Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Tag Team Restauraunt-Going

Sigh. OK, so I know, I know, he's two... but any recommendations about how to get the kid to sit still in a restaurant?

We thought we would have a brief dinner out yesterday. Daniel is sort of getting a "birthday month" this year. We spent the 10 days leading up to his birthday with my family in Wisconsin (thanks Grandma and Grandpa for the bike!). And the actual day fell hard on the heels of the 1,200 mile trek home. Knowing we were all kinda tired and messed up schedule-wise we thought of a dinner out as a celebration, with getting together with H's family for another time. Dinner, unfortunately, became a tag-team event in controlling the toddler with one of us getting up from the table and even taking him outside if things were getting too unbearable. Any toys I brought were a distraction for about .2 seconds. Drinks were only good if he got to drink one of ours ("sip! SIP!"), and he was not content to just take a drink through the straw ("HOLD!").

We probably need to start enforcing more dinnertime rules at home, but it's hard. H and I are on wildly different schedules during the (6-day) work week, which makes sitting down all together at the table for meals difficult. Can someone please tell me that this is a phase? And when does it end? I don't want to not take him out places, but sheesh! Yesterday had me contemplating food delivery rather than eating out for the next few years.

1 comment:

Pamela said...

Yes a phase. But can be a recurring phase. Also soon to be replaced with the rolling crayons and wet color sheet phase. Followed by the order a bunch of food and take only one bite phase.

Take-out rocks.