Ladies Lunch

{A sweet photo of Henry, window shopping at Franklin Toy Company...before the carnage.}

 

My dear, dear mother-in-law, Diane, has friends in town this week. Friends who were fellow ex-pats during her time living in Paris with Barry's late father. I've met many of these friends (some of them were at our wedding), but not these two particular women. Diane really wanted to show off her grandchildren (understandably...they are ADORABLE, after all) and invited us to lunch today in downtown Franklin.

Now, normally, I don't take the kids out to lunch because they eat lunch pretty early and Eleanor is usually napping already by noon. But this was a special occasion so we decided to go for it and make the best of it.

What's that they say about hindsight??

The kids were actually really well behaved considering the circumstances. But that doesn't mean there wasn't some fun. Oh, no...we couldn't let this be a peaceful, pleasant ladies lunch.

We arrived a little early so I took the kids to the restroom so Henry could potty and I could change E's diaper. Except I found that her diaper was dry, which was odd because she hadn't had a wet diaper since she woke up. A little odd, so I filed it away in my brain and we went out to greet our fans.

Lunch went reasonably well, until Eleanor started to get antsy and Diane took her to sit in her lap. First mistake.

Eleanor decided to "relieve herself" and soaked through her diaper and peed on Granny's lap. The damage was minimal, so while Diane blotted her pants I took E to the restroom to change her diaper...finding her dress to be dry, I just took her bloomers off.

Return to lunch.

Diane offers the kids each a cookie. Second mistake.

Eleanor took one bite, found something in it offensive, begins to gag and then  PROJECTILE vomited at the lunch table all over me, herself, the floor. IT. WAS. UGLY.  I've never been vomited on in this fashion in public. Panic ensues. Lots of Wet Ones are employed. Cloth napkins from the table are used to wipe chunky vomit off the floor. IT. WAS. UGLY.

I wiped us down as best I could just to get us to the car, then decide that I need to rush Henry to the bathroom before we leave (it's a 30-minute drive back to our house and the last thing I need is an accident in the car). Third mistake.

WHILE sitting on the toilet Henry says, "Uh-oh, I'm pee-peeing on myself!" So I look down, and he is, indeed, peeing on himself. On his hand, on his shirt, on his pants. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?  I am not a boy, so I have no idea, but at this point I'm fighting back tears.

So let's take a tally. I'm covered in puke. Baby girl is covered in puke. Granny is covered in pee (I may be exaggerating a bit here). And now Bubba is covered in pee (I am not exaggerating on this one).  I'm just gonna go ahead and call this the worst ladies lunch ever. I hustled out of there as fast as I could, but I'm guessing no one finished their lunch after the vomit episode.

And of course I'd left their change of clothes in the car, so I had to walk two blocks with two of us covered in vomit and one of us covered in pee. I'm sure we looked and smelled loverly.

Oy. I'm pretty sure MIL won't be inviting us to lunch again with her fancy friends any time soon.

{Her friends were very sweet and gracious and helpful and I pray I have not scarred them for life.}