Adventures in Eating Out

Now we do not eat out that often, but when we do, I consider Little Boy to be exceptionally well behaved at restaurants. Since he loves to eat, he's usually content to just sit at the table and snack from the moment we arrive until the moment we leave. Of course he has his antsy and impatient moments now and then, but he tends to charm everyone around him, so no one seems to mind. What I can I say? He's cute and perfect!

(Those of you who have seen his legendary temper tantrums are laughing just about now...I can hear you!)

This past week Hubby came downstairs from work to hear this statement from me: I don't want to cook, and I don't want to eat anything that we have in the kitchen. So what do you want to do for dinner? We settled on an early dinner at the Texas Roadhouse, a super yummy steakhouse that offers an exceptional dinner special before 5:30pm.

Our booth ended up being set on a raise platform that would have put a high chair substantially lower than the table, so Little Boy got to sit in a booster seat at a restaurant for the first time. In his excitement, all good restaurant behavior seems to fly out the window. Nice.

We had three older ladies sitting in the booth behind Little Boy and Hubby. Little Boy was chatty, chatty, chatty while we were looking over our menus, and at one point, I saw him telling a long "story" to the woman sitting directly behind him. She did not even glance in his direction. As I started to say, "Little Boy, turn around and tell Mommy your story," his patience with the inattentive woman ran out, and he shouted, "HEY!" directly in her ear. She turned around looking stunned (and slightly irritated) as we offered apologies. Nice.

Just ten minutes later, our food arrived. Little Boy refused to eat anything, and at one point, grabbed a piece of chicken nugget, wound up his arm, and flung the piece as high in to the air as he could. I gasped a "No!" as Hubby watched the nugget arc gracefully over his head. In the split second that the nugget was still airborne, I thought "Oh no, the nugget is going to hit one of older ladies!" and then "Oh no, the nugget is going to land in one of their waters!" The nugget landed smack in the center of their table and did not land in their hair, water or food. And thankfully none of them even noticed! Definitely nice!

We wrapped dinner fairly quickly after that and hurried Little Boy home to an early bed time. I know parents have had even greater adventures eating out - I think I'll pass on those, thanks - but this was our first and worth documenting!

Any funny dining out stories of your own?