A (almost) successful dinner out!

Hello there!  Long time no, um, see?  Whatever.  It's good to be back!  Hope everyone had a wonderful and blessed Christmas & has eased into the new year with few disruptions. 

We were blessed with a gift card to the local Olive Garden restaurant at Christmas.  I was a bit torn, because I wanted to hog it all for a nice date night, but, then again, I thought it was high time we attempted to take the meth-monkeys boys to a restaurant without a play place or order numbers.  And, last night, I couldn't face washing the mountain of dishes in my sink, and on the counter, so I decided that we should eat out for a change.

Of course, I didn't take into account that the OG is freakishly busy every dang night of the week.  At least we were there before 6, and our wait time was an estimated 30 minutes if we were ok with squeezing the 5 of us into a booth for 4.  Of course we were!

We comandeered a small table in the bar and ordered drinks for the kiddos.  The waitress was lovely and even brought out breadsticks and several handfuls of mints to keep the crazies occupied.  Stanky had brought in his wipe-off lap board and a book as well, so there was plenty to distract them with.

For about 9 minutes.

Pigpen had some meltdown when he started demanding fries and was told they do not exist at the OG.  Stanky just about went into heart failure thinking that OG would taint his beloved chicken nuggets with spaghetti sauce, based on the description of said dish.  And Drama sat quietly and Repeatedly.  The table next to us got reaaaaly quiet and they ate really fast after that.  And Drama sat, cozily ensconced in his jacket, with the hood up, lest anyone connect his face with the polluted air in the bar.

We finally got buzzed about 40 minutes in.  There might have been whooping, and a little happy butt-jiggle.  Maybe.  But nobody spilled, nobody made a scene, and everyone was still in a fairly good mood!

There was almost another riot during order-taking (I had to conspire with the waiter about Drama & Piggy sharing their meal, since I knew that not one of the 3 boys would finish an entire meal).  Thankfully, 2 kids meals were enough to fill up all 3 boys with some leftover spaghetti that was pronounced biscussting.

Of course, the kids plowed through the appy and their meals before Grumpy & I ever even sighted our plates, so we pretty much had to inhale our food without tasting it.  Which was ok I guess, given that my stomach was growling louder than the birthday partiers the next table over.

We were done.  Finished.  It happened!  Nobody screamed, spilled or otherwise caused embarrassment!  Oh Joy!  RAPTURE!  OH...Oh SHITE!  Piggy just spilled. 

Aaaaaaaaaaand that was the end of our evening.  Well, played Piggy, well played.

Back-to-school BLISS

Is it just me, or it two whole entire weeks a bit much family togetherness for two young boys?  I can't tell you how ecstatic I was to pack lunches and backpacks the other night, knowing that all 3 boys would be separated and APART ALL DAY.  I may have giggled a little.  I know I did a happy dance in the kitchen.  At night.  In the dark so D wouldn't make fun of me.

And geez know what happened?!  There was 1, ONE, JUST ONE argument last night!  That's it!  It was sheer heaven.  Especially since, for the last two weeks, Drama & Stanky were apparently helpful little angels for Nana, but turned into slavering, rabid, disrespectful monsters every afternoon the moment daddy or I appeared.  Nothing was fair, he always got more of something, he was always hating, he was always calling names, he never shared.  You get it.

Worse, they unloaded on poor Pigpen when they got home!  And turned HIM into a rabid monster.  I swear, I spent more time yelling, putting kids in time-out, taking away privileges and grounding, (and, to be honest here, threatening to smack the crap outta their smart mouths) than I did having Christmas Spirit.  It was kind of disheartening. 

The last of Christmas will (hopefully) be packed away tonight.  After work, dinner & PTC, so then again, maybe not all of it.  I'm hoping that, with the return of our normal habitat, the boys will be less inclined to act like heathen meth-monkeys than properly behaved boys. 

Yeah.  Right.  And I've got a flying pig in the garage waiting for flight clearance.