principled no more

Once upon a time, when we were just two working professionals with too much time on our hands and no experience to boot, Chris and I would have theoretical discussions on how we would raise our child.  There would be no sugar involved, we would have a 7 – 7:30 bedtime every night, and our child would be calm and polite.

Fast forward to 20 months later, and this is what you get:

1.  The sugary lollipop (kids’ birthday parties = game over)

2.  This picture was taken at 7:20 pm

3.  He is a slobbery mess from the dripping lollipop

4.  The sugar was later channeled into an episode of group fence kicking and attempted climbing

Like our FB page or we’ll feel like dorks

Even if you don’t believe in the cause, we would sooooo appreciate a “like” on our FB page advocating for high chairs at Taqueria del Sol.  I put my heart out there in blogging about this (cue sappy violin music), and now we both feel stupid.  Well, I feel stupid.  Chris – optimist that he is – hasn’t given up yet.

Its free, you’ll get credit from our emotional bank account, and you can “unlike” it in a few days.  See, nothing lost except two seconds of your time, and we’ll be eternally grateful for your support.

Click here to get to the FB page:  Emotional credit.

Taqueria del Sol or Taqueria del Souless?

Hopefully those of you from Atlanta have savored the amazingly yummy taco creations from TAQUERIA DEL SOL.  This restaurant makes some of my favorite food in Atlanta – Southern inspired tacos (like fried chicken tacos), made from scratch and served casual fast-food style.  But the food comes at such a high energy cost that we leave each time wondering whether we want to return again.

I’m not talking about kilowatts, joules, or any kind of environmental impact.  I leave with an appreciatively full belly, but the rest of me is emotionally drained, physically worn out, sad for Kai, and slightly angry.  Let me explain.

Remember the Soup Nazi from Seinfield?  TAQUERIA DEL SOL has a similar atmosphere.

The tacos come at the sometimes bewildering price of having to stand in a long line (maybe 40 or 50 minutes), where a single cashier rings up everyone’s orders.  The single cashier policy is even noted on the TAQUERIA DEL SOL site, a “system…designed for speed of service and minimizing the number of kitchen staff needed at one time to deliver our food quickly.”  In fact, TAQUERIA DEL SOL states on their site, “using more than one register is not an option.”

We can handle the long lines, but as a side note, Taqueria del Sol’s policy employs flawed logic.  “Timely service” is measured by the total amount of time it takes to receive your food from the moment I begin waiting in line, NOT from the time I place my order (which, in their defense, is pretty quick).  If I had to guess, Taqueria del Sol insists on a single cashier because it results in a looooong line, which reeks of marketing through an indirect, ego-driven strategy.  The line adds to the mystique of the restaurant and even stirs a sense of competition in the consumer’s mind.   This obviously works (based on their success) but is nonetheless irritating.

Then there’s the inflexibility — they’re only open a few hours around lunch time, and then around dinner time.  Which means that if you’re visiting your parents in Northern Georgia, and happen to drive through Decatur around 3 pm, you’ll just have to wait until they open up again at 5:30 pm to get any tacos.

Again, consistent with the single cashier line approach to creating a sense of exclusivity and competition.  The owners have figured out what most people want (and even seek out): something they are told (directly or indirectly) they cannot have.  Gotta love human nature and how we fall for this over and over again.

Finally, there is a certain militaristic somberness among the staff, maybe a stiff but polite “hello” once in a while,  but mostly they are heads down doling out food.

I’m OK with having to wait in a long, crowded line…. in a tiny, indoor, space…where the line moves at a snails pace and there’s a SINGLE cashier taking everone’s order and even pouring drinks simultaneously….with a hungry toddler who can’t really move around and is starting to cry…

But on top of all that, at the end of the hour long wait for your tacos, you get to the table only to realize that this must be the only restaurant in America that does not offer high chairs or booster seats for its patrons.

I think the pain of this realization is (understandably) lost on people without kids.  A pre-married, pre-Kai Chris and I used to go to TAQUERIA DEL SOL religiously twice a month when we were living in Decatur, and we never even thought about the fact that the toddlers and babies we saw at TAQUERIA DEL SOL were probably sitting in their parents laps, where they squirmed and cried the whole time.

Its difficult to have a normal meal with toddling baby sitting in your lap while he paws everything in sight!  And its especially heartbreaking to pay the price of time and resources, your baby’s happiness, and “strategery” just to get your butt there, only to sit in front of a work of food beauty but not to be able to eat this without worrying about your child falling off of your lap or successfully grabbing your James Beard-nominated smoked pork with a spicy jalapeno coleslaw and tequila BBQ sauce.

Why do you think TAQUERIA DEL SOL, in its taco genius wisdom, does not carry high chairs or booster seats?

There are plenty of toddler-inappropriate bars and much lesser restaurants that carry high chairs.  Heck, one of our favorite Alexandria hole-in-the-wall taquerias even carries high chairs!  This isn’t some random dumpling stand on the side of a back country road in Xian, China for goodness sakes… TAQUERIA DEL SOL is a yuppie restaurant located in the heart of Decatur, the quintessential Bob-strolling-young professional family-with-leetle-toddlers type of town!!!  The freaking restaurant is located next door to a specialty boutique known for  monogramming children’s products.  THEY DON’T CARRY HIGH CHAIRS!!!?!????

We were bewildered, floored, and exasperated by this, especially as Kai began adventurously dipping his fingers into our spectacular salsa trio while also trying to stand up in Chris’ lap.

We posed this very question to our server (as we did last time we were in town with the same dilemma).

And a different server gave us the same passive-aggressive canned response, almost verbatim:  “We don’t have high chairs or booster seats, but you are always welcome to bring your own.”

To which we responded, “But we’re from out of town, and couldn’t bring a high chair with us.”

The strange thing is, when you prod the server why such a policy exists, they can’t give a good reason.

The last two times, further prodding revealed it was about maintenance, that its too much work to maintain a high chair (really!!??) and that there’s not enough space to keep them (again, really!!??).

Chris remains exasperated and infuriated by the lack of regard from TAQUERIA DEL SOL.

I think the policy is cold, calculated, and brilliant.

As we let Kai play on the floor and gave him scraps to eat while he toddled around, too small for a regular chair, too fidgety to eat from our laps, we came up with possible theories on why TAQUERIA DEL SOL does not provide high chairs.

Profit Motive?

Toddlers don’t buy too many tacos, but a well-situated family with a toddler trapped in a high chair would presumably stay at the restaurant for a long, long time, taking up valuable space for bigger taco connoisseurs.  Making it as difficult as possible to have a toddler at the restaurant would ensure that families with young kids would leave quickly….

Passive-Aggressiveness?

…or ensure that they don’t show up in the first place.  And this isn’t such a loss because, heck, a toddler takes up a whole spot in the restaurant but doesn’t order much – if any – food.  But then, why would such a restaurant encourage patrons to bring their own high chairs?  I think its because in family-oriented Decatur, any sign of not being toddler or baby friendly would leave a very bad taste with a large number of patrons.  I can totally picture a mom’s group message board brimming with angry diatribes about the  outwardly non-toddler friendly TAQUERIA DEL SOL.  The canned TAQUERIA DEL SOL response of “you are always welcome to bring your own” hurls responsibility back at parents without seeming unfriendly or  inconsiderate.  Brilliant and cold, like I said earlier.

Ignorance is Bliss?

This last time we went, we asked the server whether the owner had any children.  We’re guessing not.  If so, that would be really bizarre because any parent whose had to suffer through a dining experience with a toddler on the loose would surely, surely know better than to demand other parents replicate the experience over and over again.

Personal Responsibility?

Maybe there’s an expectation of “responsibility” from foodie parents of toddlers.  If we were that serious about the TAQUERIA DEL SOL experience, we would have somehow made sure to lug a high chair with us, even if we’re from out of town.

This reminded me of all the fabulous dining experiences we’ve had at the Aria, Bacchanalia, and Seegers of the world… would those places carry high chairs?  Presumably not.  But at least they would have the guts to say their restaurant was not appropriate for kids.

Because They Can? (the Hugh Hefner/Charlie Sheen and their bunnies/goddesses theory)

Long lines, few open hours, and yet hundreds still endure these tremendous inconveniences in order to get a taste of Southern inspired Mexican awesomeness.  Being as blatantly inconsiderate as not carrying high chairs might just be something TAQUERIA DEL SOL does because it can, because it knows stupid parents like me and Chris will still keep coming back, even though we end up hating the restaurant every time we’re there.

Or will we keep coming back?

And even if we don’t, they don’t care because as soon as we leave forever, there will be dozens more hungry fans waiting to take our spot in the most annoying line ever.

You might be hesitant to say anything publicly about TAQUERIA DEL SOL (for fear of being banned forever, and we’d be the same if we still lived in Atlanta) but Chris and I would LOVE to hear your theories –even anonymously– on why TAQUERIA DEL SOL has deliberately chosen not to carry high chairs and booster seats.  This is a problem noted all over the web by frazzled parents.  Maybe we can create enough buzz and groundswell to have them reconsider the policy?

We’ve created a Facebook page dedicated to this cause. Please, please, please leave a theory or two!!  (You’ll get emotional credits from us if you do ).

If social media can be used to help oust Egypt’s long-time dictator, than maybe it can also be used to help convince the TAQUERIA DEL SOL owner to supply high chairs for their patrons.  Let’s see what we can do.

This doesn’t make sense

I love Shopper’s Food Warehouse and go there with Kai frequently to get cheap groceries. That’s why this oversight is totally disappointing, and I have no idea who in the world allowed the following to happen:

You might not be able to tell from the picture, but the ramp (or dip in the sidewalk) is located EXACTLY where the bright yellow line is painted perpendicular to the sidewalk.  This yellow line also marks the boundary of where shopping carts stop working, as indicated on the sign in the picture.  All this means that whenever I have to use that ramp to get my shopping cart up to the sidewalk, the cart actually locks up and stops working.  The shopping cart in the picture was mine, until this inane design flaw caused my cart to lock up.

This renders the ramp completely useless for carts.

So what exactly where people thinking when they designed the ramp?  Or did they have the ramp there first, and then create the cart-lock system?  And what did the painter or the installer of the lock system think when they decided to set the boundary right where the curb was?  Is the ramp only intended for wheelchairs?  Did Shoppers intend for us to have to lift shopping carts full of 26 pound heavy babies in order to get them on the sidewalk?  Are ramps in front of grocery stores only there so they comply with some ADA requirement, or are they actually there for shopping carts as well?  These are the things that consume your mind when you become a SAHM and have to carry your heavy kid all the way from wherever you’re parked to the closest shopping cart in front of the store.

The Censored Post

This would have been a funny and true post about our last pre-flight experience from Hellta Airlines.  In fact, I wrote an entire entry about what happened, but in the interest of being able to fly that airline without problems down the road, Chris and I agree that the post shall never see the light of day.  So if you wanna know what happened, give me a call and I’ll tell you.  Verbally.  Not putting this one down in writing.  :-D  Except for point no. 5 from the original post.  I don’t think this point needs to be censored.

5. Thank goodness we weren’t Nigerian, or it could have been much, much worse. Ever heard of a man named Ayo Omotade?  If not, Google him, or better yet, check out this compelling radio interview at http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/can-i-help.  In 2008, Ayo boarded a British Airways flight to Nigeria at London’s Heathrow airport.  He was going to Nigeria to attend his brother’s wedding and was excited to be his brother’s best man.  But when Ayo got on board, he heard security personnel violently subduing a man who was yelling that he couldn’t breathe.  Ayo politely asked several airline staff if they could help the man being subdued.  And when others on the plane heard the same screams for help, they too asked the staff if anything could be done.  Instead of helping the man being subdued, Ayo was surprisingly led off the plane and then arrested and charged with something called “afraid” (inciting a riot).  He begged and begged police to let him go so he wouldn’t miss his brother’s wedding, to no avail.  The case was ultimately thrown out of court, but not before it bankrupted him and cost him his job, since he had to devote a significant amount of time fighting the charges.  To date, British Airways has not issued an apology or a refund.  G4, the security consulting firm responsible for transporting the deported man, no longer works for British Airways.

Revolution 2.0/ Evacuation 1.0 (via Wrights Around the World)

What an incredible account from an amazing mom (and spouse of a foreign service worker) who had to quickly move her young family from Cairo, Egypt back to Arlington, VA.  Great post on what happened in Cairo from someone who was there…

I often compose my blog entries in my head over the course of several days or weeks, usually while I’m running on the treadmill. Unfortunately, exercise has been a scarce commodity over the past month, but anxious nocturnal awake hours have been plentiful as our family has navigated one of the most overwhelming and tumultuous life experiences to date. I have started this blog entry multiple times in the wee small hours, but have not managed to ge … Read More

via Wrights Around the World

The Calm

Dear Kai,  This was not our strongest week together, and momma feels guilty for wishing you still took two solid naps a day and worries that all of our activities caused you to lose one of your naps.

You are continuing to grow up.  Now that you’re starting to wake up to the world around you, your excitement about life overpowers your will to rest.  And how excited you get!

I will fondly remember Wednesday afternoon, when you refused to sleep even though your eyelids were so heavy and you wanted so badly to lie down; instead, you walked around in your crib and laughed at all the fun animals on the walls, and when I came to get you, your first words to me were, “Dog! Dog!” as you pointed towards your dog towel hanging on the door knob.  My momma ears are highly sensitive to those words that are coming out now — words that do not have their ending syllables.  But I can tell you are so delighted to see the bah (bus) and the tru (trucks) and the pain (airplanes) in the sky.

I love you so much, and one day I will look back at these simple times and laugh at how easy it was to take care of you and heap all my affection and attention on just you during the day.

We are so lucky to get to spend our days together exploring and laughing and reading books and me pretending to feed you foam carrots.  As quickly as you are losing your baby fat rolls and your naps, you are gaining words and toddling skills and I sense that you are growing up faster than I can grasp.

So please forgive me when I get tired and impatient and I don’t know why you’re crying and I don’t want to pick you up or I don’t want to read Pots and Pans for the third time in a row.  Momma’s learning, just as you are, and we are both trying our best.