Cute?!

At Matt's work, they have customer response cards and every good one they get back goes into a pot.  Once a month, they pick one and the employee that got the good report from a customer, gets a $25 gift card to some restaurant.  Matt wins quite often because people like him and he works hard.  This time, he got a $25 card to Friendly's. 

Matt called home before leaving work to see if I needed anything.  I asked if he wanted to go to Friendly's with the kids for our anniversary.... but, I added "Hurry up and get home fast cause I'm trying to get them ready and they are falling apart."  He responded with a very wise question... "Why are we bringing them out if they are falling apart?"  I insisted that they were just hungry and as soon as we got there, they would be fine.... plus, it was our anniversary and I would love to not have to cook.

Have you ever regretted not listening to your husbands' advise?

Um, yeah. 

So, we get there.  Before we're even seated, Sam is yelling every. single. word. he. said.  I mean YELLING.  I officially sounded like the crazy husher lady, constantly shushing him as he continued to ignore me. 

We had talked it over before we left the house and decided we were going to make the necessary adjustments to not spend our own money since we didn't have any to spend. We decided we'd get water with lemon and the kids would share meals and we would get a thing of ice cream to bring home instead of buying it there.  Sometimes I hate that we have to devise a plan on how to order to make going out possible, but I'm ok with that, we make due and never go without.  As I hopped in the car, I thought to myself "It wouldn't kill us to spend $20 on our anniversary to just let the kids get what they wanted"  But I really knew it wasn't a good idea.

We talked with the kids before we got there and told them about the gift card.... "We only have $25 and so we're going to share meals....if anyone complains about what they are getting, they will get nothing at all, got it?"  Everyone nodded in agreement, but as soon as we looked at the menu, they all started going off about what they wanted, completely forgetting we had said WE would order their meals based on what would work best for sharing.  It was chaos.  My head was spinning before we even got through figuring out what THEY were getting that was within our budget and I hadn't even looked at my menu.  Turned out kids meals are more expensive than I remembered, but they come with ice cream so we just made the best choices we could - 2 meals for the 4 of them and Sam got to have a single scoop afterwards since the meals each came with an ice cream for Des & Zay.  But we knew we were still spending more than we should be.

Then it started.... Asa's ear deafening scream.... he reached for everything, threw silverware all over the place, my menu on the floor, insisted on sucking on lemons and then cried about how they tasted, tried to climb out of the highchair.... pretty much disrupted the entire place - actually he DID disrupt the entire place. Everyone was looking at us and one worker stopped at our table to 'talk' to him....her distraction worked... for a minute.

Sam was on the floor under the table, Isaiah was freaking out because Sam shouldn't be on the floor.  Then Asa started pulling on my shirt to try to get out of his chair, I couldn't break free and I still hadn't looked at the menu.  The only one behaving was Des and she kept rolling her eyes and asking why they were acting like this.

The waitress had come back a couple times already... "No, not ready yet"

Matt finally picked up Asa and stood up with him to keep him quiet while I picked what I wanted.  He went to sit down and knocked over his FULL ice water.... covering me, the table, and all our napkins that were in the pile of silverware I had stacked up away from Asa.  I asked for a towel... she brought 3 paper towels.  It took forever to get the water cleaned up.... we looked at each other and just started laughing....  "You did say we shouldn't be going out with them" I said. He agreed that he was totally right.  But what were we going to do?  We were in for the long haul.  And it was feeling LONG......

I looked over and Sam was jumping on the seat across the isle from us, looking at himself in the mirror, making dog noises.... "Sam! Get over here!" I scolded... and I knew.... we were 'that' family.... 

Believe me when I say - we do NOT let our kids behave however they want.  These kids are usually fairly well behaved, although still crazy kids... but they don't get away with much.  Why on earth they would dare act like this is just complete proof that they are sinners.  How I didn't flip out on them is complete proof that there is a God.  It was crazy.

We got our food and Isaiah whined about not wanting all of his mini-burger (because he just wanted ice cream)  They got Matt's order wrong so we shared mine while they got his fixed.  Asa continued to scream like a nutcase, refusing to eat the cooled off fries and then shoving the hot ones in his mouth - followed, of course, by more screaming because the fries were burning his tongue.  Every time I tried to offer him something to eat, he pulled away and screamed like I was hurting him.

I took a deep breath and wished we would have just stayed home. 

Then it happened.... we got 2 minutes of quiet where everyone was eating and content and I felt better.  Wow, it only takes 2 minutes of quiet to rejuvenate me?  Yes, it does... I know how rare that is!

Everyone else finished and I was still working on mine.  Every two seconds I had to put my food down and do something for someone else.... just call me 'Mama'!.... and I finally said "I just want to eat my food, can you take him?"  Matt held Asa, our ice cream came and as everyone's food settled, they started to calm down.  I dipped into my ice cream, and the waitress came over and said:

"I just wanted to let you know that someone who was here thought you guys were really cute and left $20 for your bill."

We looked at each other and smiled and Matt told her "Praise God, He is good" and she nodded.  As soon as she walked away I started crying.  My exact thought "It won't kill us to spend $20 on our anniversary"...... I couldn't stop the tears.  I just cannot believe what God does for us so consistently.

We left with enough money left on our gift card to go back again for ice cream another time... well, single scoops anyway!  And on the way out, everyone was happy....  Matt said "What a joyous time that was!" and Des replied "Yeah, but the first 25 minutes were torture.... to which I replied "I can't believe they said we were CUTE.  I think what they meant was they felt bad for us!!"

And now we're home and Matt is tucking the kids into bed.  What a crazy, unpredictable, hard, beautiful life we have.....  I can't believe they said CUTE! ?  Wow.  I still can't help but laugh.