Houston, We Have a Problem...

A few months back I started a weekly ritual with Cole, Friday lunch out, just me and him. He has always LOVED eating out at restaurants and while his attention span for his first few years barely gave Dave and I a chance to actually savor a full meal (more like inhale it), it was nice for all of us to experience dining out on occasion. Now that Cole is old enough to sit and eat for at least most of his meal, it has become enjoyable to take him places. He still eats like a bird so I limit our lunches to places I know offer Mac-n-Cheese, Buttered Noodles or Grilled Cheese; in time I hope to branch out and expand beyond Perkins, Noodles and Co. and TGIFs.

So our Friday agenda typically is a relaxed morning, no rushing around trying to get out the door to beat the rush hour traffic on the way to Montessori. He knows that it is the start to his four day weekend (Mondays and Fridays he is home with me). We play, watch some Noggin, make cookies...then we head out to run errands. In the wintertime I can leave groceries in the car which is great because Minnesota is a meat locker from November-March. In the summertime, I plan errands differently, hitting Target or Byerleys after school instead and leaving none perishable errands to Friday mornings.

Okay, enough of the backstory. So today we found ourselves eating at Perkins. He knows the building as we pull off Route 7. Now some places offer 4 crayons with their kiddy placemat/menu, some a trio but at Perkins we sadly just get 2 in a packet (though we do get a big cookie with his meal which in my opinion makes up for the wimpy crayon offering). We place our orders and he has me open up the cellophane on the crayons.

I wait for him as we usually play "find the letter" on the "find a word" grid. He looks up at me with this tight lipped expression of annoyance and goes "we have a problem". I swear those words were spoken EXACTLY like an adult in tone/inflection. He proceeds to hold up the yellow crayon which shouldn't have passed quality control. The paper wrapping had adhered to high and was covering most of the point of the crayon. He looked at me as if to say "this is useless!". I hesitated at first because I didn't want to rip the paper from around the top if that was going to upset him and start a meltdown, so I asked him if he wanted me to fix it. He sighed (I swear) and said "ooookkkayy"...in a way that said "do I have a choice really?" So I tore at the paper and he happily began to color and write his name. I sat there still pondering his "we have a problem". Where do they learn this stuff? :-)