Presenting

Jane, "presenting Mommy" (her words, not mine).

I don't know if you've met my children, but they're loud.

I mean loud.

I know every parent says their child(ren) is loud, but mine really, really are. They inherited my lack of volume control and boisterous nature. However, they did not inherit the companion antisocial-sit-in-the-back-of-the-room behavior. No, they got Lane's social-friendly-to-all nature.

These two extremes combined make it hard not to notice my children in public locations. Of course -- and this is coming from an unbiased bystander -- the kids are so cute, everyone already is staring at them.

So today, when I decided to take the $3 plunge for dinner at Costco (Lane's been at some gun training all day), you can imagine my chagrin when I had to take our dinner show to the only remaining table that was surrounded by the masses of folk trying to take a photo for the member ID (there was some run on membership today, I'm not lying).

Jane's new favorite thing is to gesture wildly and shout "Welcome to the show. Preeee-senting (someone)."

This she did throughout the duration of dinner. I could hear people snickering. And some of the social commentary people feel obliged to speak when they see my 2-year-old inhale a Costco slice of pizza (let's face it, equivalent to a quarter of a regular pizza) and my 1-year-old polish off the Polish Dog (which makes me sick to finish).

As we left the stage, Jane shouted to the Costco Saturday Crowd "Goodbye everyone. Goodbye", whilst she waved like the beauty queen she is.

While my anti-social behavior was dying from the glances and well-wishers responding to Jane's farewell, my kids loved it. Elliot laughed and Jane looked like she was on the cover of a magazine.

My only thought was "why couldn't I have done my hair today?"

Next time.