And so it goes

This evening the family went out for a little high flying adventure.  First, we took a bunch of yard waste to the city dump.  Not exciting you say?  Then why did William fall to tears at the prospect of not getting to look in the bin of grass clippings?  Uh-huh.

 Then we wandered the aisles of a fancy Kroger's (they have a wine bar) and located the boxes of Mountain Dew that have coupons for free ice cream and mini-golf at Young's Dairy.  For about $10 of soda we won't drink, we are able to save approximately $100 on outings to the "cow farm". So that the soda isn't completely wasted, I need to look up experiments with Dew as a primary ingredient.  None of us like the taste of it, though I'm sure Will would take one for the team on that one (Is there sugar in it?).  Again, you might be thinking this isn't very exciting, then why did Dom fall into tears at the prospect of not being pushed in the cart?  Also, I forgot to mention the bin of $5 sunglasses I got to try on while Will visited the little boys' room.  Not enough you say?  What about Cadbury milk chocolate mini-eggs on clearance for $1.20 (Marked down from $3.99)?  Yeah, I thought so.

Finally, we went to Steak 'n Shake for supper.  Now, as it happened, we were entering the restaurant at a horrible time.  It was a quarter to 7, but the allure of shakes was too great and I ignored my own sage advice of never eating out past 6.

The dinner actually went well.  Too well.  We all got milkshakes which was a first.  The boys and Molly split two kids meals almost perfectly.  And Eric and I had a very adult conversation while our children quietly ate their meals.  At one point I mentioned to Eric that we were like French Parents.  Granted, we weren't dining at an elegant restaurant, but our kids were behaving very well, particularly in light of the fact that their bedtime was imminent.  And we'd had a couple of meltdowns at both the city dump and the grocery store directly proceeding this dining experience.  We were living the dream!

Of course, as soon as you brag about something like that, your children will prove you wrong.  In our case, the first culprit was Molly.  Yes, sweet Molly with the big eyes and curly hair.  She had finished her meal and was giving us her special sign that she was ready to get down.  This special sign, used by 1-year-olds everywhere (though perhaps not in France), is to start throwing all remaining items off of her tray.  In tonight's case, there was only one item.  A ceramic plate.  Which shattered.  Luckily the restaurant had cleared out shortly before this occurred so only a couple of elderly patrons witnessed this event and they thought our daughter's behavior was cute.  Americans...

The next piece of the proof to invalidate my argument occurred as we were getting up to go (seeing as Molly was heading out the door anyway). Dom spilled his milkshake.  It didn't make a huge mess (maybe a 3-4 napkin-er...5 tops), but it was a decidedly un-French thing to do.

Ironically, our most American child (read "loudest") played only a small part in the demise of my theory.   His mouth was too full of milkshake and fries.  Q.E.D.