Miss Mississippi...

We began our Sunday morning with the usual ruckus to get to church and actually made it there ON TIME without killing anybody or at least threatening any more than the usual!  I was elated!  We sat in our usual pew on the top row in the balcony as to not disturb the ENTIRE church with my children's racket!  Everything was going along so well!  We even agreed as the girls begged after church to go to the Chinese food restaurant to eat out with the rest of the population of Vivian...  Yep!  I know!  That should have been the first clue!  But as my ADD brain is not mandatory to function on Sundays, it was turned off and off to lunch we proceed!  When we arrived, as I said the entire town had made the same decision, there was only one table left and we grabbed it up!  Yes!  I can relax now!  Wrong!  We ordered drinks and proceeded to the buffet.  As we were preparing our meal, a little, sweet, "older" pentecostal couple was seated at the end of our table.  (The table sat 8 and seeing as we were only 5 the Chinese felt it was OK for us to share a table as that is probably their cramped little culture over there, but not when children are involved here.)  So needless to say, the girls were on their MOST GRACIOUS behavior for this couple now forcibly sharing Sunday lunch with us.  Maggie said the blessing- which thankfully was appropriate and of a decent time interval for once!  She thanked the Lord for her whole family by simply stating "whole family"!  As that would be the end of world peace during the lunch hour, take a breath before proceeding with reading!  First fight began over the transition from cups with no tops to cups with tops as per parental request to the serving staff.  Lord, start the alarms, tsunami coming in!  Laura WAS NOT drinking out of a "baby cup".  "I NOT A BABY!" she screamed at her best.  "Well, then go thirsty, because we must use tops to keep everyone and everything as clean as possible!" I calmly replied.  Well, the DEVIL himself created rice and that awful sweet red STICKY sauce.  As I had placed myself (wisely) between the couple and Laura, my outfit, which, as we all do- I was hoping to wear to school tomorrow as it was pressed and I only planned to wear it for a short time, was now COVERED in red sticky sauce and rice as she flicked the rice and then tried repeatedly to climb in my lap as we tried to eat.  When I wouldn't let her climb on me- to maintain distance between said couple and Laura- she went crazy and threw her head in my lap, which of course was now covered in the same red sauce and chicken grease as her mouth was and inconspicuously now looked as if I had started my period without protection.  Lovely!  So grabbing her, I notice Ann Cherie has been allowed to go to the buffet line ON HER OWN!  She returns with 8 cookies and 6 donuts!  Then proceeds to argue with Maggie that they are HERS!  Really, 8 cookies and 6 donuts and you CAN'T SHARE!  Heaven forbid!  Frankie calms the storm and I look back to Laura.  She is pushing her chicken piece with that same devil sauce around the edges of her plate and the plates around her so that no matter where you try to pick up the plate it is now dripping with sticky goo!  Awesome!  Nevertheless, I pick up the plate and take it way from her.  Yep, you guessed it!  She started kicking and screaming and whining... Nice!  By now, the little "older" couple was rushing through their plate and talking of how seconds were overrated and how they felt they would just skip dessert and hurry home today!  Wonderful!  About that time Maggie returns with her own cookies and proceeds to, not eat them like normal people, NO, that would have made sense, she starts breaking them into a million pieces on her plate causing crumbs to go everywhere.  She starts to eat her little donut things with the sugar on them but first licks all the sugar off the outside and puts the donuts over onto another plate as she picks up the donut plate, and, I kid you not, LICKS the plate.  Frankie looks at her and says, "Hey, Miss Mississippi, put down that plate!"  I am by this time laughing so as not to cry and telling Frankie how my 17 year old sister licked her plate last weekend and that must be where she learned it from because I was a Sub Deb and a cotillion!  Totally thankful for that bladder lift as hard as I was laughing which caused half the restaurant to laugh as well!  Well, we got on out of there after that!  There is just no salvaging plate licking!  Luckily it is a small town, so I won't even have to tell everyone at school tomorrow to read this blog as they will have already heard about the Reger's eating at the Chinese food place at the local church tonight!  For all of the rest of you, I hope and pray that the devil was not involved in your own family Sunday dinners!  I mostly just pray for my rugrats!  Those rugrats, I swear!