We don't go out to eat much. Between my husband's schedule, the diet restrictions, and the fact that almost anything I like to eat I can cook faster and better than in a restaurant, there's not a lot of motivation to head to a restaurant.
We live in a neighborhood with plenty of food choices. Lots of bar food, some Asian and Asian-inspired, and of course plenty of seafood. We could eat out every night for a month and not go to the same place twice.
But the main reason we don't go out is the nightmare my children become when seated (and I use that word lightly) in a restaurant. Just thinking about what it might be like makes me tired.
The 2 year old just wants to run at top speed in circles and zig zags all the time, everywhere she goes. She's also fond of physically pushing her brother all over the place, crashing them both into things. The six-year-old is patient enough, but he's got a 20 minute limit at a restaurant until he really wants to get up and walk around, or climb under the table. Add hunger and overstimulation to the list, and I don't really know why ANYONE goes out to eat with kids.
I feel like I'm missing some important piece of knowledge about how to make my kids sit down and be still for an hour and a half that every other parent knows. I know a few families who go out with their kids all the time, and the kids sit there and doodle and eat for like, 30 minutes straight. If my kids are at the table at home for ten minutes, I consider that a successful meal.
It's not even a case of the kids not being able to sit still, at least the older one. Today, he kept himself entertained with a maze book and a microscope outside his sister's music class for an hour, quiet as a mouse. He pays attention quite well in his classes and co-ops, so that's not a problem for us either.
At home, we eat dinner as a family whenever we are all there. Even when H is gone, I sit down and eat with the kids, so we have that "family dinner" experience almost every night. We do all the right things, like keeping the TV off, using real napkins and real dishes, have polite conversation, don't allow toys at the table, and generally enjoy each others company. But it's still really QUICK. We aren't in a hurry, but we all sort of eat and then move on. The kids take their own dishes to the counter and we move on to the next thing.
The set-up of the house contributes to this, I think. It's all one room downstairs, so if you want to go draw or read after dinner, we're all still together, chatting and playing. No one is scurrying off to the bedroom and hiding. No one is left alone to clean up.
I know someday I'd like to go out to dinner, all of us. But I'm not sure how to make the leap from the seven-minute dinner to a leisurely long meal with appetizers and entrees and desserts. And someone else doing the cooking and cleaning up. If you have a kid who can sit for a long time at the table, what's your secret?
Thanks for reading,
Anne
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