When Olive Garden Attacks

We had a pretty lousy experience the other night at the local Olive Garden - through no fault of our own. Usually reckless children (our own) that can't be kept quite by their parents (us) can make for a stressful meal. But not this time! We had dinosaurs with us - a velociraptor and an allosaurus (or as Chase puts it "Ass-orus"). So the boys were having a nice time... until (dun dun dun) our waiter dropped a tray of dirty dishes on Chase.

I don't really blame anyone for what then transpired. It turns out that Chase does not like dishes dropped on him and Max does not like loud noises - neither does Lucas for that matter. So our content children instantly transformed into inconsolable messes. That is probably the reason that our waiter then ignored us until our meals were ready (well, the rest of the time).

We probably should have taken that as a sign that we should have ended the evening there (it would have been useless to go home because we didn't have any food.). So, we headed to the "super walmart of the northwest" - Fred Meyers. In hindsight, it was not the best decision.

In Seattle, when it rains - it pours (actually, it usually is raining... so that doesn't really make a lot of sense). Lucas and Chase like riding in the "Car-Carts" at Fred Meyers. Upon walking into the store we saw two car carts (red and blue) but each were missing one steering wheel. If you have multiple children you understand the dilemma. In my eyes we had 2 choices:

1. Red cart with Lucas driving (Chase crying)
2. Red cart with Chase driving (Lucas crying)
a. Blue cart with Lucas driving (Chase crying)
b. Blue cart with Chase driving (Lucas crying)
Z. Blue cart take turns driving (take turns crying)
L. Red cart take turns driving (take turns crying)
%. No car cart (both crying)

or, think outside the box (break the remaining steering wheel) - then we only have to deal with the color... now then - Red or Blue (the fighting continues).

I think we ended up with option L. And we still had another cart for Max's car seat and the groceries. The car cart was full of the junk we brought in with us (that I hope we don't get charged for on the way out).

I am going to be honest - I don't handle some foods too well and I sometimes have stomach issues at inopportune times. So nature calls when we have two carts of groceries. Sometimes nature is more or less demanding my attention than calling a phone. So I ditch Jenni with the boys and two carts that she cannot move herself.

... Ten minutes later ...

I get back to the family I left - but there is a smell in the air (not me... Chase). So Jenni took Chase to the bathroom to change him. I then explained to Lucas the differences between all the types of microwavable popcorn. Chase and Jenni returned but a now visible green cloud followed them. We had made a terrible error in that we had not brought extra clothes for Chase.

So... to bring you up to speed: I am pushing a car cart (which turns like a boat) with Chase in dirty pants - through the grocery store. We had a green cloud following us - at least Jenni could locate us. I would check in with Jenni after I found my three items and she would give me three more (We find that three is about my limit before I forget something and then we have to back track).

Long story short - Our three children survived another outing.