…and there was blood…

We had a very physical weekend. I mean, if blood is involved how could it not be?

It all started Thursday night when we stopped at O’Charley’s for dinner. The service was painfully slow. They brought us their fresh-baked rolls with delicious, creamy butter but that only increased our appetite and made some of us a little bit more savage than others. At one point Ashlyn grabbed a steak knife from the table. We thought we had kid-proofed everything as soon as we sat down. She has her ways. We’re still not sure how she got it. However, as soon as she had the knife in her hand she was wielding it at Daddy mumbling something about dinnuh and bwing and stawving. I have polished my lightning fast reflexes and diffused the situation by securing the knife from her chubby little hand and replacing it with a crayon. Go ahead and color on him. Release your frustrations.

Then, on Friday we dropped Reagan off at church for a cultural event and headed out for a nice date night…with Ashlyn in tow. We shopped for a little bit and Ashlyn did very well. It was at dinner again where she exacted revenge for keeping her out past her bedtime. We chose a Thai restaurant that we had never visited before. It was in a strip mall so how swank could it be? We walked in to linen table cloths on the tables (with that white butcher paper covering them so they could make quick cleans between customers) and very few tables in the whole restaurant. There were patrons there though so immediately my stress level went up a few notches. Have I told you the A-equation? The nicer the restaurant = the poorer the attitude. It’s called the Inverse Proportionality of Atmosphere to Attitude. Based on history I knew we were in for an interesting if not embarrassing dinner.

We were dining nicely actually (except for a few highchair cantations) when Ashlyn picks up her spoon (heavy, since we’re in a nice restaurant) and raps Du on the knuckles. Out of nowhere. Du and I were talking when all of the sudden he’s yelping in pain. Ok. She’s lost interest in the spoon. I look through my purse and find something else for her to play with. A kid-sized hair brush. A little not acceptable at a nice dinner table, but whatever. A peaceful toddler is better than worrying about brushing hair at the table. Du hands Ashlyn the brush and bends over because Ashlyn is indicating that she wants to brush his hair. He’s looking at me to continue our conversation, expecting to feel brushing when all of the sudden Ashlyn just knocks him on the head with the brush. So he’s got a knot on his head to match the one on his knuckles.

Saturday brings two birthday parties. One at an ice skating rink and one at a bouncy castle playroom. Guess which one brings the blood. Ice skating was a lot of fun. I haven’t been on skates in years. Reagan started to get the hang of it pretty quickly as well. We felt it safe for everyone involved if we left Ashlyn off the skates this time. Once Reagan gets more comfortable on the ice and doesn’t need me as support I’ll get Ashlyn strapped up. No blood there.

At the bouncy castle party there were three different huge bouncy thingies. Another mom and I actually went down the slide a couple of times. Talk about getting my silly back. The party went pretty well but those bouncy thingies get kids pretty riled up. There ended up being a bloody nose and a bloody mouth. Fortunately neither were on my kid. Both resolved themselves nicely with one kid yearning for a visit from the tooth fairy that night.

After recounting all of this I’m realizing the blood part was actually one of the more tame parts of the weekend. But with our kids around nothing is ever ordinary…