Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Children less than 2 yrs old are not meant to be taken out to public restaurants

First of all, I would like to apologize to the North Academy Applebees. We didn't know that taking all three of our kids out to eat with us would be as damaging to your fine establishment as it was. But it wasn't entirely our fault. We are afflicted by a phenomena we like to call, "the makenzie effect".
The above paragraph may sound a little harsh but let me fill you in on something that we have always suspected but has never been confirmed until yesterday, Makenzie is crazy!!! At first our day was pretty uneventful. I worked, then came home. No big whoop. After waiting for over an hour and a half for Cort to get her hair cut and dyed(she only got it cut since we value our youth), we made our way to Applebees (we let Ashlynn decide the restaurant, she loves the place). Sure Makenzie was fine for the first 10-15 minutes, but it was all a front. She was casing the joint (for all those not in the know, that's a term used by con artist and all round tricksters when they're undercover-like checking a place out, planning out how they're going to wreck havock there later). We get our drinks and Kenzie drinks almost all of hers within 5 minutes, that should have tipped me off. "She's thirsty," I thought, "no big deal.". Then she started eyeing my drink. I knew what she was planning. She wanted the lemon. See, she has this thing with lemons that we don't quite get yet. She hates them. She always makes the if-I-pucker-any-harder-my-head-will-explode when ever she puts one anywhere near her mouth but for some reason, she always go back for more. I think this is what put her in the mood for craziness. After playing/experimenting with the lemon for a good 5-10 minutes (she had all of us rolling) she decided she didn't like sitting in her high-chair anymore. And Chaos ensued. She saw and then started reaching for the chips on our appetizer sampler platter that was sitting right in front of me. She'd take a couple of bits and put the chip back. Then, grab a handful of chips and try to take a bite out of all of them at the same time, and then put what's left back. I tried to get her to sit back down by putting some on her plate and putting her back in her booster seat. There was some spinach dip on one of the chips and, of course, that was the first one she took a bite out of. She spit that out and attacked the other chips on her plate like they tricked her. She was out to make them pay. So now the chips are on the floor, my water lemon has been shredded and strewn about her section of our table and Kenzie is just getting warmed up. I thought she might like some of the other food on our appetizer sampler. No she did not. The quesadilla I gave her a bite of had something a bit spicy in it and that through her for a loop. She drank what was left of the ice-water-apple-juice that was left in her cup (which wasn't much since she had finished off her juice earlier) and moved on. She realized there were more things to get into on Cort and Ashlynn's side of the table so she started fussing and squirming and calling for mommie. And like the sucker I am, I fell for it. I handed her off to the other side of the table and waited for our food to come.
A few minutes after her move to the other side of the table, our food came. Even though Kenzie and Ashlynn ordered (Kenzie didn't really order her food) the same thing, Ashlynn's looked better to Kenzie. Kenzie started reaching over and grabbing at Ashlynn's food. We eventually got Kenzie to take some interest in her food and she was good to go. She was now no longer sitting down since her booster chair was still on my side. She was standing up, with her head just barely taller than the top of the bench seat we were sitting in. She had her food, Cortney's drinks and Ashlynn's fries...she was having a ball. She was having so much fun, she felt she needed to do a little dance. So she would turn around, look at the booth behind her and with her rump facing us, she proceeded to shake her booty like it was going out of style. She'd stop, turn around, laugh and grab a fry and then go back at it. Rise and repeat. Every couple of turns she would rub her belly on Cort and shake her booty, and then laugh a little. We tried to not encourage her, but it's was flipping hilarious. Ashlynn was cracking up, I was trying to be serious but was doing a piss poor job. I know this wasn't good for her but man it was funny. We (more Kenize rather) started getting some looks and she just keep it going. A little hand in Cortney's drink here, some chewed up a fries on Ashlynn's plate there. She was all over the Applebees dining experience. After she was done with her food (ie, 5 minutes later) she started reaching for the sugar packets, my knife, the blinds, Ashlynns drink, the salt, the pepper and my sanity. Around this time, Cortney was able to inhale most of her dinner and she offered to take Kenzie and Cameron outside to wait for us. As soon as Cort left, Ashlynn asked, "So, busy day?". I started laughing and then Ashlynn started laughing. I had no idea where she got that quote from but she's getting good at using a certain quote at just the right time. After thanking Ashlynn for being so good, I paid our server and we headed off to the van. Cracking up the whole way. Kenzie was SO going to bed when we got home.

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