Retirement Ceremony + a 3 year old = No Good

Last week we were invited to attend a retirement ceremony for one of my husband’s very good friends. My husband asked me if I wanted to go with him and I thought about not going at first because of my little three year old tyrant. I ended up going with him and telling myself that our three year old princess doesn’t run our lives. I owed it to my husband’s friend to be at his retirement ceremony.  Our friend served 20 years for our freedom and he kept my husband out of trouble in a couple deployments.

We got to the ceremony and I notice that my daughter is only one child of two in attendance. We sat in the back just in case she had to go to the bathroom or she starts running for the door. We sat down for 5 minutes and she started asking for the phone. The CO (Commanding Officer) was starting his very nice speech about our friend’s career and how he hates it when Marines treat retirement ceremonies like a funereal; I thought this is going to be a funny speech.

Then my daughter starts to complain that the phone is not making any sound and telling me to be quiet in a very loud voice, when I’m explaining why I can’t turn up the sound on the phone. To make things worse, she had a very runny nose and kept sneezing. Everyone turns to look at us because we were the ones making noise in a room full of disciplined Marines.

I got up and walked out. I let her run around outside and make all the noise that she wanted. I didn’t get to hear the nice speech that the CO prepared or the shout out that our friend gave to my husband in his speech. I was glad that we attended the ceremony with my husband and showed our support for our friend.

A three year old does not care about all our military traditions and customs; they only care about their Angry Birds game not making any sound.