Tonight we were “that family”

About 8 years ago Thesha and I wandered into a Chili’s near our apartment in Albuquerque.  We sat down next to a nice young family with a happy-go-lucky Mom and Dad and their two sons.  Shortly in to our meal the younger kid started screaming and about half-way through our meal the older kid totally puked all over.  We felt pretty bad for the young couple but really we spent the rest of our meal mumbling beneath our breath about how bad it would suck to be them right now.  Plus it sucked for us because we were watching it and it’s hard to keep an appetite after something like that.

We gained a whole new perspective on that couple this evening.  We forgot to get the chicken out to thaw for dinner so we figured we’d just run to Chili’s real quick.  Sure, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and it actually started off pretty well.  When the food arrived things took a dramatic turn, however.  I had literally just pulled my fork and knife out of their pre-wrapped napkin roll when Reagan started to cry uncontrollably for no apparent reason.  I tried in vain to calm her down while keeping her in her car seat but quickly realized I was fighting a losing battle.  So with tears streaming down her face and the entire restaurant peering over their chairs to see what all the commotion was about, I pulled her out of the car seat and tried desperately to calm her down by rocking back and forth in my chair.  I couldn’t hear it over the screams, but I’m almost positive I saw a guy lean over to his teenage daughter and point out that this is why he is always reminding her to not have sex until she’s married.

With my meal getting colder by the minute, Thesha quickly ate her chicken sandwich - her mouth burning both from the heat as well as the spicy sauce she usually savored.  In between bites she “encouraged” Tyler (as only a mother can) to eat something besides tortilla chips.  In retrospect, we probably all wish he hadn’t eaten anything at all.  While still chewing and blowing on the last bite of her sandwich (you know what I mean when you’ve eaten something too hot), Thesha relieved me of the still crying Reagan and gave me a chance to eat my luke-warm hamburger. 

Realizing that he had completely lost interest in the quesadilla, we gave Tyler the cinnamon apples that came with his meal and enjoyed a few moments of peace.  Tyler did pretty good with the apples until he had eaten all of the sauce and started into the apple chunks.  That’s when dinner became a spectacle instead of a meal. 

Tyler started choking on one of the apples.  He coughed it back up, but apparently there was some kind of chemical attraction between that apple chunk and the tortilla chips because as soon as the chunk came up so did everything that had proceeded it.  Tyler was sitting next to Thesha who was still trying to keep Reagan quiet so she gave playing catcher a quick try then realized her best alternative was just to get out of its way.  I hopped up but Tyler’s 4:00 snack had already made it to the floor before I got over there to help.  With all the sudden movement, Reagan started crying again while we scrambled for a stack of napkins from the hostess. 

Thankfully by now the teenage girl sitting next to us and her family had left – probably to go tell her boyfriend that she had been converted to the idea of abstinence – so we weren’t having to apologize to them for all the chaos.  I did find it interesting, however, that while I was still trying to clean up Tyler the waitress decided to drop off our check.  To her credit, she still asked us if we wanted to try a brownie sundae.  I don’t know if she was just used to this kind of stuff or if she was so appalled that she just reverted to her training and routine while trying to find a happy place in her mind.

With a dozen or so soaked napkins piled up on the table and Reagan starting to calm back down, I stripped Tyler down to his diaper and sandals and put his stinky, wet clothes in a garbage sack we pulled out of the diaper bag.  I don’t know whether to be grateful or disturbed by the notion that we were actually somewhat prepared for something like this.  I’m not saying we didn’t get a few confused looks from people coming in as we walked out with a kid in his diaper and sandals and a garbage bag of clothes instead of a doggie bag of food, but we did get out of there with our dignity.  Ah, who am I kidding.  At least we got out of there.

As disturbing as it all was, we tried to keep our wits about us and as we got in the car we looked at the lighter side of the situation.  Even with a screaming baby and a puke-soaked kid, we had at least avoided the trinity of all parenthood fiascos by not including a diaper blow out as well.  I think we’ll save that for Applebee’s next weekend.  As for now, we’re just going to sit and watch a few scenes from The Exorcist in order to get something more pleasant going through our minds before going to bed.