The Taco Bell Dinner

I love Taco Bell.   I have loved Taco Bell for as long as I can remember.   I remember being in junior high school and going to gymnastics six-days each week.   Taco Bell was on the way home from gymnastics and sometimes my mother or the other mother that drove us there and back would take us there to eat.    I remember menu items that haven't been available in a long, long time.   I can picture the long line that would zig-zag back and forth in the restaurant and our slow progression up to the front to get our amazing food.   I thought then, back in the early 1980's, that if I had money to invest, I would put it into this masterpiece of a restaurant called Taco Bell.

I still love Taco Bell.   My husband does not...at all.   He tried to eat there once and that disaster is a story in and of itself but suffice it to say, he doesn't go to Taco Bell.    As a result, I don't go to Taco Bell as much now as I used to before I was married and had children.  

Uncle Jonathan loves Taco Bell.   He goes all the time.   He isn't married to someone who dislikes Taco Bell and he doesn't have children that get in the way of solo drive-through trips there.    Some days, I am envious.      Today, however, Uncle Jonathan and I had a plan: we'd take the children to Taco Bell and my husband could have a nice dinner of his choosing while we were gone.  

It was a good plan.   My husband was fine with it and when dinner time came around, he helped get the children ready and off we went.    On the way, my daughter fell asleep.   Before we got there, my son fell asleep.   Damn.   Okay, we can do this.   It's early, waking them up won't be a problem, even if they complain (loudly) because the restaurant will most likely be empty.  

There was complaining (my daughter) and the restaurant was mostly empty.  My son refused to wake up and spent the entire meal asleep on the hard booth bench of the restaurant.   My daughter was unhappy about, well, everything.   She was in terrible, horrible, desperate need of calories.    We ordered, got drinks (more wailing because the green button did not produce green liquid in her cup) and sat down.

Or rather we tried to sit down.   My daughter wanted to sit with me.   I was sitting on the side with my laid out son.  I had bent his legs up, placed my purse on his chest and my daughter's jacket over his knees (he was seriously out) and had just enough room to sit on the end of the bench.   But no, "NO....NOOOOOO," my daughter did not want to sit on the other side of the both.  

Sigh, fine.   I moved my son over some more, hitting his head on the wall-side of the bench (he didn't even notice I'd moved him) and made room for her to sit.    Where was the spoon?   She needed a fork.   This wasn't the drink she wanted.   She needed a plate.   She didn't want a quesadilla or nachos.   If you've spent time around children, you can imagine what we were dealing with.  

She ate a nacho.   She chewed on some quesadilla.   She drank some of the non-green drink.   She suddenly became happy.  Hooray for calories.   She started eating the nachos with enthusiasm.  Enthusiasm that resulting in cheese, beans and sour cream all over her shirt, pants and face...all of her face.   But she was happy.    She got out in the aisle at one point and asked me to take a picture of her while she sang and danced to some song she may or may not have made up (that part was unclear.)

My son slept.   He slept until I picked him up after the meal was cleared away from the table.   He groggily got back into the car and calmly went home without a complaint at all.  

It would appear that we may have passed down our preferences for or against Taco Bell to our children.   My daughter loved it.   My son strategically avoided it.    I'm not convinced it was a fair test though as my son had had a busy day.   Uncle Jonathan, are you up for another go taking the kids to Taco Bell with me in the future?

The Big Boy Update:  Dylan (eleven-years-old) was helping out with the children's bath at movie night.   She told my son it was time to put on his pajamas.   My son said very matter-of-factly, "we call them 'night nights.'"  I do not know why I called them that when my son was very tiny, but I did and now that's what my children call them.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter came into the bathroom and told me, "I need a bandaid for my nose because my nose hurts."   She got a bandaid, opened it (she is very good at opening bandages) and put it straight over her nose, covering up two-thirds of her nostrils.