Well, I Never!

Before having children, I made a list of things that I would never do. This list included, but was not limited to, having my kids play on the sick toys at McDonald's, specifically a ball pit. Eating fast food before the age of six(teen). Watching TV for longer than, say, 30 minutes. Swatting them on the bottom, no matter how bad they were, or raising my voice to a level that could be heard outside of the room we were in (seriously not possible for me even in normal conversation, as my general theme in life seems to be go big or go home.)

It seems like it was much easier to maintain this level of irreproachable parenting when H was in daycare about 50 hours a week. As soon as we moved to Massachusetts, I realized that there's really nothing wrong with the tunnels at McD's (the balls are a thing of the past), and TV is GREAT! PBS kids has allowed mommy to have her own quiet time in the morning to drink coffee. A lot of kids might learn to count or say their ABC's while watching Sesame Street and Curious George, H has just learned that it's "cool" to jam a bunch of crackers in his mouth while letting the crumbs fly because "I'm Cookie Monster"! Also, he hopes that if he acts hopelessly clueless aka George's 'huh?', he can get away with most anything.

Yesterday, I went to McDonald's with a friend and her two kids in an attempt to give my husband a couple hours more of peace and quiet to sleep as he's working graveyard this week. We live in an apartment, so there's really nowhere for him to go that's super-quiet, although he's very gracious about it.

I got H the standard ketchup only cheeseburger, though I splurged and got the Happy Meal this time. The boy toy was this freaky looking man from Pirates of the Caribbean who has squid-like tentacles for a beard, so I opted for the girl toy, which was a 'princess watch'...basically a chunky plastic wristlet, but H loves that stuff, so there you have it.

I have recently started allowing H to forgo the high chair in restaurants as long as he sits in his seat. He took a couple bites of food, but was too excited about the tunnels to play, so I let him get up after he took a couple mommy-assisted sips out of his chocolate milk. I was convinced he'd spill on himself if I let him have it on his own, so made him let me help him.

Fast forward about 10 minutes, when H returned to the table with the freaky sailor-squid guy. Hmmm...where had he gotten that toy. I heard no children protesting, or parents looking for their kid's toy, so I didn't make too much of a deal about it.

Fast forward about 5 more minutes, H came walking toward the table, casually holding a chocolate milk jug and sipping from the straw. I leapt out of my chair, shrieking, 'WHERE DID YOU GET THAT?!' Again, no parent seemed to notice that my not-so-secret ninja was scavenging from their tray, and the only person with a table in that area seemed to have all food and drink accounted for.

My friend was laughing, stating that she'd thought it was his milk. I then got a sick feeling in my stomach, hoping he hadn't gotten the milk from the trash, but that didn't even make sense...sure enough, there was no trash can in that area, and the others were within my sight, so I'd have seen him going over there...whew! I quickly deposited the questionable milk in the trash and told H to go play. Crisis averted.

Okay, fast forward ANOTHER five minutes, and the OS of my friend Alex is happily announcing "H has two ____ !" I didn't quite catch what he said, so I asked again. "H has two straws in his mouth!" I looked up into a clear portion of the tunnel to see H with a straw connected to each canine, grinning and looking like a walrus. Awesome. Where the H was H getting all this shite?! I looked around the corner, and it appeared that someone had left some cups and probably their toy and chocolate milk on the floor. I took the two cups, sans their straws, and threw them in the trash, eliminating any further fodder for the contraction of a plague-like virus.

I started yelling up to H to take the straws out his mouth. He, being no fool, realized that my hugely pregnant self was not about to climb up through the maze of tunnels and enforce my assertion so he just boldly shook his head no. After I realized it was a lost cause, I took out my cell phone and attempted to get a picture. However, it was too hard to tell in the photo that there were straws in his mouth due to the plethora of smears and smudges of unknown origin on the plexi-glass. I asked H to please take the straws out of his mouth, as it wasn't safe. He took them out, but then replaced them with lightning speed, technically obeying my request. I lured him down for a french fry and took the offending straws away, depositing them in the trash.

Not surprisingly, H had diarrhea today.

(PS, I realize that it's a sea lion in the photo, and not a walrus. However, that's a photo from my honeymoon on the Oregon Coast, and I haven't really had the opportunity to photograph a walrus, so there you have it.)