The "It's Not Worth It" Dinner

AOC is on vacation with her 2 kids right now, and reading her blog I am 100% in agreement with her.... a "vacation" with your kids is not a vacation. Er, I'll rephrase: you must redefine the word "vacation" to mean "out of town", rather than "relaxing, catching up on sleep, reading, doing anything that you would like to do for yourself, etc.".

Anyway, this reminds me of how last Friday DH and I decided to go to our favorite hamburger place for dinner. For some reason, after almost 11 months of motherhood, I still get a little bit excited when we reach Friday. (Not as excited as Rebecca Black, but ya know, kind of excited.) Why?? Well, I guess for 30 years of my life, "Friday" meant "Time to kick back and relax a little bit". Old habits die so, so, so hard.

So, in my excited Friday haze, I said, "hey I'm tired of cooking, let's go to Counter Burger!" And DH, who also apparently still forgets he's a dad sometimes said, "yeah sounds great!"

We drive there, thinking well it's time for the Tuff's second nap right now (yep he takes his second nap at 5:15pm, whatever, I am not a bad parent). So surely he will fall asleep in the gently swaying van, only to awaken in about 30-45 minutes, as per usual, and then we will enjoy a relaxing dinner.

Instead, he was tired so he screamed most of the way there, only pacified by me singing Banana Phone at the top of my lungs over and over again, and sure enough he did not fall asleep. But we're already making stupid mistakes, let's intensify them by going into the restaurant!

I manage to quickly order some sweet potato fries while the Tuff refuses to sit in his highchair and decides to use me as a jungle gym, thereby making it impossible for me to look at the menu. Then we get about 5 minutes of peace while Tuff enjoys a few bites of fries.

Then, he pees his diaper and it soaks through his pants. I go change him, and he screams the whole time. (He hates changing tables. I should really bring a little pillow for his head or something, I suspect those things are uncomfortable.) I OF COURSE didn't bring a change of clothes, so I bring him back out to the restaurant with no pants on. The lady sitting next to us has two kids so she kindly offers me a pair of pants. (I decline, but it was a nice offer. And yeah, nothing makes you feel like a stellar mom like having a stranger offer your child a pair of pants.)

Our food comes and DH wolfs down his burger so that he can hold the now very upset and over-tired baby while I eat. I get through half of my cold burger before the Tuff's screaming escalates so much that we decide to leave. I dont' even want to waste time asking for a box so I grab the burger and wrap it in a napkin and we escape.

Next time I *think* I'm tired of cooking I will re-read this post, and remind myself: Self, you are not tired of cooking. You love cooking because it is a BLESSING to be able to eat reasonably tasty food in your own home. In private. Don't be stupid. Don't go out to eat. It is never worth it. And if you really, really can't cook, ORDER SOME PIZZA.