That Family

Have you ever been out shopping or at a restaurant and seen that family? You know the ones. Kids are screaming, possibly even throwing an all out kicking-match-tantrum on the floor? They are the ones who when you were younger and didn't have kids, you might have even silently judged them and though, "My kids will never act like that." Well, yesterday we were definitely that family.

Tyler certainly has his share of two year old meltdowns, but they are usually at home. Not in the middle of a restaurant. Usually when we're in public, Tyler's biggest issue is not listening and/or trying to do things that are dangerous. Our constant battles are to not climb out of buckles and jump out of shopping carts. That kind of thing. I've had many, many people comment on how busy he is, or what a climber he is, or how active he is. He even calls himself a "double dare", which I think is hilarious. He means dare devil. But it comes out double dare every time. :-) This is a total tangent, but one time I even had some one take him off of playground equipment when I was standing right next to him! He was climbing up a ladder at the park and A: I was literally standing right next to him, and B: he was perfectly capable of climbing that ladder. But this old lady started chattering away at us in some other language. Then she picked him up, put him on the ground and glared at me. Whoa. The little girl she was with wasn't allowed to go on anything without holding a hand or being carried, so I'm not exactly sure what she thinks playgrounds and ladders are for? Anyway, my point is, I've had plenty of comments on how active he is, and I'm very used to nervous, hovering old ladies. But I've never had comments on his not-so-fabulous behavior before. Yesterday we had three in about ten minutes.

After church we stopped at Panera for lunch. Carl sat down at our table (which happened to be the table in the exact middle of the room, where we could be seen and heard by just about everyone) with the boys, while I went and looked at the menu. When I came back, Carl went to order our food. And about five seconds later, Tyler was throwing himself off of his chair onto the floor flailing around and crying. Scream-crying. Why? I sat in Carl's chair. And that was about the worst thing I could've done. Apparently. :-)  I got him to stop crying several times and as soon as I thought we were done he started all over. Then as I was trying to talk him up off the ground I looked up to see one of the Panera employees standing at our table. I'm not going to lie - for a split second I thought he was going to ask us to leave. Instead he offered us a chocolate chip cookie the size of Tyler's head. It was clearly a your-child-is-disrupting-the-whole-restaurant-so-please-put-this-cookie-in-his-mouth-to-get-him-to-stop cookie. I told Tyler that it was very nice of that guy to give us a cookie to eat after we sit nicely at the table during lunch and eat all of our food. Not, "Here, you're misbehaving? Have a cookie." Hopefully he didn't make that connection.

While Carl was standing in line to order, a lady went up to him and told him, "You'll miss all this when he goes to college."

As soon as Tyler was calmed down and Carl came back, Carsten had a major blow-out diaper that required a whole outfit change, which also meant taking his helmet on and off. So it took awhile. And while I was gone, Tyler tipped his chair over backwards. Another couple sitting near them said, "Let me guess - he's two, right?" They have grandkids his age so they've seen these things before. :-)

It was an adventure of a lunch, but Tyler did sit very nicely and eat it all. And we all enjoyed the ginormous cookie afterwards.

The moral of this story is: If you want a free cookie, bring your crying child to Panera. :-)