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The month of April was killer. We didn't have a single free Saturday all month, and it was mostly my commitments that took up our time. On top of that, it rained...and rained...and rained...Finally, on Thursday the 24th I was able to get my vegetable & fruit seedlings into the ground. They had been outgrowing their tray, but I couldn't get the ground tilled because it was always raining.
The weather turned out to be nice once the rain cleared up. The children played outside a good deal. We discovered a bird's nest inside our rowboat, which had been stored on sawhorses behind the garage after we painted it. Unfortunately, we had to move the nest when we moved the boat, so the bird flew away and left her eggs.
On Friday, April 18, Ben D. Quinn, Skylar and Bart's school, hosted a High School Musical movie night. George didn't want to go, so he stayed home with Drake and I took the older two. It was pretty fun. For $1 (proceeds went to the PTO), you got in to see High School Musical 2 on a big projector screen in the cafeteria. Cushions, blankets, and cafeteria chairs were set out for us, and popcorn, drinks, and candy were for sale. For the most part, Bart hung out with two of Sky's friends, Hannah and Kelly, who don't seem to mind Bart tagging along. Later, he found two little girls in his own grade who he went to sit with. As for me, I found a chair, kicked back, scarfed some popcorn, and enjoyed doing...nothing. Ah, priceless...
That Saturday was nuts. I had a party to go to in the morning for a friend, and then I was one of two of us Young Women leaders who had to get the Young Women to Super Saturday, which was in Havelock. I didn't get home until late. Church the next morning, and I had to teach the lesson. I was a mess. I was glad to see Monday come. Sad, isn't it?
Monday was Day 1 of the BDQ Book Fair. Drake and I went to eat lunch with Skylar at school, then took her to the Book Fair, which was held in the library. I started out telling her no books today, but I compromised by only buying two. Tuesday, I helped work the Book Fair in the afternoon, so you guessed it - more books. Wednesday, Drake and I ate lunch with Bart and allowed him to buy two books, too.
By Wednesday afternoon, what had started out over the weekend as increasingly bad allergies, turned into not-able-to-breathe-from-my-nostrils-eyes-constantly-watering allergies. I even wondered whether I had some kind of sinus infection. I was miserable Thursday for Bart's Kindergarten field trip to Parker's Strawberry Farm. It didn't stop me from helping pick nine pounds of strawberries, though. After strawberry-picking and strawberry lemonade sampling, the children loaded back on their activity bus and we followed them to Fort Totten Park for lunch. Bart introduced Drake to the play fort there, which consists of a lot of steps and a lot of slides. But Drake was fearless. He climbed right up the stairs and would've gone headfirst down the big slides if his big brother hadn't been right there to hold his hand. Bart took him down the slide every time Drake wanted to go, which was a lot.
On Friday, the children had a half-day. George was not feeling well, either, and stayed home. I held an open house for Charmed Moments jewelry company that evening. I had been introduced to Charmed Moments back in March, when Skylar and I attended Mindy's open house. We fell in love with the jewelry, and I agreed to become a consultant, since the nearest consultant is in Fremont. I had a good turnout for my Kick-Off open house. I made Skylar's favorite Strawberry Margarita cake which came out quite well. Usually, I just make it as a sheet cake, but I decided to try making a 3-inch layer and halving it before icing and decorating it. However, my first layer didn't rise enough to cut it in half, so I had to try again. Well, same thing with the second layer. I'd never had a cake just not rise before. So, I leveled the two cakes, layered them, and iced them. I used fresh strawberries and lime slices to decorate. It really looked very pretty, and tasted good, too, although my sense of smell was completely dulled from my allergies (I couldn't taste a thing while I was cooking the party food, so I had to rely on George to tell me how much seasonings, etc. to put in). Skylar and Bart went to Kory & Chris' house to spend the night after the open house, and George picked them up in the morning. Once again, I had a Young Women's function to attend.
Later that afternoon, as the children and I were out for a walk on Plantation Drive, we came across a tiny turtle on the road. Originally, we were only taking it home with us to let it loose in the backyard, but somehow, George ended up taking the children out to buy an aquarium and turtle food. Skylar and Bart had the most fun playing with their new pet. They named him "Tuck the Great". A few weeks earlier, Skylar had found an almost identical turtle right outside the front door at BDQ. Well, we ended up letting him loose at a pond near our friends', the Nicolaysens, house. That turtle was named "Tuck", after the little turtle on the Wonder Pets cartoon. That evening, we attended a church social/pig-picking and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The big kids were afraid to leave Tuck the Great at home by himself, and begged to take him with us.
Sunday, the older two children and I did some research on turtles online. We found out that Tuck the Great is a River Cooter. We also found out that he is probably going to be pooping a lot, which means a lot of cleaning of his aquarium. We are going to have to get a filter and pump. We cleaned his domicile out on Monday evening for Family Home Evening, and it was already starting to stink by the next afternoon.
On Tuesday, Bart once again did very well at karate. The class had sparring practice. Bart won a lot of his matches, but the best part was that he is starting to get more confident and use more kicks (and correctly) instead of his old stand-by, the jab to the head. Perhaps it's because he has been drinking his milk. Guess who else has also been drinking his milk? Skylar, too, has a mustache, although she used dry erase marker rather than milk.
Yesterday, I had Young Women's, Skylar had dance, and George had a business dinner to go to. So, George's dad came to pick up Skylar from dance and watch the boys for us.
This morning, I took Drake to play with some other kids his age at an activity called Fit and Fun at the West New Bern Rec Center. Several people had suggested to me that I take Drake, but I just had never been motivated. My friend, Rachel, invited us to come with her and her son, and we also invited a mutual friend, Phyllis, and her youngest son. While there, we saw several other people we knew, and we all ended up outside at Kidsville, which is a great playground right beside the Rec. It's like a huge castle/fort/maze thing, made of wood. There are all these bridges and nooks and crannies for the kids to explore and hide in. Drake had so much fun it was hard to get him to leave, even though his cheeks were flushed and he was sweating. My mother arrived for a visit just before his nap.
After the big kids got off the school bus, we loaded them all up and headed downtown. Skylar and Bart had their hearts set on painting something special for George for his birthday (May 2), at the Accidental Artist. The Accidental Artist is a great art studio downtown which is tailored to kids and adults alike (however, the clumsy and accident-prone should beware, as it's chock full of breakable ceramic items). You pay a studio fee per person painting ($6 each for kids under 12, $8 each for adults) and then purchase your choice of ceramic item to paint. Paints, instruction if needed, glazing, and firing are all included in the studio fee. The items to paint range from tiny horseshoes and chili peppers to put on magnets or to embellish plates and bowls, to napkin holders, toothbrush holders, teapots, lamps, switchplates - you name it. After much debate and some tears on Bart's part, we decided on a plate and three little ceramic figures to glue to it. The plate was $10 and each little figure was either $2 or $3. The children helped pick out colors (NC State red, black, and white were a given). Skylar painted a chili pepper to glue onto the plate. Bart chose - big surprise - a horse's head, and we selected a tiny airplane to represent Drake. We painted each child's name beside their special figure. Skylar and Bart did almost all the painting themselves. One of the workers and I only helped to print the words in white puffy paint, since it was kind of hard to squeeze the paint out evenly. Drake helped out by allowing my mom to stroll him around the block and staying out of our hair in a room full of objects he was just itching to grab.









So a couple of hours and $26 later, this is what we ended up with:



It's definitely the most expensive plate I've ever bought, but probably the most memorable one. After it's glazed and fired, the colors will be much more vibrant.




We ended the evening with what is probably what dinner is like in hell. I can't recall having such a horrible dining-out experience. We walked to the next street over, Middle Street, to find a restaurant. There are tons of good restaurants in downtown New Bern. As a matter of fact, we passed one, Captain Ratty's, but opted to try out MJ's instead, since none of us had never been there. Well, that was a huge mistake. I should have known to turn around and go back to Captain Ratty's as soon as I realized that people were rudely staring at us out the restaurant windows as we studied the menu taped to the window. But we proceeded to go inside and be seated, anyway. MJ's is a pretty small restaurant, and it was fairly crowded, but not jam-packed. We didn't have to wait to be seated, and the food descriptions on the menu sounded really good. My mom and I both ordered combination plates of fried shrimp, oysters, and scallops, $9.99 each. Bart ordered the kids' fried shrimp meal, which was about $4.75 or so. Skylar ordered a Mellow Mushroom sandwich, which we took to be akin to a cheesesteak or something, made from Angus beef, mushrooms, and melted cheese, over $7, but not a big deal, since she can really eat when she's hungry. For Drake, we ordered the mac n' cheese bites battered and fried which came with french fries and applesauce, also in the $4 range. Everything sounded really good, our waitress was really friendly. But Drake proceeded to freak out as soon as I tried to put him in his high chair. And when I tried to give him his water (from a big-boy styrofoam cup with straw and lid, no less!). And he freaked out when I tried to get him to sit down on the seat between Bart and me. And when I tried to engage him in coloring and playing with his cars. In fact, Drake pretty much freaked out the whole time. When he wasn't actually crying or shrieking, he was squealing very loudly. He has never been such a handful in public - ever. It was awful. It was like he was super-hyper or something. I wanted to tape his mouth shut and glue his butt to the seat so I could eat my meal. Well, apparently, on this particular night, the restaurant was full of rude old farts who were too old or senile to remember what it's like to have a tired, hungry toddler who doesn't want to sit down. We got stares, angry looks, and one woman even had the nerve to give me a dirty look and mutter something rude to my mother as she passed by - I did not hear it, although Skylar and my mom realized that she had said something rude. Let me tell you, I wish I had heard her. I absolutely cannot tolerate rude, ill-bred, ill-mannered behavior. So...
I was really in a bad mood by then. Then the man in the corner kept staring at me. I mean, really staring, not looking away, and not in a friendly manner, like he wanted to catch my eye. No. Just staring. Openly and rudely. So I just stared back at him when I caught him looking. And said loudly that if anyone had a problem with my child, I would be happy to pinch him so he could cry a little louder. Honestly, I was just trying to get him fed and eat my own dinner. And on top of everything, it wasn't as though this was some fancy-schmancy eatery. For Heaven's sake, the Olive Garden is fancier than this place, and I've never had a problem taking my kids to the Olive Garden.
Now, to get to the food...I thought, well, rude people, cramped restaurant, but the food surely had to be good. It smelled delicious, it sounded delicious on the menu, it wasn't terribly cheap. Imagine my surprise when the waitress brought out our plates. I had - LITERALLY - three shrimp (not even jumbo shrimp), three oysters, and four scallops (they must have liked me since my mom only got three scallops on her plate). Nine pieces of seafood, not jumbo, not huge, just normal-sized seafood. Bart's kids' plate consisted of five tiny fried shrimp, which he ate in about a minute and a half and moved on to grazing from my plate - as if I had enough for even myself. Poor Skylar had to wait until we were almost done with our food until hers even came out of the kitchen. When it did, she didn't even eat half of it, it was so disgusting. And she is not a picky eater by any means. She will eat a soggy, left-over cookie that Drake has been clutching in his sticky little hand if she's hungry enough. But she wouldn't even touch the rest of her meal. That's pretty bad. Of course, the true test would have been if George was with us. If he had refused to eat Skylar's meal, then we would have known it was horrendous. George is part goat, I'm convinced. He will eat anything. Anything. He has been known to eat chicken that has been left out all night. He has a stomach like a tank.
Well, by this time. I had to take Drake outside. He was just not eating, and he was inconsolable. He must have sensed the unwelcoming vibes from the restaurant, because after a few minutes of shrieking, he was content to sit on my lap on a bench right outside the door, but he protested vigorously to going back inside until I mentioned going back in to get the stroller and going bye-bye. Eventually, I took him back in. I still had half my meal left - four whole pieces of seafood - and I was hungry. Well, it was just pointless to even try to finish. I felt sorry for our waitress because she was so friendly and polite. I refused to give her a hard time about the food because I knew that she couldn't do anything about the pathetic portion sizes and the molasses-speed of the cooks in the kitchen. I've worked in enough restaurants over the years to know what a waitress has no control over. Besides, my boys were being so loud that I just wanted to leave as quickly as possible and never come back again.
To complicate things, Bart dropped his new toy from Nana (a clip-on ID badge, you know the kind that pulls out on a little string and snaps back in), between our booth and the one behind us, and try as we might, we could not reach it without moving the huge benches. Never mind that I had warned him numerous times to put it away and to stop snapping it. So that was a tragedy in itself - he howled all the way back to the car. I was thoroughly sick and tired of everyone by the time we got home. And it didn't help matters that I had totally and completely forgotten to pick something up on the way home for George to eat. I felt so bad to have forgotten him, but I really just wanted to get home, send the kids to bed, and possibly die.
I felt really bad, too, that my mom had treated us all to dinner - not a very inexpensive dinner, either - and it absolutely 100% sucked. Even the Pepsis were horrible and watered-down. I felt bad enough that I called and spoke to the restaurant's manager to see if it was typical to pay basically $1 for each piece of seafood on a combo platter. It was. She offered us free dessert the next time we came in for dinner. I left my name, but I have no plans on returning to MJ's. Ever. And I plan on discouraging everyone I know from ever going there. It was absolutely unacceptable. It really made me wonder whether the rent on the exclusive downtown commercial space is so astronomical that the management is forced to drastically cut portion sizes to make up the difference. Maybe the drawbridge being closed really is hurting the downtown businesses. But somehow, I'm pretty sure if we'd just gone to Captain Ratty's up the street instead, we would have had a much more positive dining experience. Maybe it was just a bad night at MJ's. I won't be going back to find out, though.
And while I'm on this rant, I just wanted to ask what on earth is wrong with people these days (or maybe it's just in New Bern???) that they will give young mothers dirty looks when they take their children into dining establishments other than McDonalds? This has happened to me on another recent occasion, this time at Carolina Bagel, which I love. They have awesome bagels and cream cheeses and to-die-for quiche. But two friends and I found that we were decidedly unwelcome with our children during lunchtime. Not that anyone pointedly told us we were obnoxious, but it was implied in the attitude of our waitress and a neighboring waitress, as well as another customer who was gossiping with yet another waitress (none too kindly) that apparently it was "kid's day out". I have also never had a waitress give orders to my children before - such as holding Bart's food from him until he sat back down in his seat. Sorry, lady, but I give the orders when it comes to my kids. And while I'm paying for that food, you'll give it to him even if he's standing on his head, juggling the salt and pepper shakers. Come on. Let's be real here. No one appreciates some other (non-related!) adult telling your child he can't eat until he sits down - that's my job, thank you, and I've earned it!! What happened to service with a smile - a polite smile, at that - not one through clenched teeth that clearly implies if she had her way, she would ask me to leave and take my undisciplined brats with me? Unacceptable. Has anyone else experienced something similar to this? I know when I am in a restaurant and I notice that someone's kids are being a little rowdy and boisterous, I generally try to just ignore the noise. After all, there isn't a single one of us that wasn't a rowdy, boisterous kid at some point in our lives. And most of us have been in the position of desperately trying to calm an upset child down in a public place so as not to disturb others around us. Let's just all try to be a little more understanding. Instead of being put out and giving the offending party nasty looks and snide remarks, let's try to remember how it feels to be a parent of young children, OK?
All right, I guess I'm done ranting. Like I said before, though, I just cannot abide people are blatantly rude to others. I'm done for now. Really.