Moms versus Kids

In the hard-fought battle of mom versus kids, the kids most always win. They have sheer numbers on their side. Plus, a knack for modern technology that we'll never have. And a natural lack of modesty. We're just no match, no matter what we do.

Still, I wake up each day ready to fight again. I never think I'm going to lose, but go to bed each night out run and out smarted. But, I never learn.

Last week, my friend Jen was down in Ocean City with her four kids. After a weekend family get together while the husbands were around, we decided to try it again: seven kids and two moms.

We met at Jen's house, packed lunches, gathered our beach gear, sprayed the kids down with sun screen, loaded our beach bags to the brim and marched the kids to the beach. It was quite an effort to get to the beach, as it always is with kids, but once we got there, the kids had a great time and entertained each other. I actually sat on my beach chair for a full 10 minutes, a never before achieved feat! We made a good team, as we switched off playing lifeguard to the older children playing in the surf and playing watch dog to the young-uns, apt to throw sand at passers by.

The day went swimmingly, and we congratulated ourselves as we left the beach. Not only had we survived, the kids were happy, no one was bleeding, neither of us had had to yell. That's what I call a good day.

So, we kept going. We put the babies down for a nap and let the good times continue with a dip in the pool. The older kids swam all afternoon, stopping now and then for a snack or for a rest in the sun. Again, the kids were happy, no one was bleeding, and still, no yelling.

So, we kept going. The kids were tired, they'd been together all day and it was dinner time. What would any mother with seven kids in her care do? Why, take them to a restaurant, of course!

Most restaurants in Ocean City are very family friend. We choose Uncle Bill's down on 40th Street. I hesitate to give too many details about the restaurant, since I'm not sure that they are still in business after being pelted with the kid storm that we brought in with us.

Jen and I will probably always refer to this as the Ocean City Restaurant Incident of 2009. No one was bad, really, but put seven kids and two moms in a restaurant together, and it is unlikely that anyone will leave unscathed. Two kids spilled their milk, so the floor was soon wet with puddles of chocolate and plain milk, with soggy dinner napkins in the middle of each spill, an unsuccessful attempt to clean up our clumsiness. Four of the kids talked nonstop about different topics interesting only to boys between the ages of 4 and 9. I won't get into details here. If you've ever talked to a 7-year-old boy, you know. Plates were passed back and forth. Straws were traded. They stood up, they sat down. The laughed and laughed. Charlotte screamed to get out of her high chair, so I spent the majority of the meal standing up with her on my hip, eating my hamburger with my free hand.

We attracted some attention from the restaurant hostess. Following our second milk spill and Charlotte's melt down, she can over to see if everything was okay. We smiled and apologized for the mess and the noise. We were doing the best we could. Her eyes quietly scanned our table and her lips pursed into a tight circle. "Oh," she quietly said, and backed away from the table.

It got much worse. Much worse. I'll leave it to your imagination. The restaurant was practically empty, but our waitress was suddenly busy. Very busy. She raced back and forth between the kitchen and her two other tables. I think she was trying to disassociate herself from our table. Maybe she was hoping that we'd pull a "dine and dash." After waiting for 15 minutes for our check, we thought about it. I think they would have let us go without much of a chase if we promised never to come back.

Jen is a very talented photographer and we wanted to follow up our restaurant adventure with a trip to Corson's Inlet to take some photos of the kids. The plan was for her to photograph my kids while I watched hers. We took our clean, fed, happy children to the beach. I expected mine to smile for the camera. I expected hers to sit with me as I kept them engaged with a rousing game of Simon Says.

Needless to say, we left the beach an hour later with seven wet and sandy children. Exhausted, we cleaned them up and got them into their respective cars. "What about dessert?" they questioned. They could have kept going. We were done. Jen got some lovely photos of Charlotte, including the one in this post. Next time, though, I'll rent some models to stand in for my older children.

The day didn't go quite as I expected, but the kids were happy, no one was bleeding, neither of us had to yell--much. I'd call that a good day. Still, I'd chalk up the day as a win for the kids, once again. Kids, 1. Moms, 0. But, a good day nonetheless. You can't win them all.