Rules to Dining Out

It’s the Saturday night before Valentine’s Day. We have no food in the house. It hit 45 degrees outside today, which gave us a bit of spring fever. So we decided to eat out – with kids and at Shooter’s Sports Bar & Grill. Far from classy. Far from romantic. But that is fine with me, as I hate celebrating Hallmark occasions and will be traveling (away from the kids) next week for work.

I know (and you may know from past blogs) that dining out with my kids (or maybe anyone’s kids) is not a walk in the park. So I go into it with a 70/30 rule. I realize that 30% (give or take) might not go in my favor. Doing anything with kids – as they are unpredictable (and needy) little beings – can never be 100% perfect. There could be crying. There could be fighting. There will definitely be plenty of trips to the restroom. So I have lowered my expectations, and have learned to make the most of any situation, especially because an IPA is better on draft, than in a bottle. However, my husband has not bought into my theory, which doesn’t factor well because no one is talented enough to bare the patience of two people (not even me).

So as a reminder and to be proactive when we first sit down at the table, we turned over our kids’ coloring placements and used the blue crayon to document our family's dining out rules. This is what the kids gave me:

1. No lying down in the booth.
2. No crying.
3. No crawling under the table.
4. No screaming.
5. No playing video games until you have eaten all your Mac & Cheese.
6. No crying (again).
7. Sit quietly, play with your Leapster, finish all your food and let mommy and daddy eat, drink and have stimulating conversations just like we did before you were born.

Ok, the last one was not from Alex and Avery and it is pretty unfair (and impossible to enforce). It did not make our list, but it is unfortunately stuck in Andy’s head. So I am preceding all rules with just one:

1. No eating out unless everyone expects the worse and can be satisfied with mediocrity and a slight buzz.

Guess we need to see if that is doable.