The "take out" era

I distinctly remember a time period with Morgan where we just decided that it wasn't worth it to go out to eat with her. She was so obnoxious and loud and unruly at the table that we figured, why pay good money to deal with this in public? I remember that we even had friends who laughed when they told us, "yeah, we just don't eat out anymore". So, we pretty much cut it out for a little while. We let her mature and practiced good table manners with her at home and then we were finally able to take her out to eat with us again.

With Bennett, it's been a little different. As he's grown into his two-ness, we rarely eat out. When I quit my job that meant cutting back and one of our biggest wasteful spending categories was eating out. I mean, we do on occasion, but it's so rarely that we haven't had any major problems with him at restaurants.

Until tonight.

I knew it was going to happen, too. He's really into screaming these days and he was playing with his fork, flinging it all around in the air. I had asked him to stop a couple of times and I knew what I had to do. I was going to have to take the fork away from him. Before I did it, I knew he would start screaming and that I'd be forced to remove him, physically, from the restaurant.

Oh the spectacle we made! Because, you see, only moments before, Lance had inadvertently pulled the top off of the balsamic vinegar on the table, spilling it all over the table and splattering all over my white blouse. So there's me with vinegar all over my shirt, carrying this kicking and screaming toddler out of the restaurant. You should have seen the looks of compassion I got. People would look at Bennett as he was screaming "ME GO BACK!!" and then look at me with the vinegar and smile and nod this knowing look like, "been there, done that!" Except it wasn't quite what they thought!

I think we're going to save our money and just go out on occasion to restaurants where it's easier to hide a restless toddler. You know, places like Sweet Tomatoes or Baja Fresh. :) It's just that season of life for us. This too shall pass! Someday I may even look back fondly on what I'll call the "take-out" era.