The night before last, we went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. At first everything was fine although Sydney was a little clingy. Then she just got upset and kept saying “I want to go home.” We were only about half way through dinner, but it was clear that the evening was unraveling so we paid and left as quickly as possible.
Later after much questioning, Sydney told us that the restaurant was too loud. Loud noises have always bothered Sydney and she currently has an ear infection so it's plausible that that was the cause.
Last night we decided to do something a little quietered. We went to a queiter restaurant and went earlier than usual to ensure that the place wouldn't be crowed. Our destination, Moretti's.
Once there, Sydney was extremely well behaved. She let out a few loud queals that could be heard throughout the place but there weren't very many people there, and we just got smiles. At the point when we were finishing up dinner, one of the waitresses took notice of Sydney and offered her a balloon. She made a loop out of the end and tied it to Sydney's wrist so it wouldn't fly away. Sydney was very happy.
A few minutes later I suggested that we tie the balloon to something else so that it didn't fly away. I knew that Sydney would eventually stop paying attention and then the balloon would escape causing a nuclear melt down. Meghan tied it to the diaper bag and then Sydney just freaked out for no explainable reason. She acted like she was afraid of the balloon and just started yelling that she wanted to go home right now. Again, we obliged.
Once we got in the car, she was fine, and she insisted that we bring the balloon.
This morning when we attempted to remove the balloon from the diaper bag Sydney practically had a meltdown again. As best as I can tell, she was afraid the balloon was going to get away. We showed her that it could only touch the ceiling in our house but that wasn't quite good enough.