Hot Potato

Last night we went to a (post) Holiday dinner with a group of friends. We've been doing this for several years now (in fact, if I'm remembering right, I think this would have been the 7th one!) We have typically done it at different people's houses, but this year we decided to have the dinner at Mary Mac's Tea Room - YUM! If you haven't been there, I highly recommend it. It was so much fun. And it's been fun seeing our group grow from just the 6 of us & our significant others (when we started, only 2 were married, 3 were engaged, and one dating) to the 6 of us all married, and each with at least 1 child. There were 8 kids in all (with one on the way - that we know of!), so the kids are trying very hard to equal us in numbers. It was complete chaos and a total zoo, but luckily we had the room to ourselves for most of the evening, so it was OK. There was only one part of the night I wish we could erase. There is a lady there (don't know if she is the manager or the owner, or what) but everytime we go there, she stops by our table. She chit chats with the different customers and all. Last night she came into our room, and while she was there, Josh was feeding Liam some of his green beans. By this point he had already had a corn muffin and an applesauce snack pack thing. The lady sort of made fun of Josh and was like, "What - you're just going to give him half a bean??" I think (hope!) that it was all in fun, but it bugged him a bit. I told her that he doesn't have many teeth, so it's not like we can give him everything. She left and came back a little while later with a dish of applesauce and a dish of mashed potatoes for "the little girl without many teeth" (don't know why people always assume babies are girls). It was a very nice gesture, however, she failed to warn us exactly how hot those mashed potatoes were. I should have checked, but I didn't - and I still think that knowing that we would give them to a baby, that she would have said something. So I put a spoonful of them into Liam's mouth, and he screamed - LOUD. Those potatoes were SO hot, and he just sat there screaming and spitting them out. I didn't really know what to do - if we had been at home, I'd have grabbed a sippy cup of water, but we didn't bring a cup with us. The lady was just standing there saying stuff like, "Well Daddy - you gotta blow on them!" and "Give him some applesauce - that will cool him down." She never once apologized for them being so hot or for not telling us how hot they were. She just said things that really only made us feel worse for giving them to him. Josh was angry about that all night. I don't blame him - it was pretty rude. But other than that, the evening was fun. It was great to see everyone and all the kids.

We've had a new development at our house in the last few days. Liam discovered how to climb the stairs, causing the re-introduction of the baby gate at the bottom. I don't recall off the top of my head when Zachary started climbing the stairs, but for some reason I just wasn't ready for it so soon with Liam. I know all kids are different, but Liam is really throwing me off. I sort of had in my head when things usually happen, based on when Zachary did them, and Liam is doing most things at least a month earlier. He also knows the signal for "touchdown". We were watching the Capital One Bowl on Thursday, and on the last Georgia touchdown, we all put our arms in the air. Liam looked around and saw everyone with their arms up, and he did it too. It was very cute. And now if you say "Touchdown!" to him (and he's in a cooperative mood...) he'll put his arms up.

Vacation is officially over after today. I'm sad, because I do enjoy time off & getting to spend extra time with Josh & the kids. But we've also had a number of meltdowns (and by "we" I mean Zachary) each day, and I think it's due to him being off of his normal schedule. So I'm hoping that once we get back into the swing of things, that everyone will kind of get back to normal.