Occasionally I find myself in a situation where things spiral out of control… really really quickly.

Today was one of those situations. Boy howdy was it one of those situations. 

Today was Harry Potter’s Thanksgiving school lunch.

It seemed like a good idea to go. He wanted us to be there, and I figured I could make it work… alone… with the two littles in tow… in a crowded school cafeteria.

Alone… you got the alone part, right?

Unlike me, you can probably see the potential pitfalls of the situation.

But I thought I was thinking ahead.

I figured there might be some issues with carrying to food, so I planned ahead and brought lunch (it’s a little bit funny that this is the ONLY issue I thought of in advance).

I went through the Chick Fil-A drive thru… like 50 other parents from Harry Potter’s school.

In order to make it through the drive through, find a place to park, and then check in, I knew we needed to leave about an hour before the lunch actually started. We made it with minutes to spare.

But… in order to get there on time, I had to wake the Princess up from a nap… oh and the drive thru… took FOREVER and a year.

By the time we got to school AsthmaMan and the Princess were a mess.

We checked in, located Harry Potter, and found a place to sit.

By this point, AsthmaMan and the Princess had had it. They’d been smelling Chick Fil-A for 45 minutes and hadn’t been offered any, they were tired, and it was LOUD and crazy in the cafeteria.

So they decided to do what they do best… fight.

Like for real.

AsthmaMan pushed the Princess HARD and then she grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his head down to the bench.

If you remember the BYU soccer player that was pulled to the ground by her ponytail a few years ago, this was pretty much what was happened… over and over again.

Meanwhile Harry Potter was getting more and more embarrassed because… well his siblings were beating each other up in front of his friends.

And he was agitated we were sitting at the “wrong” table.

Oh and he wanted to tell me about the game he’d played at recess, but I was too busy pulling AsthmaMan up off the floor where he was attempting to rescue a Chick fil-A sauce covered nugget (gross), so he understandably got frustrated with me.

20 minutes into the lunch from you know where, he politely hinted it was time for us to go.

He did not enjoy the Thanksgiving lunch in the slightest.

I did not enjoy the Thanksgiving lunch in the slightest.

When AsthmaMan attempted to run down the third grade corridor as I was trying to push him out the door, I didn’t even stop him. I was so angry, I figured third grade was probably the best place for him to go.

He eventually stopped running and screaming and followed me to the car.

It was a disaster.

One that we will NOT be repeating.

Next year, either Mr. Spreadsheets is taking time off work to attend, or he’s taking time off work to stay with the little two, cause they sure as heck are not invited again.

But back to the original subject, why in the world did I think this was going to be a good idea?

I blame it on the instagram photos of happy families sitting at Thanksgiving lunch together.

Clearly those photos are lies.

Upon closer inspection of the instagram photos, it looks like many of the families either included two parents, or most of the younger siblings were left home… yep that was my mistake- taking a rambunctious almost 4 year old, a 27 pound 18 month old, and attempting to have lunch on one of the busiest days of the year with my 6 year old… alone.

Seriously, such a bad plan.

But… on the bright side, I came home and had a delicious brownie after putting the two muchkins to bed… brownies make everything better.