We Four Olsons: Well That Was A Cute Thought.

I had this adorable idea. On Asher's last day of school, we would go out for breakfast. He loves pancakes. He loves having four choices of syrup. He loves ordering food and chit chatting with the waitress. Such a good idea! I thought to myself as we drove to IHOP, singing along to Raffi, talking about what toppings we were going to get on our pancakes.

Here's the thing about being the parent of a 3-year old. Much less a 3-year old who is emotionally slingshotting due to move anxiety. All of those "adorable ideas" are much more likely to blow up in your pancake eating face than be the super cute lifelong memory you were hoping for.

It started innocently enough. The waitress brought crayons and paper, and once we had been waiting four minutes for our food (which was three minutes too long in Asher's book) he decided the paper was boring and wanted to color the syrup bottles instead. When I said no he asked, "Color this?" and put the crayons on the seat. "No, do not color the seat." "Color this?" and put the crayons on the wall. "No, do not color the wall." "Color this?" and put the crayons on Sullivan's pants. "No, do not color your brother." After inquiring about fifty places to color other than the paper, Asher very calmly looked at me and slowly snapped each of the crayons in half, dropping the pieces on the table in front of me. He then started spinning his juice cup around as fast as he could. When that was met with immediate condemnation he removed the straw and started spitting juice through it. At me. When that was shut down, he picked up the butter pecan syrup and was just about to pour it into my purse when the waitress showed up with his pancakes.

Then the light switch flipped and Asher became a total delight. "Oh mommy, these are deeeeelicious, thank you!" he kept repeating as he chomped down on pancakes. Finally, a happy moment, THIS is what I wanted! So I decided to try to take a picture of Sullivan, Asher, and I at our last breakfast together in Albuquerque. Fail. Because as soon as Sullivan realized he was near Asher, he went into attack mode and tried to eat Asher's arm. Then saw he had pancakes and wanted to eat those. Interestingly, he only got jabbed with a fork when he went for the pancakes. Apparently Asher is much less concerned about his own bodily well-being than he is about the preservation of his pancakes. To each his own.

Once Asher had eaten all the blueberries off the top of his pancakes, he spiraled into a pit of despair. "My bluuuuuueberrrrrrrrrries!!! Where did they goooooooo????" I asked the waitress for a box and finished my third cup of fully caffeinated coffee (Heart, I apologize, I will give you an extra dose of beta blocker today to help you relax, but it was necessary). Asher realized he wasn't getting more blueberries and started messing around with his juice again. I was only half paying attention to him as Sullivan was on my lap pawing at the box of leftovers as I shoveled what was left of my omelette and Asher's cakers into the container... when BLEGH. I looked down at my lap and saw half digested pancake on my pants. I looked at Asher whose eyes were slowly welling up with tears, his juice cup in his hands, straw bent where he had shoved it too far down his throat and gagged on it, covered in pancake puke. "Mommy, I puuuuuked!". I looked at him, covered in blueberry pancake puke. At me, covered in blueberry pancake puke. And out loud said, "Yep, sounds about right."

Happy family photo? Heeeeck no.