Happy birthday to me!

This year for my birthday I wanted to go to my favorite restaurant, a local Thai food place. Since it was a weekday, the kids and I picked Jack up from work and took him to lunch there with us. Skeptics, all of them. Jack wasn't sure the kids could behave in a "nice" restaurant. The kids were convinced that any known restaurant would be better than the new unknown I was forcing them to go to, so they asked if we could go to every restaurant and fast food joint they saw on the way, over and over again.

Elijah whined and cried and repeated loudly, "I don't like this place!" for the first ten minutes after we got there. We ordered for the kids because there were no kids' meals or American food whatsoever on the menu. Pad Thai, Sweet Rama, and fried rice are always delicious options, they just didn't know it yet. I got my favorite green curry. 

Then the soup arrived. The yummy ginger-onion-chicken-carrot soup in a clear broth that makes everything better. Everyone tried the soup, everyone loved the soup, and everyone wanted more soup. Then the food came. By the time we were ready to leave, Ellen, Rose, and Elijah had all repeatedly declared that they wanted to eat at my favorite restaurant for their birthdays, too. Happy birthday to me! 

I really need to remember this when I feel life taking me to a new unknown. Rather than go kicking and screaming, maybe I should trust that by the time it's all over, it will turn out to be a place that I really do love after all.