Tonight I decided my kids needed to eat more vegetables so I took them to Outback for dinner. I’m joking. Well sort of. We had a gift card so I thought it would be fun to go out in 15 degree weather and get dinner.<\/p>\n
Can we talk about the weather for a minute. I realize that is all anybody is talking about these days, but WHAT THE HECK?!?!?! I’ve spent five winters in Maryland, four in Virginia, and two in West Virginia and it has never been this cold!!!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n I heard my son letting the dog out and then I heard him yell… OH NO! NOT MORE SNOW!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Then about a half hour later my oldest son starts flipping out in the kitchen. He had just realized it was starting to snow. When the kids are sick of the snow it is time for it to stop snowing. I cannot wait to go to Florida!!! Two more weeks…. wooohooo!!!!<\/em><\/p>\n Okay- back to our day.<\/p>\n I only had the younger kids with me, so I walked in to Outback with five kids. The funny thing is that when I ONLY have five kids with me I feel like this is completely normal. I forget that most people think this is completely abnormal, and even more abnormal that I would do it without another adult.<\/p>\n We sat down at our booth and started to talk about the day, what we were going to order, \u00a0and \u00a0how long it would take to get the bread.<\/p>\n A lady came up to our table after we had been there for less than five minutes to tell me how when we walked in her friend remarked that I must be crazy for taking five kids out to dinner by myself, but then after they saw how well behaved the kids were they understood why I would do it.<\/p>\n I thanked her and she complimented the kids a few more times and then walked away. Then she came back and said something about how they were both public school teachers and they’d seen it all.<\/p>\n I always appreciate when people notice that my kids are able to act appropriately, although this almost guarantees that one of my kids is going to dump a glass of water all over the table, or fall out of their seat or fight over the last piece of bread.<\/p>\n I’m also fully aware that my kids are capable of more stupid in a day than most kids can do in a week. So I savor the moments when everyone is using inside voices, sitting on their rear ends, and eating with utensils not their fingers.<\/p>\n Today was a good day. We didn’t get everything accomplished that we needed to, but we had a great time at dinner and I’ve finally regained feeling in my extremities so I’m going to count it a win.<\/p>\n