Swimming in Alphabet soup for Mothers Day

I've had one of the strangest days of my life. I figure another mommy would understand more than anyone else, so I leave you with my day.

It began before I even woke up with a dream. My husband and I were escaping Alcatraz and after much planning we decided to swim down thru the giant soup tubes that supplied (of course) alphabet soup to the kitchens.

When we got to the underground where the soup was made we went down more underground stairwells to the administrative and financial offices. There we dressed as business persons and impersonated our way thru the building that looked like a mall of offices.

It was at this point that I was awakened by my cats (not unusual) blasting thru the vertical blinds at an animal. They are always chasing cats who are outside by racing thru the house on the inside. Then I went to the window because of all the ruckus and there was an adult deer not 5 feet away at that point and coming to get nose to nose with the cat thru the window.

This woke up the baby (he's 20 months, still technically I call him a baby), and the husband. At that point I figured I had better take a photo for proof, and got one just in time before hubby went outside to scare the deer away... the deer thought this was quite amusing... hubby returned and went back out with a toy drum and pounded on it while chasing the deer from our food garden.
 

By 10AM I had decided that the early nap baby had chosen was on my wish list as well and we slept till about noon. Midday was moderately average, we baked zucchini bread and I cleaned the kitchen while the small one played with kitchen toys in his "stand next to mama" stool.

We decided that tonight was a good night to go out for dinner so we chose a nearby restaurant that has good chicken wings (which I still crave post pregnancy) and not much else, for a price that is too high for what they serve. But, it's close and it's Mothers Day and they have beer.

We arrived just as happy hour ended (because mama just had to print a Grupon first, insert irony here). The hostess asked us if a booth was okay and I was like, sure, why not. This involved the small childs first experience with a booster seat. This seat does not have a little belt, is narrower at the base than the top, is seated on a cushiony seat and the child could move around at will. The table was uncomfortably high (like, we laughed when we sat down it was so obvious) and the booth left no room to move. I felt like we were on some kind of blooper show.

Restraining active child with tippy seat, hostess brings out a full glass of water, with lid and straw for small child. Kids don't' need full... I'm going to start asking for half full... er, half empty would be better.
I had thought ahead (or maybe not) to wear a nicer outfit for dinner because after all, it was dinner before Mothers Day. This would have worked great with a high chair with a belt as I had expected. We did ask to be reseated, but... it was the dinner before Mothers Day...
This only brings to light the sheer logistic genius that mothers have to manage family life because on Mothers Day, it seems to all go to crap as mothers take (I know, not really) the day off. Noone else can manage like we can, it's not the same.

Throughout dinner husband sat on the other side of the table only witnessing with the seeming inability to assist in matters, as there was a giant table of food before him. And beer. I ate a couple wings, taught baby not to grab on mommies clothing, had some beer, fed a child, helped child floss his teeth with strings from the celery, avoided fingers, gave a cloth for the teething, kept the water away, used a napkin as a bib.... tried to keep his chair from tipping over with my elbow, kept him seated... left without dessert and most of my food in a doggy bag. When I got home... I looked at the lovely concoction that had been a rather nice hairstyle before we had left.

All in all... the day was pretty much like swimming in alphabet soup. I dare not ask what Alcatraz represented.