Eating out

This week Heidi starting tutoring in Phoenix in the evenings after school for some muchly needed extra money. But trying to coordinate schedules has been trying. We're all feeling a little stressed and tired. So tonight we decided to use one of my Christmas restaurant.com coupons and eat at a sports bar and grill here in town. They have really good food.

The kids couldn't sit still for 5 minutes They were so jittery. Daniel immediately started playing with the nice basket full of condiments on the table. I had to move it before he started getting the lids off all of them. Then he found the silverware wrapped in napkins and unfortunately the knives were sharp so he couldn't play with them either. When Heidi's salad arrived he offered her A1 sauce and ketchup. How considerate.

He did have four crayons and a piece of paper to color on but because he wouldn't sit still and he was moving all over the table he knocked all the crayons one by one off the table. In spite of my best efforts he still got down on the (very dirty) floor several times looking for the crayons.

By the time our food arrived less than 10 minutes after we arrived Rylie and Daniel were done being there. Daniel started making a big fuss that he wanted to leave. I got a bite of something in between all the "don't touch that," "put that down," "sit down," "get off the floor," "turn around and stop staring" (at the people in the bench next to us).

I think Heidi and I only ate half of our plates before we finally conceded and for the sake of everyone else in the restaurant we decided to leave. It was way more work than it was worth.

Then another unexpected surprise: As soon as we get to the car Daniel erupts in a massive tantrum saying he's hungry and wants his food. I have no idea where this came from or why but it was sudden and raging like a flash flood after a monsoon. I haven't heard him scream and kick with this much ferocity in a very long time. I don't understand why he chose not to eat if he was hungry and had a plate of food in front of him at the restaurant.

A 4 door sedan is just not very spacious. Every scream he let out would rattle the car and our brains. His screaming of course upset Rylie sitting next to him so we got to listen to two screaming kids all the way home. Skip the drive through Dairy Queen, I couldn't take anymore of this.

What a great evening. We go out for a little fun and release from the stressful week and end up more stressed out from trying to manage two fidgety kids at the table then tantruming all the way home. He continued to tantrum at home in his room for another 30 minutes. I still don't know why the sudden blow up.

Just when you think you're ready for another baby, something like this happens and you have to say, ummm, I think I need to sleep on it a while longer.