Thursday, October 21, 2010

I've Arrived...Somewhere

Today, I took all of the kids out to dinner by myself. Now this in and of itself is not completely new. The new thing is that it was easy and fun! I only had to chase Wendy down once as she was headed to another table to be social (In her defense, she can't really help it. It's just in her nature to find friends everywhere.). The food was good and the conversation too.

I couldn't help but think back to some very difficult dining out experiences in the past. The most memorable of which was when we just had one baby, and James and I took turns, one of us eating while the other stood outside in the rain holding and comforting a VERY fussy Christine. Another when the childless couple sitting at the booth next to us informed me that my child wouldn't stop staring at them and could I please make her stop, as if being stared at was the worst thing that had happened to them all week. I can't count the number of times I've left a fine meal to change an extremely messy diaper in an extremely small, confined space, or left the restaurant soaking wet from some one's spilled water, and mainly just feeling like I wanted to pull out all of my hair by the time we were done eating. This was such a different experience, and I loved it. Now if I could somehow get them to pay too...