On Tuesday afternoons Andrea goes to Dallas to tutor some Thai refugee children, and I get in some special "daddy and daughter" time. Our usual routine is to go to the park, the library, and then come home to eat eggs and biscuits. But, we have been eating eggs and biscuits every Tuesday for a while now, and a new Chick-fil-A opened up nearby with a killer playplace inside, so we went there today. It was interesting.
The place is packed because it is the new cool thing in town. We order our food, I get the drinks, and go get the girls seated at a table, and then go back to wait for the food. I order 12 nuggets and a regular chicken sandwich- fairly standard items- and it took almost 10 minutes. This is a long time when you have two precious sweeties at a table unsupervised and hungry.
I get the food and distribute it to the kids, settle in to my chair, and take a bite of my sandwich, where upon Anabelle informs me that she needs to "go tee-tee." So, we all go to the bathroom, she does her thing, and then we go back to our table. After about 5 minutes of peaceful eating, Anabelle knocks her drink over, spilling water all over the table. Fortunately, the lid did not come all the way off, so I managed to clean it up with only about 50 napkins. I was a little troubled by this, because this is the third time in the past two days Anabelle has knocked a full glass over. I took a deep breath and started to eat again. Anabelle said, "Daddy, thank you so much for cleaning up my spot." That made me really happy and warm inside, and I felt like the evening was taking a turn for the better. Feelings, however, are not always reliable.
After about 5 more minutes of eating, Ava knocked her drink off the table. I ordered small waters for the girls, but they were out of small cups, so this was a medium cup full of water. It hit the ground with such force that not only did the lid come off completely, but the bottom of the cup blew out as well, and 22 oz. of water and ice were all over the floor. Napkins would stand no chance facing this giant. So I went and asked a nice young guy who worked there if he would clean it up. He was very courteous, but I am not sure he had ever held a mop before. So he came over and sloshed it around and smeared it everywhere. I am pretty sure someone had just mopped around the fry vats with this mop, because the floor all around our table became very greasy and slick. Every time someone would walk by they would almost slip, and then glance over at me with a look that I interpreted as saying, "thanks alot buddy, because you can't keep your kids in line I almost broke my neck."
So we ate some more, and as we were finishing I thought to myself, "Heath, you need a challenge." So, I got the girls an ice cream cone. This was Ava's first ice cream cone ever. Anabelle methodically licked around the edges, making sure none dripped. Ave dispensed with such formalites, and after I handed it to her the first thing she did was smash it into her face, as if she were trying to get the whole cone in her mouth. She ate the rest of the cone like this, trying to smash it all into her mouth. It was so much fun to watch.
We finished our meal and headed into the play area. We got the shoes off, put away in the little secure cubby holes, and they started to play. Then Anabelle said, "Daddy, I need to go do gross." So, we got the shoes back on, and went back to the bathroom. Anabelle did her business, I did the closing paperwork, and we started to leave our stall. I was surprised to see a little boy (like 3 or 4 years old) waiting to come in the stall. He was by himself. Ava got in his face and, using her intimidating voice (the one she uses with Silas), said, "Hey, what are you doing in here?!" She proceeded to follow him back in the stall, and I had to go back and forcible remove her so this little guy could do his thing.
So , we went back to the play area and played happily for about 20 minutes, and then came home.
Several of you who read this blog from time to time have kids. Sometimes it is therapeutic to here about things like this, so hopefully this story will be of some benefit to someone. I hope to God that there is some redeeming value to this unfortunate series of events.
