No More Eating Out for Me!!

I’m absolutely done with taking the family out for dinner. Done! Can’t stand it any longer…

It always begins with deciding where we’re going to go. The boy wants pizza and the girl wants chicken strips.

The boy wants sushi and the girl wants chicken strips.

The boy wants Subway and the girl wants macaroni and cheese…with chicken strips.

During this riveting debate is when we’re eagerly shepherding the little demons to get shoes on. This is essentially the equivalent of trying to teach a cat to sit while someone’s using a laser-beam to play with it.

After a spirited race to the car, always won by the boy because he elbows the girl sending her cart wheeling to yet another scabbed knee, we wait while the daughter spends 10 minutes gathering every essential toy scattered throughout the vehicle before getting buckled.

I’ll spare you the drive because it’s just too damn painful to recount.

Then alas we arrive and make our grand entrance. This is always the best part of the night. The second they walk in, they quiet down, put their hands by their sides and take in the scenery.

Diners gaze upon their young innocent faces, smile, and nudge their loved ones usually saying, “oh look…he looks just like Opie and she’s just a princess.”

Little do they know that in the time they’ve uttered those words, both kids have managed to figure out the first 12 ways they’ll make us both cry, pay-off the cooks to spit in my food, and waged a bet on who can make me say, “guys, stop it!” the most.

Then the menus come and they want nothing that’s on it.

Then I order three beers at once which gets the typical waitress response of, “Oh, will someone else be joining you?” as she reaches for more menus.

“No, it’s just us. So again, we'll take water for the kids, margarita for the wife, and I’ll have three beers. Thanks!” This is when the waitress either tells me that’s illegal or slowly backs away from the table.

Almost immediately the daughter hands me the little piece of paper holding the napkin and silverware together and says, “daddy!! Paper airplane.”

“Say please sweetie.”

“Yes ma’am!” And that’s always followed by giggling from both kids and it goes from there until dinner is served.

This is when both kids begin an intellectual discussion about life, the names of all the presidents, whether Barbie poops at night while they’re sleeping, what we should name the daughter’s first tooth she loses, and why daddy wants to do serious harm to Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Twenty minutes later the wife and I have finished and the kids haven’t even taken a bite of their food.

All and all it could be significantly worse. And there are occasionally good eating experiences.

But after last night’s escapade of my daughter mimicking the Italian busboy to the point where he’s contemplating shoving a spork in my jugular. I’m done…

Now I’ve moved on to the phase of just throwing a pile of sushi and chicken strips on the floor, turning the TV on, and slowly escaping with the wife to the back porch to drink beer and chill in silence.

Herding Cats is Making Me Crazy

I thought I’d just give a quick run-through of this past Friday morning. A somewhat typical morning in my family’s house.

4:41 a.m. – My alarm goes off. I make the snooze bar my bitch for a little bit, by 4:55 a.m. I’m out of bed. Kick back some water, head off to the Y and have an awesome spin class.

6:45 a.m. I cruise back up to the house. It’s the wifey’s first day of work. Before I left earlier, I had re-set the alarm for 6:30 a.m. to wake her up while I was gone. I slowly look up and no lights are on.

“Shit!”

6:46 a.m. I open the back door and I hear someone stomping up the basement stairs, turn the corner…it’s my daughter. She continues, then stomps up the stairs to the second floor. She’s carrying clothes. I think to myself..well, that’s a start!

Daughter – “These mommy!! I WANT TO WEAR THESE!!!”

“Oh fuck..” I say as I drop my gym back. I walk into the kitchen to make a quick cup of coffee and WWIII in its very infancy upstairs. I think, "bye sanity..it was nice knowing you. It was such a short relationship."

7:00 a.m. Slowly I walk up the stairs..

Wifey – “Grayson, get your pants on son!!”

Son – “IIIIIII AAAAAMMMMMM!!!!”
Wifey –“Macy..no, you cannot wear that you wore it yesterday and it’s dirty, put this on now!”

Daughter – “But it’s blue!!! I’ll look like a boy!!”

I hesitate for a second before reaching the top of the stairs, only because I remembered there’s still a ton of beer in the fridge. Then I continue up… I look in my son’s room and he’s still in his little red undies tapping on his fish tank…jeans still on the floor. My daughter brushes by me to go down stairs – still wearing the pink dress she was told to take off. Wifey, checking her ass out in the mirror to see if she has panty lines.

Me – “Macy…get back in your room and change please. Grayson – are you trying to get your fish to help you put your pants on? Come on man – it’s simple…one leg at a time, button, zip – score – you’re all done!”

My daughter falls to the ground screaming and crying. Son – “I FORGOT DADDY sheeeshh..never give me a second to do ANYTHING!!”

My chest puffs out and I start stomping towards my son’s room, “son, you’d better respect me…do you hear me? Don’t talk to me like that ever again!! Now put your pants on now!!” He falls to the ground crying, but somewhere in the crying he manages a, “yes sir.”

I turn feeling as though I’d won one battle. “Macy, get those clothes on now, or I’ll put them on for you and you won’t like that!!” She stands, walks to her room and throws herself on top of the clothes she should be wearing.

7:11 a.m. - I storm in our bedroom pissed. “Fuck!” I mumble under my breath. The wifey is all: “I know, I just don’t understand why it’s got to be so damn hard. Every morning I have to…..” her voice slowly turns into Charlie Brown’s teacher as I start to pull my work clothes out to iron.

Five minutes later, my son walks in our room, STILL in his underpants, holding a picture from his room and says, “Daddy…what was the name of this fish I caught again?”

It took a second for the disbelief to fully hit before I could speak… “Grayson..is this a joke? Seriously, are you kidding me?

Son, with his arms out, eyes big, true confusion on his face, “What daddy? What do you mean?”

Me – “Seriously…are there cameras in here? Are we con Candid Camera? Is that douche gonna jump out holding balloons with my family laughing and tell me it’s all been a joke?”

Son – “DADDY!!! Just tell me what the name of this fish is!”

Me – “FIVE minutes ago I told you for the 4^th time to put your pants on and you’re still in your skibbies!!! What are you doing? Son – you have to focus!!! GO…PUT…YOUR…PANTS….ON….NOW!!!!”

Son…immediately becomes the victim, starts crying, stomps off angrily and screams, “Daddy you’re so mean, I just wanted to know the name of the fish!!!”

This went on for another 10 min. before I turned into the atom bomb, flew myself into each kid’s room, dropped myself from their precious angle-filled skies, and exploded. There was a lot of tear debris, screams could be heard for miles, the cat was in the basement trying to tunnel out of the house, but no lives were lost.

We should be able to fire our children if they don’t perform simple tasks well when asked. Then, you put an ad in the paper, interview new children, and hire the right ones. Then…life would go on blissfully with beautiful songs, rainbows, helpful – well behaved children giggling and bringing you beers….ahhh…if only.