Dining Out

            If anyone has recently embarked upon the train of parenthood, it is important to remember that your children will surprise you at every turn. It is sometimes said that parenthood is one of the treasures you will have in life, and any parent will agree this is true.  For all of the horrible things that your child can concoct, you would not trade them for anything in the world.  One thing you will experience is the inevitable adventure of dining in public with your children.  These outings will become something of legend, something that while being hazardous, will teach you a new lesson every time.

            On that fearfully hot and humid day, well cooking was completely beyond an insurmountable task. My husband, being the thoughtful and hungry person that he is, suggested that we go to dinner. How exciting! Dinner, just the two of us! What was I thinking; it could not have been just the two of us going to dinner. We must take the children. Oh the children!  So begins the chase to change clothes, wash the random sticky substances always found on those tiny little people and shoes to be hunted down. Absolutely no, we cannot wear the red sneakers.  Oh, the travesty of red sneakers! Amid the chaos is my husband, silently suffering through his belly flattening hunger. In what seems like hours we have finished and are loaded into the car with sippy cups, diaper bags, Nintendo DS with games and hopefully somewhere in the jumble an aspirin or two. By now traffic is heavy, laden with the hopeful and happy people leaving work in droves like bees from the nest. Slow, slow, slowly we drive to our destination, the neighborhood favorite of course, because yes, we HAVE to have chicken fingers and fries on the menu. Can we add a glass of wine for me also? Oh right, this is a family dinner and one must keep on their toes, right? The bright sign and lights beckon us to come in and quick little legs try to speed out into the sweltering heat because it is a fact that there are CRAYONS inside and ROOT BEER! Who could forget root beer? I am sweating from the effort of lugging along my purse, the diaper bag with the Nintendo DS, a sippy cup and a pretty in pink little girl with one sandal.  Wait, one sandal?  What happened to the other sandal?  My question is answered with a quick toothy grin and a feminine shrug of toddler shoulders. Back across the parking lot to find the wayward shoe while the menfolk go put us down for a booth for four, no highchair this time. Crisis averted, we found the sandal, strategically placed behind the car seat and under Fluffy, the stuffed bunny. I make my way back inside with my load of wonder and delight, to see that our table is set up, crayons at the ready. Yes, we must have crayons. By this time I am hardly able to string together a coherent thought, and I still have to make it through dinner. Chicken fingers with fries and an extra PLASTIC plate please, for them. For me it is hard to decide between drowning in the bliss of dessert first and, the stress relieving steak. Safely I will take the steak because my babbling brood would devour my ice cream before I could lift a spoon. EEEKHAAA! Now every eye in the restaurant is focused on my table, I can feel the heat flushing my cheeks brighter than a red delicious apple in the summer. One crayon in the root beer, one crayon broken, one crayon half eaten and one crayon on the floor, yes that makes four. Destroyed in the blink of an eye, hopefully dinner gets here soon, like 9-1-1 soon. Counting my blessings as our food arrives, I divide it up between my street urchins appearing children, and hey, did I not wash them before we left home? Between bites of my rapidly cooling steak, I proceed to play referee. No you cannot have brother’s chicken too, no you cannot have more root beer. In record time we are ready to go back home. 

We have survived another night, lived to tell another tale. Perhaps we will laugh one day about this one, or another one; but they are all adventures worth surviving.