So I’m at work, and just coming out of a Dilbert-like meeting, I call home to see how the wife is, see if my sister made it, and perhaps get a chance to talk to my 4-year old niece. Apparently my niece was in time-out because she tried to lift the baby out of the crib by his suspenders to “give him a kiss.” Her mom saw through the ruse, but was willing to fore go the rest of her punishment and let her speak to me on the phone.
In short, the conversation was brief. I asked what she had been doing all day. “Nothing.” While I can relate how this response must have driven my own parents nuts, I figured she wasn’t dating boys yet so I didn’t press the matter. “Are you hungry?” “Yes.” “Do you want to go out to eat, or stay in?” “Go out.” “That sounds nice; I’ve had a bad day, can you give me a reason to be happy?” There was a thoughtful pause on the other end of the line. She replied “I love you?”
And so it was, I finished up work and headed home to join the family for a quiet dinner out. Obviously that didn’t happen, because if it did, I’d have no reason to share my date with you on Live Journal.
I say date because that’s exactly what it was. The moment I got home, I didn’t even have time to get my jacket off as my wife and sister announced they were ordering out and intended to stay home. I however, was about to have dinner with a 4 year old. And, I had to be back by the 7:30pm curfew, and no funny business. Honestly, they could have left that last part out; it gave me the creeps.
By the time we established that chicken wasn’t desired, we ended up with burgers. Not just any burgers, my wife sends me off to Red Robin.
Now between McDonald’s and Red Robin, I’d rather have real beef. Explain this to a 4 year old. Turns out, I didn’t have to when I said there were balloons there and when you walked in the door you could “stand on a TV” which was embedded in the floor. Red Robin won.
We got there and she stomped and spun on the television while I tried to get us a table. Then before we ate she was sweet-talking the manager into giving her a balloon. She was trying to work out a deal for the second one when our table was ready.
I have a word of advice to parents everywhere: don’t let the kids order. They’ll outsmart you.
I ordered a typical burger, and asked her what she wanted. She didn’t address me, she addressed the waitress: “I’d like chocolate milk, a salad with white ranch dressing please, a burger with no cheese, ketchup, and pickles.”
Impressive. My niece was coloring her place mat and didn’t even take the time to make eye contact during the order. The waitress and I exchanged looks. “That come in kid sizes?” I asked. The waitress nodded and took off.
Now let me also explain that when Red Robin looked up the definition of ‘kid’ they must have gotten the definition for ‘small goat’ because I tell you I couldn’t have finished that salad if I had tried. I think it cost more than my burger.
Moments later the meal arrived. After dunking two 2″ square size pieces of green lettuce in the white ranch dressing, my niece pushed aside the salad, moved the dressing to her fry tray, and started dipping them. Yes, that was an expensive ounce of salad dressing, so I was intent on letting her eat as much of that as she wanted.
Until she decided to stop using the fries altogether and started dipping her fingers in one by one.
Apparently when you stop one fun activity, it gets replaced with another. Little did I know.
“Uncle Walt?”
“Yes?” I sputtered as I was just now trying to get the first bite of my burger that was rapidly cooling.
“I have to pee.”
I now found myself in a position that, with no mom, was awkward to say the least. Our food was rapidly cooling. I didn’t trust to send her into the women’s bathroom all alone for fear she might take just as long as a grown one and not be coaxed out easily. So, I resorted to taking her to the men’s room… where, when I cracked the door, was the gnarliest guy you ever saw using the urinal.
Not wanting to expose her to him, or worse, him to her, I told her to close her eyes and I led her into the stall blind-man-bluff style.
Bet you didn’t know that they don’t make toilet seats kid-level. Bet you also didn’t know that when men miss the seat in a public place, they don’t clean up after themselves. (Laugh if you want, but I hear women are worse at this offense.)
So, I’m now cleaning up some strangers urine in a small sealed stall that barely has room for one person. I grab the paper protector and put it on the seat — my niece inquires if that was to “make it warm for her baby bum.” This is NOT the kind of play-by-play out-of-context you want overheard by biker-dude one urinal over. I’m sure we made someone’s dinner conversation topic.
Luckily washing our hands wasn’t as big of a production as it could have been. We made it back in time for the food to be tepid.
At that point my niece decides to thrust her WHOLE HAND in the salad dressing making a five-pronged udder of ranch flavor.
Enough.
I broke down and did what any nerve-wracked adult would do. I resorted to bribery.
“If you be good -and- finish your hamburger, we’ll get a cookie on the way home.”
It worked. Instantly the angel in her came out. She finished her whole burger without fuss, she sat up straight, she paid attention, we talked.
As we were leaving, she informed me I owed her a cookie.
Since the best cookies in town are baked by Michele who works at the local hotel, we swung in to say hi …only to find Michele wasn’t on duty. I explained we had to go home, and my niece said she didn’t want to — she then sweet talked the manager into a cookie with pleases and thank yous.
Cookie in hand we got back in the car, where she made the announcement that I would have to brush her teeth tonight. “Why?” I asked. “Because mommy does it. She’ll look in my mouth and see the cookie in my tummy. You _have_ to so she won’t see.”
It was supposed to be our little secret, but mommy insisted on brushing her teeth the moment we got home. To my niece’s surprise, mommy did not see the cookie. Only that left us with another problem.
Before going to bed, mom sent her into the bathroom to do #2. She called for me through the door. “What?” I asked. “Come here, I have to talk to you.” So, I listened at the door. You see, she had _promised_ that I could brush her teeth, and now that wasn’t going to happen. So, instead, I would get to wipe her bottom.
Ironic. That perfectly sums up the meeting I had just had at work.
So, I sat with her, and finally decided to bail when she had sunken in the toilet so deep it was forming a red-ring around her behind. She reached over, folded up some toilet paper into a nice square and proudly handed it to me.
At this point, I’m standing over her waiting for her to get up. She’s stuck and is working her way out. The only problem is that at that exact moment I felt a sneeze coming on. A strong one.
Quickly looking in desperation, I didn’t see any tissues on the shelf above her. The sink was void. I couldn’t get to the tissue roll and pull off a handful in time to make the sneeze.
And then, that’s when the sneeze decided to arrive. I was out of time. Aaahhhh Choooo!!! And the nastiest, wettest sneeze came out right in the middle of the toilet paper she had just handed me, the only source of tissue substitute I had.
My niece looked up at me with the most horrific shock. You know exactly what she was thinking: “You are NOT going to apply THAT to my ass! What the hell are we going to do NOW?”
The look on her face as she was wondering why I was lubing up her tissue and reconsidering whether or not I was the right candidate for this job, I started laughing.
I couldn’t help it. I had no where to put the tissue. She was still stuck, and in moving closer to the trash can, she must of thought I was coming closer to her to finish her request. “Nooo!!! We need another one!”
By this time my own tears had subsided and I just decided to go along with it. “Are you sure? This one’s so soft.”
“No! I want a new one.”
“I don’t know if I can sneeze again.”
“No. I mean we need a CLEAN one.”
“Why? You’re just going to make it dirty again.” That comment actually caused pause for consideration, but she quickly recovered.
Eventually we got things straightened out through communication; something that would have been nice to have happen at work.