Money and Sanity

There are many things that should last 20 minutes.....a good sermon, 1 period of a hockey game, cookies baking in the oven. Then there are things that really should not last 20 minutes.....including eating lunch in a restaurant.

Today was one of those days. Parenting is great but any parent would be lying if they said it was easy 100% of the time. Heck they'd be lying if they said it was easy 20% of the time. But today was one of those days where I was ready to throw in the towel, pull out my hair, scream. I planned a somewhat last minute lunch date with a friend who has a son who is a little younger than Ben. We have been talking a lot lately about how it's gotten more and more difficult to go out to eat with kids this age. I end up tipping more because I feel bad about the thanksgiving feast left behind on the floor and the sheer disaster normally left in our wake. But we naively ran the risk and decided adult conversation and an egg salad sandwich was worth the risk.

Less than 20 minutes after we arrived we were dejected and sitting in her car with the portable DVD player blaring Thomas and Friends from the center console and both boys being their loud rambunctious selves in the back seat of the car. We devoured our lunches....inhaled might be a better word. I don't even remember what it tasted like. I don't remember what I even ate. My kid refused to sit still. Hers refused to be quiet. Between the two of them, we lasted less than 20 minutes in the restaurant before we headed for the safety of the car.

It was like the scene from Titanic where Leo and Kate are romping around in the back of that old carriage thing and all of a sudden you see a hand slap the fogged up window. The windows of the car were totally fogged over....not sure if it was from our boys yelling and jumping around or from us just literally fuming. It took a solid 15 minutes to unwind from our frustration and be able to even think about laughing about the fiasco. Goodbye money...goodbye sanity. I lost you both today and am hoping at least one of you will come back by morning. Parenting is hard.