I was super excited to finally get to do one of the cute Chick Fil A mommy/son events with Jackson recently – it was a “date knight” event, and everything was so fun! The restaurant had all sorts of castle decorations, employees were dressed as jesters and knights and a variety of medieval characters. They also played up the “date night” element, and had flowers for the moms, tablecloths, wait staff to take orders, and the like. It was abso-freakin-lutely adorable.
And it was also a bit too much for Jackson… when he gets in an exciting, stimulating environment, he often has trouble with being patient and following directions (he gets very physically eager and active, and struggles with “sitting still”) – hence, we typically end up in a vicious pattern of antsy, squirmy J + “nononononono” robot mommy = super-frustrated duo. With this being a very seated event, and with so much going on, Jackson was getting antsy about 10 minutes in. A few minutes later, and some outright defiance, we had full-on-meltdown mode. I opted for the usual bathroom timeout, but what I didn’t factor in was the degree of the meltdown… his excitedness and overstimulation revved him up for a monster tantrum! Shame-faced, I carried my “date” thrashing and yelling through the restaurant and into a tiny bathroom stall, and proceeded to wait out the meltdown for a solid 30-45 mins (I lost track of time…..) of pure parenting hellspace. In retrospect, I probably should have wavered on my “we’re not leaving until you’re calm and quiet” rule and just completely left for embarrassing walk through the restaurant round 2. The event was already totally over for us anyway :|
Well, the 10 mins that were tantrum-free were fun… and here are the pics before the date turned disaster :)
Jackson with the knight cow…. no clue who this random kid is that jumped in our pic!
my little date :)
I guess not all dates turn out good!! Not sure if' we’ll be going on another anytime soon ;)
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