and me or the whole family?
S: Whole fam... or I guess we could leave them all together with a take and bake pizza and me and you could eat a meal in peace!
Me: Ha! (gulp) yeah, we're game
S: Awesome. Ask K if she wants to come too

Now let me explain this: I have three children. S has two children. K has three children. We were contemplating bringing our entire families out for dinner IN PUBLIC!

I was nervous the whole day preceding this experiment of ours. It's one thing to bring your rambunctious kids out to eat. I do have respect for other diners and it's only been a month since J and I have relaxed our no eating in public only drive thru stance due to Soren finally behaving when we attempt to go out. I actually agree with a lot of folks that young kids who can't sit in a booth for 30 minutes really shouldn't be eating out unless it is a REALLY family friendly restaurant. And I respect that the adults who go out to dinner may actually be trying to get a break from their own crazy kids and may not want my two year old staring at them from over the booth, licking his lips as they *try* to enjoy their own feast.

So take my family, multiply by 2.97 and that's what we were going to attempt. It would make any mom cringe in fear of all that could easily go wrong.

We joined my friends at the local Chinese buffet restaurant and mentally apologized to the waitress as we asked for a table for (gulp) fourteen. Six adults and eight kids ranging from age 1-9. I already started calculating the ginormous tip we would offer to placate our waitress.

BUT, miracle of miracles,  every child behaved perfectly. The older kids got their own table beside us adults. The younger two hung out on our laps. there was NO fighting! there was NO squabbling! The kids actually stayed in line nicely to choose their foods at the buffet line and ATE what they chose!!!

We parents tried to have a normal conversation, but you could feel the air crackling with anticipated tension, all of us waiting for the moment we would have to jump up and try to save the other diners from impending doom and tantrums. It's like waiting for the other shoe to drop, only you have eight shoes that could be thrown at any time. And yet.... the shoes stayed on.

Maybe we got lucky. Maybe we don't give our kids enough credit. HAHAHAHA Ok, even I couldn't write that last sentence with a straight face. But whatever the cause, however the stars and planets aligned, six parents somehow pulled off the major coup of bringing eight young children out for dinner together, without a hitch. It was an amazing feeling and all of us parental units breathed a huge sigh of relief when we stepped out and realized that we tempted fate and won.



You do realize we're stupid enough to have discussed the possibility of making this a monthly habit.

Lesson Learned

Having been a parent now for almost ten years, I've picked up on a lot of tricks of the trade. And yet I always find something new to learn, something I really wish I had thought of before I am stuck in a situation where I want to smack my forehead for the lack of foresight.

This week I had one of those moments.

 And so, my dear friends, I wish to offer you some advice. Please take this suggestion to heart, so that you may never find yourself in the situation I faced.

Always carry a container with a lid in your car. Don't let what happened to me happen to you.

Here's what happened:

• At 3pm the other day I woke Soren up for his nap like I always do.  We wandered down stairs and as I always do, I asked him to go potty. He said no.
• At 3:10, I asked him to try before we went out for carpool. He refused. Idiot that I was, I didn't force the issue.
• At 3:15 we were all strapped into our seats and pulled out of the driveway to pick up Xavier.
• At 3:25 we entered the school yard and pulled into the carpool lane.
• At 3:26 eight more cars pulled up behind us, essentially locking us into place.
• At 3:28 I hear a tiny voice in the back seat call out "Mom? Pee." I look around the car for something in case of emergency, but I had recently cleaned out the van. I turned around to Soren and told him he would have to wait.
• At 3:30 I heard a voice, a little more insistent: "Mom? PEE!"

"Dude" I say, "I asked you to go potty before we left! There are no potties here and I have nothing for you to pee in. You're gonna have to hold it."
"No, Mom, pee. Pee pee pee pee pee!!!" He starts to whine and writhe and I realize he is desperate.

 So am I.

 And despite the fact I had already searched the car, I popped out of my seat and started searching more frantically. There has got to be something, anything I can use! How many times have I bitched about having so much trash and cups in the car, and here I was, the ONE time my car is spotless and I need that trash more than ever. I have nothing to use, no cups, no bottles, no....wait a minute. I slowly turn my head towards the front of the car, aware that in my peripheral vision Soren is starting to do the potty dance more vigorously as he chants the word pee louder and louder. I tune him out for a moment, formulating a plan. Because I have one thing that might work. It's a desperate plan, but this is a desperate moment. There is no place for him to pee outside. It's all fields and 50 cars lined up with other moms and dads and little kids and I can't let him pee on the school road but maybe I could use......

That's my portable trash container I keep on my shift. I have no clue if it's, umm, "water" proof, but I do have a bunch of napkins in my glove compartment. I wonder if I can stuff those in to absorb as much liquid as possible.

I whisk it off the shift handle and rip open my glove compartment, grabbing fistfuls of napkins while Soren starts to wail. I shove the napkins in, race to unbuckle my boy and start praying to anyone who cares to listen that the lady who takes down our carpool numbers does not show up for another 5 minutes. Because I just don't want to explain this scene.

Pulling down Sorens pants, I open the lid and shove it under him just in time as he explodes. He pees for a good 60 seconds. After his torrent trickles down, the two of us heave a giant sigh of relief. I clean him up, check for leakage, and pull out the baby wipes to grab any misfires. We survived. I buckle him back in, and tell him that next time he WILL go potty at home or he will be grounded until he's 32. He nods.

I sit back down in my seat when I realize that it's a little fragrant in the car now. I open the windows and pull our my portable febreeze (love that stuff) and start spraying the shit out of my portable container. And then we spent the next ten minutes in carpool, trying to ignore the mixed scents of urine and lavender, hoping my trash container would not leak.

So folks, take this story to heart, and learn from my mistakes. The next time you want to moan about your trashed vehicle because of your kids, instead, think of me, and thank your lucky stars you have a trashed vehicle. Because one day you may be thankful. And always, always, bring a container with you that has a lid. You just might find yourself needing it one day.

Wheee! Whee whee WHEEEE!

Even though we don't have cable, I'm still up on a lot of the amusing things tv does via the internet or through friends. Awhile ago, one of my friends had this ringtone that made me laugh so hard I almost choked on my coffee. When I asked her what the hell that sound was, she showed me this popular geico commercial with the little piggy who wheed all the way home:




The other day I was at a park with the kids. Soren is now old enough to climb up to slides and go down by himself. This day he decided to try the big kid slide, which was one of those tubes, where each child's scream is amplified.

I burst out laughing when the next thing I hear is  "WHEEEEEE! Whee whee WHEEE!" as Soren comes sliding down. Again and again, he raced up the steps and squealed all the way down. I've determined that next time we hit the park, I'm going to try and record him and use that as my new ring tone.