The Skousen Family Goes Out to Eat

(I couldn't figure out a way to make the images bigger in this post, but please feel free to click on any of the pictures to make them bigger)

Abraham and Briar spent an entire Wednesday painting the house while I was at work and the kids were with babysitters. Abe didn't want the boys in the house touching the wet paint, so he proposed that we all go out for dinner so it could dry a little longer. It was getting late, so we decided to stay in town; Abe wanted something fattening, so we headed over to Arctic Circle.

I had a hankering for a good taco salad, but was a little taken back by the price. Six ninety nine for a fast food salad? When I could get a burger and fries for half that? But I decided to go ahead and indulge anyway and get the salad. Abe, of course, wanted a burger, and we got a meal for the boys to share.

Soren picked out a table and chose a seat.

Then he decided that, more than anything in the whole wide world, he wanted to sit where Liam was sitting. We pointed out that he could sit anywhere else in the whole restaurant, but that Liam's chair was Liam's.

So Soren threw a fit. This is pretty normal for him and it wasn't a HUGE fit, so we just tried to ignore it and get on with our dinner.

After a while he quieted down and moseyed over to me and climbed up next to me. I offered him some burger, but he declined.

Then he looked over the table at Liam. And apparently it looked to him like Liam was drinking HIS water. Oh, mortal sin!

And that's when Soren's soul left his body....

...and all hell broke loose.

Words cannot describe the sound that Soren makes when he has truly lost all his senses. Letters are inadequate to transcribe it. All I can say is that you need to image how a normal person might react were they to witness the brutal decapitation of a loved one. Then multiply that by five. It is a sound calculated to shatter eardrum and drive all within its range to madness.

That is the sound that next came out of Soren's body.

I tried to hold him and calm him down, but his wild body escaped my grasp. He kicked the tray on the table and my salad flew everywhere.

Horrified, enraged, and completely clueless as to the correct way to handle the situation, I gathered the child under my arm in a football hold and marched out of the restaurant. A nice family having dinner in the corner watched, mouths agape, while we exited.

The little girl of the family even pushed the decorative streamers in the window aside to watch and see what I did to Soren when we got out to the car. She must have been disappointed when all I did was lock him in and then slump against the door, defeated.

Abe brought Liam out to me to comfort while he cleaned our food off the floor of the restaurant. I cuddled him while Soren scrambled from door to door, still screaming like a rabid monkey. I wondered how much our insurance would pay toward a vasectomy.

After more screaming, thrashing, kicking, et al, we finally got the boys loaded up and began the drive back home. Abe was pissed. I just felt defeated and tired.

And then, from the backseat, it came.

Dear heavens.

Soren had just pushed the button to unleash all the fury of the angriest and most spiteful gods.

I held my breath.

And then, again, The scream. The Scream is about one million times worse in the confined space of a car. Liam began wailing too. I honestly began to fear for Soren's life.

I was finally able to persuade Abe that plugging his ears was much preferable to infanticide. We all arrived home whole. I uttered a little prayer of thanks when we pulled into the garage and whisked Soren off to his bedroom as quickly as I could, whispering to him that if he wanted to live another day, he mustn't show his face again that evening.

I think it will be a while before we try Arctic Circle again.