Last night was not a good night. And then it was. My son had suggested my daughter pick the dinner location since he got to pick earlier in the week. That was before he got carsick and felt bad during the drive home from school.
Some negotiations and a few hours later and we went to Jason's Deli. I said let's focus on tolerance tonight and have a nice meal together.
Guess what? It was not nice. At all. I tried to keep things under control. I don't want to say it was my son, but he was absolutely militant with what his sister should and shouldn't be doing. Don't touch them all! (she can't see, she is looking, not trying to be unsanitary). Don't eat this way, don't do this, do do that. She got up to get away from him, insisting she knew the way to get more drink—which she didn't, but she also had no concept of the child in the way, the other people in the drinks area and the salad bar she was going to run into and put her hands into the food in order to find her bearings. And none of that would have been good.
It got worse and people were looking at us. My daughter was mad now and my son was explaining how he was trying to help. Always doing a helpful thing, never being critical. He wanted to explain himself to death.
I got them in the car, cancelling frozen yogurt for dessert because I didn't want a second restaurant of people staring at us.
My daughter didn't want to get in the car, saying she needed a minute. When she got in and we got underway she had some advice, delivered in high drama voice intonation abut how we should all love and care for each other.
I said I agreed. At this point, I was screaming and telling my son to shut up, which was not a good thing to use word-wise as we've told the children it's not ever okay to say that. My son would not give it up. I had to lock him down because he couldn't not talk. Any words that came out of his mouth would be a day's loss of screens. If he wanted to talk he could raise his hand or tap me on the shoulder.
Let me tell you folks, that was some funny stuff. He was thrusting his hand in the air, tapping me on the shoulder and punching the car, which caused him to lose screens for a day when the punch happened.
I finally gave up. I said I was a failure that we had children who couldn't even go to dinner and be polite to each other. Dad always did things better. The family would be better without me. When dad got home, I would leave.
And...that...worked. That was the one thing they didn't want to one-up or fight back about. They both got scared and didn't want me to leave and suddenly were telling me how they knew all along what they were doing was bad. They wanted to do better. They didn't want to tell dad. Please don't leave. The guinea pigs need you. The dog needed me.
I said I would stay. Then, after all of that, we had a really wonderful night for the rest of the evening. We made it to a nice night, the path was just more complicated.
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