Sunday, September 18, 2011

Dinner with the Hinckley's

On Thursday Dan called me up from work, and asked if I wanted to go out to dinner that evening. We decided to take the kids with us as a sort of celebration that Coleman had gone 2 days without a potty accident (yay!!) and Will and Maggie had both made it a whole day of preschool without being put into time-out or throwing enormous tantrums (double yay!!).

We never take the kids to actual restaurants with waiters, menus, more than one fork, or any type of ambiance whatsoever.  We have been known to go places where our children can drop pizza on the floor or drink fry sauce while they roll around on the table holding 49 cent ice cream cones. We feel at home there. Probably because every time our children eat anything they end up looking like this:


But in the name of celebration we took our children to a certain Italian restaurant that happens to be a favorite of mine. Rhymes with Bolive Marden. The kids were surprisingly amazing. They ate their food. They sat in their chairs. They made hilarious conversation and when they got the wiggles they amused themselves by climbing around the booth (as opposed to running around the restaurant tripping waiters as I observed one child to do). Dan made it his personal mission to eat enough of the never ending pasta bowl so that he could brag about it to the guys at work. 7 bowls. Extremely respectable. And when our waiter realized that he'd brought me salad and forgotten my zuppa toscana, he gave me a bowl of it to take home. It was a perfect night. He even gave us 15 mints. 15. I know. When you haven't been to a restaurant for 3 years I guess you're easily pleased by things like mints and take home bowls of soup.

We headed home after our enjoyable dinner and not 15 steps out the door, Will puked. We're talking a puddle of pasta that covered the sidewalk. It was horrific. But Dan and I laughed really hard (what else can you do?) and picked up the puker and took off for the car. We stripped Will down, got the kids strapped in the car, and Coleman takes the opportunity to join his brother by spraying down the car's interior with vomit. What the? Maggie started crying about how bad it smelled. I heartily agreed. So we rolled down the windows and took the stench wagon home for a good shampooing and a good soak in the tub for the pukers.

We will most likely never dine at Bolive Marden again. Sad...

7 comments:

Jennifer said...

Oh, how sad!!!! You're right--you can't do anything besides laugh. I'm happy, though, for all the other wonderful things. The beautifully-behaved kids are obviously the best part, but seriously I probably would have kissed the waiter who gave me 15 mints. I love Bolive Marden mints.

And really, if I'd known that "puke" would be the way the story ended, I would have had my money on Dan. SEVEN?!

Cherringtons said...

Very sad:( but i really couldn't help but laugh as i read it, because you really couldnt do anything to prevent that. Glad you had an enjoyable dinner while you ate though. We need to go out to Braza grill sometime real soon:) Ill talk to Brian and we will come up with a date and time.

K said...

Like I say - this SOOOO reminds me of that one time when somebody I know, in the bathtub with another certain person (they were very little), made some floaters in the bathtub - on a very stressful already day for mom - necessitating that the bathtub be emptied and cloroxed and refilled - and then did it again? While a certain baby was just wailing and wailing and wouldn't stop. And the mom decided to sit down on her own bed while the two were in the tub and take the baby's temperature with a thermometer, and --did you know that a rectal thermometer acts a little like an enema under the right circumstances? Or a WHOLE lot like one -

This did not happen at my house, by the way. In case you thought this story had to be about OUR family -

Sharlyn said...

We rarely go out to sit down places either. Our kids are hicks, lol :) glad you got out even though it ended in a pukefest......blah....

Chelsea H. Huffaker said...

At least they kept it in until they had exited the restaurant, right? The stories my mom could tell of children who let it all go there on the table.

Kati said...

LOL!!! I can't help but laugh my guts out about this!! Isn't this just the way it is: With little kids, nothing goes 100% perfect! My condolences to the puking in the car. THAT is horrible. And I also can't help but think of our Jenna dear, and didn't the lovely Anna also puke in your car? Hopefully not.

C C & R said...

Awesome! That is just plain awesome. I've had one child do that (actually at the restaurant) but two...amazing!

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