the pizza lady give it . . . and take it away

It has been a long week in swine flu land. To celebrate being healthy, and our last night of having Jonathan home for supper, we decided to eat at "the special blue awning pizza restaurant," also known as Mamma Palma's. Gus loves Mamma Palma's and Mamma Palma (or maybe her daughter) loves Gus. He is always so well behaved there. And though we have not even taken Theo there a handful of times, he has the place figured out, too. As soon as we sat down he piped in "I want pizza. Pizza. Pizza. Pizza."

Tonight we were seated just after a party of 9: four kids and two parents and another set of parents with one kid. As you might guess, they were very loud. As Mama Palma was seating us, Gus said to her "Those kids are so loud." She agreed with him, cooed over Theo's eyes, and left us at our table.

We ordered our food, tried to talk to the boys, but the party of nine was getting louder and louder. It was obvious that Mama Palma was not happy with them. She kept going "SHHHHHHHHH. SHHHHHHHHH." But they were so loud, and farther away from her than we were so I do not think they heard her. All of a sudden Gus turns around and yells to Mama Palma, "Why are those kids so loud?" And she yells back, "Because they are obnoxious!" My jaw dropped opened and Mama Palma gave a big shrug as if to say, "you know it's true." Then she brought out the polenta bread we ordered and told us it was on the house because our kids are so good. Go boys! Way to earn some free food.

But that is when the trouble started. Theo, was not impressed with polenta bread and started whining "I want pizza. Pizza. Pizza. Pizza." We tried to explain that the pizza was in the oven and would be out soon. Then our salad came out, which escalated the volume of his screaming for pizza. I picked Theo up to show him the brick oven and explained that his pizza was still in there. He was not satisfied and continued to whine and cry and refused to eat any salad or bread, or goldfish.

Finally our pizza came out, but it wasn't double sliced so I asked the server if she would take it back for slicing, totally forgetting someone had been singing a chorus of "Pizza, pizza, pizza." Theo started screeching and crying and when our pizza returned a minute later he pushed away the piece I quickly gave him. He was spitting mad and Mama Palma was staring at us. So I scooped up Theo and took him out of the restaurant, and he screamed even louder. The people eating outside were now looking not so happy. I did not know what to do. I had never had to remove a screaming kid from a restaurant before.

Luckily, in a way, Theo took matters into his own hands and kicked his way out of my arms and then marched right back into the restaurant still crying but becoming more composed with each step. He let me put him back in his chair, and he then ate the bottom two-thirds (he has a very broad idea of what constitutes crust) of four pieces of pizza. After he took his last bite Theo put down the upper third of the pizza and demanded "Home. I home. Home. Home. Now. Home. . ." until Gus finished and we payed the bill.

A little preview of the tyrannical twos? Yikes!