Trouble? Yes, please.

Sadie and I seem to have different definitions of the word "trouble."

We went out to eat tonight with Joe's whole team from work to celebrate being done (or almost done) with the project they have been working on.

It's always fun to be the only one with little kids along for dinner. That starts at 6:30. Which is when my children are usually in the bathtub. (Thankfully I had Sadie take a nap today, so there was a bit of hope we might make it through the meal without a complete meltdown.)

I fed them some snacks around 5:30 since the service around here at restaurants isn't exactly what I would call speedy. I knew they would be really hungry (which in turn means cranky) if I tried to have them make it until 7:00 or so to eat anything. Good thing, since their food didn't get to the table until 7:30 (and ours 15 or so minutes later). By some stroke of luck Sadie requested to sit in a high chair, which was fine with me in hopes having her strapped in would make the long dinner a bit easier. She did pretty well, reading books and coloring as we waited for the food.

During the course of waiting (and then through the eating too) Sadie felt it necessary to visit the bathroom at least 4 times, each time claiming to really need to go potty and then produce absolutely nothing when we got there. After the fourth time, she had had enough of the high chair and refused to sit down. She was just tired enough that I knew if I attempted to wrestle her into it she would scream very loudly - not exactly what I wanted with 7 other adults from Joe's work watching me. So I did the next best thing - threatened her.

"Do you want to be in trouble?" I said in my best stern whisper.

"Yes," she replied, a big smile on her face. "Trouble."

Lovely.

Not exactly sure what "trouble" was going to be, I picked her up and carted her off to the other side of the restuarant where there were a few chairs to sit in while you wait for a table. I had her sit on my lap, trying to simulate how she has to sit in a chair at home. However, all she did was look at me and grin.

I tried to give her the "Barb look" that my mom gave us when we were little that somehow scared us into submission. It didn't work. I need some lessons, Mom.

I moved on to giving her a slight pinch in the ribs, hoping to cause just enough discomfort that she would get the message that I was not happy. I obviously need a lesson in this technique as well, since all it accomplished with Sadie was causing fits of laughter.

So I gave up and resorted to a few minutes of tickling to hopefully put us both in a better mood and have her forget about the fact that she didn't want to sit in the high chair.

We headed back. I set her in the high chair pretending that the previous 5 minutes hadn't just happened and hoped she would just sit down and get back to her meal.

No dice.

All I got was one 3-year-old, slightly too big for the high chair, standing on the seat looking at me saying, "More trouble?" with a smile on her face.