Nuts, Butts and Biscuits

Yesterday. Was. Great.

Yesterday should've been Mother's Day, because it was Hallmark perfect.

Got up, showered, dressed (in shorts that seemed looser! Thanks, Curves!) Took Quinn and Lillian to their soccer games (1 win, 1 tie, 1 loss). There was a great breeze. The sun was shining. It was just the kind of day that you expect perfection everywhere you turn.

The soccer games ended. I made it back up the big hill after soccer without getting out of breath. Awesome. Took Quinn and Lillian home to change. Told all the kiddos to get in the car. Aiden chose Cracker Barrel for brunch. I love that kid.

Blessed biscuits, Batman - we (a party of 5! On a Saturday!) were seated immediately at Cracker Barrel. Um, hello?!? This never happens. Made me wonder if they were out of eggs or.... everything.

I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of taking 4 children to Cracker Barrel. It's not as easy as you might think. It's like negotiating world peace. I need to take Jimmy Carter with me next time I go. Really. It's breakfast, but it takes skills to make all my kids happy at the Barrel of Crackers. Because...

I have one that wants the blackberry pancakes, except she wants GRITS with that. Side order of grits added is like, $45.50 or something. Outrageous. It makes more sense to get grits with something than order them on the side, so that's where it gets tricky..

I personally have to order a breakfast with grits so that Miss Blackberry Pancakes gets her extra side of starch (add cheese for $.90, please!) 'Sokay, 'cause I'm not big on grits. I know. Shoot me.

But there are like 37 different breakfast combo plates at Cracker Barrel, and they seem to all be named after family members. Uncle Herschel, Grandpa, Momma, etc. I can't keep them all straight. So while the kids are all peppering me with questions, I'm trying to figure out which family member's breakfast I want. And it has to have grits, and enough food left on the plate so that without the grits I still feel like I've eaten something.

Then I have another kid who thinks he can eat like a 40 year-old truck driver. Breaker 1-9, breaker 1-9, he wants country fried steak with his breakfast. So I have to begin the "Do you know what deep fried red meat will do to your 9 year-old arteries, son?" song and dance. "Remember those chicken nuggets we found in the floorboard of the van that time? Like, weeks and weeks after they'd left the fryer at McDonald's? Remember that they were so hard you could throw them at passing cars and leave dents? Yeah. That's your arteries on country fried steak." He relented and ordered the turkey sausage instead. Not great, but better than the alternative. And he wants grits, too. And apples, but please no hash brown casserole. Because potatoes and cheese... that can't be good, right? (I seriously don't know how I failed him in that department, poor child.) So, I have to find a breakfast with grits and apples but no potatoes. Aunt Peggy? Is that you?

Then there are the youngest two of my brood. They each want pancakes and eggs. This is where I have issues with Cracker Barrel. On their kids' menu they offer either pancakes (no sides) OR one egg with one biscuit (no sides). What happens when you have children that want some protein with their short stack, or just want more than one single egg? You have to perform a pantomime and hope that the waitress catches on, can read lips or speak Mandarin. You see, I want to order the Momma's Pancake breakfast off of the adult menu, because it comes with 3 pancakes, 3 slices of bacon and two eggs (one scrambled, one over medium. I think that must throw the fry cook into all sorts of fits. Bipolar eggs. CAN'T SHE MAKE UP HER MIND?) When the food arrives I give 1.5 pancakes and 1.5 slices of bacon and one scrambled egg to one child, then put one over medium egg on the other plate with the leftover pancakes and bacon. And I have to do it FAST while the kids are distracted by that golf tee game, because heaven forbid they think they're actually SHARING a MEAL. They CANNOT hear me say to the waitress, "These two are going to SPLIT THAT." No dice, man. They have to believe that they each ordered and received things that were prepared separately and just for them. Teeny tiny breakfast narcissists.

(Scrolling back up now to see where I was actually going with this post. I got wrapped up in Breakfast Negotiations 2010.)

Anyhow, I say all that to tell you that breakfast ordering, and in fact, consumption, went very peacefully yesterday morning. Like, almost too peacefully. Like, I expected Keanu was tampering with the Matrix or something. It was that good.

And when kids are good, don't we feel all proud and happy? And don't they just know that when they are well behaved we're going to be more likely to say, "Yes, you can waste $5 on a cheap toy because I love you so much and you're so perfect and you ate all your pancakes? Please let me buy you a very loud clicky toy or a hatching dinosaur egg that I will most likely throw away in 6 weeks?"

So that is where I'm going with this.

Quinn chose a hatching dinosaur egg. In the car on the way home he pretended to be the momma dinosaur sitting on the egg. He'd put it between his legs, squawk like a pterodactyl and then move his legs so we could see his egg. Well, I couldn't see it, because I was driving. Which reminds me of a pet peeve of mine: TV show characters that turn toward their passenger and look at them for 5 minutes at a time when they're supposed to be looking AT THE ROAD.

But I digress.

Back to the momma bird.

Quinn said, "You know where penguins keep their eggs?"

(No, I cannot believe I'm going to type his answer here, but I am. Because it's funny. And you'll crack up. Get it? CRACK UP? Like the egg?)

Quinn says, "Between their NUTS and their BUTTS!"

Oh, my. I tried to set him straight, but that led to questions whose answers I was ill prepared for. I bungled the whole thing, and now my 7 year-old thinks pregnant women and animals carrying eggs can't go poop or pee while they're swollen with child.

It doesn't end there, though.

Last night on the way to church I recounted the whole conversation to my husband. And we had to rehash the whole anatomy discussion, and somehow the following phrase came out of Lillian's mouth:

"Girls don't have round nuts. We have flat nuts."

And that, my friends, was Saturday.