If you were one of the diners that had the misfortune of eating at Golden China in Fuquay-Varina, NC Saturday night you have my sincerest apologies. If a ball of fried rice hit you in the back of the head, that was my middle child Eliana. She gets carried away sometimes. That sound of banging and growling? That would be Owen. He likes to pull over cups of ice tea and splash in the wreckage.

We’ve eaten out many times with the kids. Usually they do just fine. No screaming, running, etc. They enjoy going out and doing something different and Mom enjoys not having to cook. We went out to eat Saturday night for Chinese buffet. A family favorite.

We sit down, make our trips to the buffet and sit down to eat.

ELIANA: I all done. Want down.
ME: You haven’t eaten anything, eat your rice.
ELIANA: IIIIIIIIII DOOOOONNNNNEEEEEE!!!!!!!

This was accompanied by the loudest scream you have ever heard. It set off two car alarms in the parking lot outside. She threw herself onto her back, kicking, screaming, and making her opinion known. I grab her up and we made our way to the bathroom to reintroduce her to the idea that “Daddy is in charge and forgetting that will introduce discomfort to your otherwise comfortable existence”. When she was done crying, we went back out. All was well. For about 30 seconds.

The waitress brought a refill for me and put the tall glass about 6 inches from my 9 month old son. He’s amazingly quick with his hands. With ninja-like stealth and quickness he grabbed the top of the glass and dumped it in one movement. Then he squealed with delight and started banging and slapping the water. It splashed all over everything.

This is when Eliana saw her opportunity. She slid out of the booth under the table, crawled out and RAN. Ran towards the door to escape to the parking lot. I’m guessing she was planning on hitching to Vegas. Thankfully, some creepy guy who smelled like garlic and sweat stopped her at the door. She didn’t like him very much and came running back into the restaurant. Then the chase was on. I cut her off at the wontons and drug her back to the booth.

I found Heather cleaning up Owen and the table while my 5 year old was at another booth pouring all the salt and pepper into a pile on the table. Then she was taking a fork and swirling it around the table making designs. I think my head almost popped off. I got them all back into the booth, cleaned up the salt and pepper and sat down to eat.

Heather went to take a bite, leaving her bowl of rice unattended for .03 seconds. Owen saw his opening, grabbed it, dumped it and starting throwing fried rice in all directions like a spider monkey. He sounded kinda like one too squealing and growling at the top of his little lungs. I must say, for a moment I was pleased at his testosterone induced, man-fun. I was a little jealous really.

Heather was less impressed and said,

That’s IT! Everyone is going back to the van NOW.

We carried the kids back to the van, strapped them in and swore to never eat out again until the kids were grown, married and could take us out to eat. I wanted to leave them in the van strapped to their car seats while we had a nice meal inside, but apparently Social Services frowns on that particular parenting technique.

Oh well.

The waitress got an extra large tip for having to clean up about 30lbs. of rice from the floor.

Next time we order in.

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