THOSE parents.

Anyone that knows our 16-month-old knows that she can be quite a jerk handful in public places- especially restaurants. She has a signature piercing squeal, that accompanied her, truly, right out of the womb (which was so cute in the hospital- but then again I was on a LOT of pain medication, so we can't be too sure of exactly how cute it really was...) and has stayed with her to the present day.

Needless to say, whenever we decide to go out to eat, I assume the role of someone who is going into battle. I armor myself with binkies, sippie cups, drugs teething rings, toys, books, multiple changes of clothing, diapers, and snacks, and try to prepare for the worst. When at our battlefield destination we load her up with sugar packets and napkins and whatever array of free shit happens to be on our table, and regardless, most of the time, that nasty squeal monster possesses my daughter's body and ruins our meal. Which sucks.

The only thing that calms Avery down is Dora. That's right... Dora the friggen Explorer. Not mommy, not daddy, not drugs teething rings, not assortment of free table shit. So, the predicament is, how do we get Dora to show up to dinner? I mean, hiring the actual Dora to make a appearance to a restaurant every time we ate out would be super expensive not to mention impossible because she's a damn cartoon.

So, we borrowed my in-laws portable DVD player, brought it to a restaurant, plugged it in to an open outlet (trashhyyyyy), popped in a Dora DVD and instantly turned into THOSE parents. It... was... uhhhhmaazzinng.

Troy and I had a beer. We laughed. We cried. We talked about having more children. All while everyone stared at us in disgust and Avery totally zoned out and learned how to say "bees" in Spanish.

Gracias Dora, gracias.