I am not sure if this is how your husband is, but let me explain what my time out with the family is like. I am the parent that is mostly with our children, since I stay at home, it only makes sense that I know how to react in certain situations where he is a bit more, out of it.It is that time, going out for dinner time…
We get to the lovely fast food dining establishment, AKA Portillo’s Hot Dogs and all is well. Now, my kids are naturally loud stems from our Italian family and, well, me. Kids are being kids, playing, shooting spit balls at each other, stacking salt and pepper shakers on top of each other until the table is cover in black and white specs and I am sitting there just laughing inside because I can see their joy in big accomplishments. Then I look over at my husband. He is usually very laid back and calm but I can see in his facial expressions that he was not so calm and laid back. He looks at me with that ‘look’ of death and says he is going to the van. I knew that it was because our lovely children were flinging straws filled with ice water at each other and accidentally got some on a woman at the next table who looked up as if something hit her from the ceiling. Of course, then my kids laugh because she had no idea where it came from, which made me laugh…I know, bad mom, I should have put my foot down and dragged them by their hair to the van, but they were just enjoying themselves so much I couldn’t tear them away from that. My husband then comes back in and asks for the keys, lol. Oops forgot to give those to him; they were in my pocket. Gave him the keys and he was gone for about 10 minutes and then came back.
Now really, the kids were playing, they were laughing, they weren’t yelling or fighting so I wasn’t the authoritative mother like I normally am. I let it slide. My husband just does not have any patience. People were not staring at us or complaining to the manager and we were not directly disturbing patrons. Do you get like this, impatient or embarrassed easily? Does your spouse get like that? I mean, I have my, I am in charge moments, but this time I just let the moment take over and I enjoyed seeing them enjoy themselves.
I seem to have just the opposite problem… Because I’m home with the kids 24/7, I seem to have LESS patience when we go out. I know I need to work on that!
I love how you were able to assess the situation, look around and see that no one else (except, perhaps, the woman who got the ice water on her — which, by the way, is hysterical to me when it’s someone else’s kids!) seemed to be bothered by your kids’ behavior.
My new goal is to only expect my 11 year old to act 11, my 9 year old to act 9, my 6 year old to act 6, and my 3 year old to act 3. Too often I put my kids in adult situations (such as eating out at a restaurant) and expect them to behave as ADULTS, rather than the children they are.
Thanks for reminding me to laugh and enjoy their antics — they’ll be grown up soon enough!
~Lisa
http://www.MyLittleRembrandt.com