I am amazed by how quickly they pick up on "licensed" characters, despite not watching TV or videos. They've learned Sesame Street characters -- Elmo, Big Bird, Zoe, Cookie Monster -- from a couple of books, a puzzle, and a box of bandaids. Recently I got them a puzzle that has Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and Piglet in the picture, and the second time I brought the puzzle down they knew all those names. They call Piglet "Pigget" which I think is very cute.
They ride tricycles, they go down slides, they eat with a fork or a spoon. They are my big big boys. But sometimes I forget that they are really still very little.
So tonight, it being Friday and me wanting a break from cooking after having made dinner all of FOUR nights in a row (my grandmothers are turning over in their graves), we decided to go out to dinner. After we picked the boos up from daycare, we took them to Lugo's, which is a typical Ridgecrest restaurant serving typical whitebread food. Rocket Boy and I go there for lunch sometimes. It's not SUPER baby friendly, but you do see little kids there. And we thought dinner was probably a low-key time -- it's more of a lunch place -- so it'd be safe.
So we went in, and I stupidly suggested we sit at a booth, instead of at a table, which would have put us far from the other guests. Boos charged over to an empty booth by the window, between two occupied booths, so we sat in that one. It was very quiet in the restaurant. We soon took care of that. Both boos began pointing at interesting things out the window and announcing their names, loudly: "bike! truck! people walk! wow-wow!" and so on. And inside the restaurant there were lights and fans to point at and name, loudly. The waitress brought crayons and pages from a coloring book, so then there was an argument about who got which crayon, and she also brought crackers, leading to much ado about who would open up the crackers: "Let me help you with that." "Me do it!" "OK, you do it then." "Mommy do it!" etc.
My point is that they were not being quiet, they were being two and a half, but I didn't think it was going that badly. There was no screaming, no gratuitous yelling, nobody fell under the table, nobody ran away and jumped on all the other booths.
But then, after serving us, our waitress stopped by the booth to the east of us and asked the elderly couple there how their meal was going. "It would be fine if that kid would shut up," the elderly lady said, quite clearly. "Oh dear, I'm sorry about that, well, they're eating now," the waitress said, and then there was some more discussion that I couldn't hear. It ended with the waitress apologizing again for the noise and the elderly lady saying "well, it's not your fault."
Oh, we felt terrible! And of course, there we were, in the middle of the meal, what could we do? I started eating as fast as I could, but of course boos had no idea there was a problem. They stole the toothpicks out of my club sandwich and began using them to eat their dinners -- stabbing their grilled cheese sandwiches and eating the itsy-bitsy bits of cheese that stuck to the toothpicks. Baby A kept standing up on the seat and looking at the elderly couple on the other side of the booth wall, and then he began saying "hi!" to them. "Don't say hi!" I whispered fiercely. "Me hi!" he said indignantly, and did it again.
When the elderly couple FINALLY got up to leave, I quickly looked out the window so I wouldn't have to meet their gaze. They did pause at our table, but I continued to avoid eye contact (and Rocket Boy was still frantically eating his salad), so they went on.
I breathed a sigh of relief. "They're gone," I told Rocket Boy, who hadn't noticed. But then ANOTHER elderly lady, who had just come back from the salad bar, stopped at our table for a moment and said "Shhh!"
That did it. I stood up, grabbed Baby B, and threw some money at Rocket Boy. "I'll take them outside, you pay," I said. He handed Baby A across the table and I started for the door, gripping two little hands. And then, of course, all hell broke loose. "My bed!" Baby A screamed. Rocket Boy had a roll that he hadn't eaten yet and Baby A wanted it ("bed" = "bread"). Baby B began to cry about something else (we never figured it out). I dragged two screaming two-year-olds to the door, outside, and then into the car, where I gave them a long, pointless lecture about how to behave in restaurants. They listened to it with tears on their cheeks.
We're never going to Lugo's again. OK, at least not with the twins. But probably just never.
But then as we were driving home we saw the most incredible sunset. It was only about 6 pm, but of course the sun is setting earlier these days. As soon as we got home we grabbed the stroller, plunked the boys into it, and took off for the field north of our subdivision. We spent about half an hour wandering around in the field -- took the boys out of their stroller and let them run.
We'd already missed the best part of the sunset -- sunsets are really hard to catch on film, you know? Here's a shot from a couple of weeks ago:
Tonight wasn't that dramatic. But Ridgecrest has such a glorious big sky. As it got darker we could see the moon and Jupiter. And eventually I felt OK again.
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