Friday Night with the Excorist, the Nudist, and Chris Brown

Sometimes we forget that as parents, certain activities are not as easy to accomplish as they once were. An example of this was what I liked to call "The Disaster That We Call, Friday Night"

So seems a little off topic, but you wanna know what my favorite meal is???? You'll never guess......

Its any meal that I don't have to cook myself. I'm not saying that I don't cook. I do, occasionally. I, however, derive absolutely no pleasure from eating something I have had to slave over. Maybe its just a mental thing, but by the time I finish cutting and chopping and baking and mixing, I don't even want to look at it anymore, less alone eat it. My mom used to fix us a big dinner all the time and barely eat any of it, and now I know why.

So when my husband offered to meet me in Paducah after work Friday night and go out to eat, I was pretty excited.  I still haven't figured out his angle, but he also offered to take the kids home with him after we got done so I could go by myself and finish up some shopping. Hmmmmm.... he's probably up to something.

Look at this charmer...wonder what he's up to?

Well we should have known by the fact that it was pouring down rain that the odds were against us, but I was blinded by the thought of hot food that I didn't have to look at raw. So first we meet up at Sears to look at some washer and dryers for a few minutes. Even though we had told Tripp about 15 times to quit running around the store, he continued to run around like he was jacked up on Mountain Dew. While we were trying to talk to the salesman, Tripp had a high speed collision with an unfortunate Maytag dryer. To be more specific, his face took the brunt of the impact. The salesman gasp in horror. Josh quickly assured the salesman that the "dryer was okay." Even more horrified at our parenting skills, the salesman say, "well I was actually worried about your kid."



So, at this point we decided that we needed to find something to eat. Considering we were in Paducah and had more restaurant choices that usual, Josh wanted to go to Texas Roadhouse for a steak.  Since it was pouring down rain, he dropped us off at the door and went to park about a mile away. So I have a baby in a car seat, a untrustworthy 3 year old and a giant diaper bag that I am trying to lug into Texas Roadhouse in the rain. As soon as I walk in, I am greeted by standing room only crowd. At this point Piper is also whaling because it is time for her to eat as well. I ask how long for a table for 4, and get "45 minutes at least." Needless to say, that wasn't going to work for us, I go to call Josh to tell him to pick us back up at the door, only to realize that I had left my phone in the car, that was a mile away.  So we have no choice to just wait until Josh gets up there to tell him we are going to have to go somewhere else. I don't know if Tripp just saw all the shit on the floor at Texas Roadhouse and it reminded him of home or what, but he decided at that moment would be a good time for him to take off his coat, shoes, and SOCKS and throw them down on the floor like we lived there.



So, there I am with crying baby, half naked toddler, and wet hungry husband, and at this point we are way too far into this thing to abort mission. It was 6:30.

Tripp doesn't typically eat at school because he doesn't care for the cuisine. After 3 years, the little shit is still on hunger strike. So he probably hadn't eaten anything since the nutritious breakfast of Hostess mini chocolate donuts I had gave him that morning. We figured out when he was about 15 months old that when he was hungry, instead of just telling us that he was, he will go into these fits of rage. One day he did this in the grocery store and out of sheer desperation I grabbed a Kit Kat bar to distract him and once he ate it, he turned into a different person in about 5 secs.
We both knew that we were dangerously close to Tripp meltdown mode. We had to truck on.


At this point, I just suggested Arbys. Josh however, was determined for steak, so he ignored my suggestion and pulled into Applebees. Things seems to calm down for awhile. We only waiting about 15 mins for a table. I got to feed the hungry screaming rugrat and we got our drinks pretty quickly. The main problem was, Applebees doesn't have chips or rolls or anything at all to snack on while we waited. At this point we were at about hour 12 for Tripp with no food.  So I pulled the waitress aside and begged her to go ahead and bring Tripps meal out, even if ours were not ready yet. Since my husband likes his meat burned beyond recognition, you can always count on a 30 minute wait for his medium well done steak. Well, in mommy speak, apparently our server needed a new set of listening ears, because she proceeded to ignore my request and almost 40 minutes later Tripp's food came out with ours. Josh spent that 40 minutes attempting to not go Chris Brown on me or the kids, but I could tell it was all he could do to choke down a tantrum himself.  At this point, I had given Tripp a bolus of Mountain Dew, hoping to hold off the hypoglycemic fit,and he was wired for sound.

Tripp Bailey is a terrible eater. Terrible I tell you, but he went at that plate of chicken strips and fries like it was a Hostess Donette sampler platter. About 2/3 of the way into my meal, Piper starts screaming. Not whining or crying, but screaming! At that point we just decided to cut our losses and head home. Problem was, I she was so upset, I couldn't get her in her car,seat. So Josh took Tripp out the car, and I was going to stay at our table long enough to calm her down and get her in the seat. While I'm trying to accomplish that, the two guys next to me were giving me death stares the whole time. They looked a whole lot like the cast of Jersey Shore close to T-shirt time just to give you a visual. I rocked, I burped, I walked, I bounced, to no avail. At this point, Thing 1 and Thing 2 were obviously very irritated. I would have gone outside with said Psycho Baby, but it was still pouring rain. Finally a grown man sized burp came out of my daughter and she piped down long enough to get in her seat. On my way out the door, I stopped by The Situations table and told them to "make sure and use condoms because kids were a real buzzkill."

Round 2 of screaming started in the car, so I just let Josh and Tripp go on home while I took her with me. I had several places I wanted to go, but the thought of trying to do that with the exorcist was too daunting. I ended up walking around Kohls for an hour trying to get her to calm down. She ended up puking once and crapping herself twice. I didn't buy anything, because I was too tired to stand in line. (Maybe Josh put her up to that?)


So my Friday night was just pretty much like I thought it would be.  Sometimes we forget that life is just different once you have kids. Eating out is so much more a chore than it is a privilege anymore.Important life lesson...find teenage babysitter STAT!