A different perspective.

Last week, Ebeth had a sleepover at her friend Mabel's house. Evan and I took this opportunity to go out to dinner with our youngest.

Evan'd been home for a week and felt he could walk from the car to the restaurant without crutches (which was a huge deal last weekend!). He'd been a prisoner to our recliner and he wanted to breathe fresh air and see things outside of the walls of our home.

Julia, who's been more than thrilled to have Evan home 24/7 (seriously, she'd love him to be the stay at home parent), was also feeling a bit of the cabin fever as well.

We have the nicest little Chinese restaurant by our house. It has honest-to-god the best fried rice I've ever eaten. It's not big and there are never a lot of people in the restaurant when we go. So, basically, it's a very quiet dinner atmosphere.

While we debated what to order, Julia began singing. Loudly. She started with "Jingle Bells" and soon started only belting out her "ABCDs". She wasn't being obnoxious on purpose, but if the other patrons had wanted a quiet dinner, Julia definitely ruined those plans.

We encouraged her to use her inside voice. We really did! But, there's only so much you can do to control a 2 year old's exclamations in a quiet restaurant. So, when she started happily yelling:

"I need meat!!"

"I so thirsty!!!"

"People on the bus go up and down!!"

"I love my apple juice!!!!"

"Daddy, I need to lick your tongue!!"

We did what all parents do--we texted people what she was saying and took pictures of her with our phones.

I chalked it up as a loss. She wasn't crying or whining or screaming out in rage or anger. She was smiling and chipper and happy to be out of the house. I inwardly apologized to the other customers and ate my unbelievably delicious sesame chicken.

Imagine my surprise when an elderly man who'd been sitting in the booth across the room from us with his wife and older grandchildren, tapped me on the shoulder. "You sure did a good job teaching her her ABCs. She did a great job singing them." I managed to stammer a thank you as he smiled at Julia, patted her on the head and walked out. Evan and I exchanged smiles; at least we hadn't ruined those people's dinner.

We finished eating and I went to go and pay while Evan gather Julia's pink baby and coat. As I signed the merchant receipt, one of the employees came out of the kitchen and asked if I was the mom of the little girl who'd been singing so loudly. I said yes, I was the mother of the loud child. The employee then said, "She sang her ABCs so well. She's beautiful. Thank you for bringing her."

And that's when I realized that the behaviors I had worried were too loud, too intrusive, too much for the small restaurant were actually noticed in a positive way from Julia's audience.

It's something I had not thought of and it took two other people's perspectives of Julia's behavior for me to realize that a loud, happy, singing two year old is not an obnoxious two year old--she's a loved two year old by others besides myself.