A Good Reminder

Why we rarely go out to eat!

Today, we had a great morning at Merle Hay Mall, enjoying the free breakfast, movie, train ride, and visit with Santa and the Snow Princesses, (eh, from afar-the lines were way too long).  My parents then took A with them to spend some time with her cousins, leaving us with the twins.  After their nap, we decided to head out and do a few errands, (grocery shopping, Home Depot-we had a "pretty nice Saturday planned"). Things are much different when you have to play zone defense so being able to play one on one was easy peasy!

Things were going so well we decided to get some dinner out.  We soon found out we were pushing our luck:  It's been so long since we've had a bad eating out experience, but maybe that's why we decided it was a good idea-the horrors from previous experiences were not etched in our minds!  With the snow, we were seated right away and ordered our food as soon as our waiter came to take our drink orders.  So far, so good.  The restaurant will remain nameless, but we seemed to wait more than your average length of time during a Saturday night when a restaurant is less than busy.  Surprisingly we kept the two toddlers entertained without any problems.  (Thankfully my entree came with chips and salsa that were brought out early).  L could have cared less, but our little buddy enjoyed himself some salsa-not to mention most of it ended up on the make-shift bib I made for him!

Finally, our meals arrived. We ordered all of their favorites:  mac 'n cheese, corn, pizza and mandarin oranges.  What could go wrong?  First of all, L thought her cold mac 'n cheese was "too hot" and kept screaming this over and over.  No amount of convincing her it was fine could help.  Then, she had to have both spoons, leaving her bro with none. He managed for a bit, but eating corn with a fork is challenging.  When she set one spoon down, I quickly grabbed it for it.  She noticed and immediately her crying screaming intensified.  We pulled out all the tricks to re-direct her, but it wasn't happening. I then told C I would get him a new spoon and gave his back to his sister.  You can imagine what happened after that.  Yep, two toddlers having melt downs, while we sat in our little both in the corner, surrounded by other patrons.

To make matters worse, Justin's burger was under cooked so it had to be sent back to the kitchen.  After a few minutes we realized we were at the point of no return and decided to scram.  Justin grabbed our crying toddlers, one who started crying harder when we told him he needed to put his coat on, and ran as quickly as he could to the vehicle.  I'm sure the watching patrons were saying "Amen" under their breaths.  Our waiter came by and asked if I needed anything when he saw me sitting at my table alone with plates full of food:  "Boxes for everything and a bag to carry it all out, please.  And our check."

It will probably be another 14 months before we go out again. I look at it as a money saving strategy :).  Happy dining!