Thursday, March 27, 2008

Parenthood

Yesterday I was cleaning the kitchen (sorry no pictures for you Amy) and I ran across the most delicious bottle of wine. No, I didn't drink it on the spot, just remembering how wonderful that winery was etc. So, I decided we needed a nice dinner so we could enjoy the bottle of wine. During the day I made homemade bread (in a bread machine of course), potatoes and veggies. I cleared a spot in the snow so Ryan could grill steaks.I didn't realize he was sleeping at the grill at the time.
We were just putting our lovely dinner on the table and Liam starts screaming because he has a stomach ache. We told him he could start eating without us, maybe he was just hungry. That didn't help so we sent him to the bathroom to try there. After we dig into our meal I hear a cry of MOMMY from the bathroom. He confirms that he does in fact need to go potty, but it won't come out of his "poop hole". You think you are taken aback by this language while working at your computer, try being there enjoying a nice meal downstairs of this action. I handed him a book and told him to come down when he feels better.

Then we had part two by Lance. He doesn't really like steak, he has trouble chewing it. This is due to the fact that Lance shovels in all foods and does not chew anything and you have to chew steak. Liam is still in the bathroom and Lance begins to get upset because he can't chew the meat and needs to get rid of it. We direct him to the garbage can. Instead of discreetly spitting it out, he lobs if from two feet away with a strange sound. Ryan snaps at him and tells him to be more presentable. Lance starts crying uncontrollably. I decided to leave the table until everyone calms down so we can enjoy the meal. Liam comes back from the bathroom with a full report. Lance runs to his room. Ryan goes to Lance's room and tells him to calm down and come back to dinner. We are all at the table again, trying to enjoy our cold meal.

I kept waiting for the wine to kick in, but Ryan said that I was doing that wrong. He said the right approach would have been to just drink the whole bottle by myself from the bottle and then dinner would have been agreeable.

The funny thing is that the boys are usually really good at dinner time. We had our years of unpleasantry, but now they are both old enough that we have a good conversation and enjoy dinners together. Next time I decide to have wine with dinner, I will wait until the other whines are in bed.


6 comments:

Patricia said...

great. so this is what I have to look forward to, huh? I would have drank the bottle from the bottle (I am tempted quite often these days) even without all the dinner table drama. I'm sorry about your meal, but it was fun to read about it. I can't believe how much snow you guys have. And it's spring break. Hang in there!

Amy said...

I like Ryan's advice. Next time start drinking the wine straight from the bottle around the same time as you start the bread machine.

Anonymous said...

sounds like a typical meal at our house. sure you still wanna come visit in june?? :-)

Julie said...

It is so funny now to write about, but at the time I could have killed some children. Next time we have a wine dinner it WILL be after they are in bed. I guess they never grow out of it Pea, sorry to tell you.

Julie said...

Mel,
Ryan said that it will be just fine to have a dinner at your house like that because it won't be our kids creating the scene!! We can just sit back and laugh:)

Anonymous said...

I love my family, Uncle Todd