The Restaurant Devil

I’m over it. One of my most favorite things to do is dine out. But I’m over it. I no longer want to dine out with my children, it’s not worth it.

It’s funny how you go in cycles. For awhile Drew was impossible to take to restaurants and now he has become easy. He will color, space out to a sports event on the tv or (worse comes to worse) play on our phones. Gabby, on the other hand, has become the restaurant devil.

Between the desire to get out of her highchair, the frustration of not being able to eat everything everyone else is eating and the attention span of thirteen seconds, she cannot dine out. And if things don’t go her way, the screeching that other patrons are subjected to is not fair.

It’s not like meals at our house are that much more relaxing. Everyone has a need that causes me to get up every other second. There is still a sufficient amount of screaming, grabbing and crying. The good thing is that I can take her out of her seat and let her play while I finish up my meal in a relatively leisurely fashion.

Gulping down an over-priced meal while balancing a crazy 19 month old and engaging a wild 3.5 year old only leads to indigestion, frantic nerves and an overindulgence of alcohol out of frustration. It was one thing when Drew was at this age because he was our only so we could take turns. Now one of us must engage with each of them, it doesn’t allow for much reprieve.

As with all the other stages, this too shall pass. When we were leaving a restaurant this weekend and I was at my wits end with her, some older lady commented on how cute she was. I asked the lady if she wanted her, she told me to enjoy her because she is at such a fun age. It reminded me of an article I saw circulating Facebook. But rather than begrudge the fact that its easy for the one who had the relaxed meal to tell me to enjoy Gabby, I decided to take her advice. There are so many fun things with a toddler like Gabby. It just doesn’t make the challenging ones any easier though. So for now I am pledging to refrain from restaurants for awhile. This way I don’t have to go through the stress and I can focus on what makes 19 months old so great.