Dining Out

When Landon was a baby and slept in his car seat while we were eating out at a restaurant, it used to annoy us when people would walk by and say, "I remember those days...enjoy this time!!" We were like, "really... can taking children out to eat be that bad?"

Well, yes it can! Ha! Dining out with a now 16 month old is usually not the most pleasant experience. Between worrying he will be too loud, throwing food on the people next to us, or simply make a huge mess, I would say that the past 5 months or so, IF we go out to eat, less time is spent leisurely talking and eating, and more time is spent with one of  us eating and the other taking Landon outside or entertaining him. Has anyone else experienced this same thing?

If you have, then you will understand the pure joy that came from our dinner out last night. We had a gift card to Longhorn, so we decided to try going out to eat as a family...Risky for a Friday evening...but we were just too tired to cook and clean up (and we really wanted Longhorn!).

To our surprise Landon was an angel!! We arrived to the restaurant with him waving and blowing kisses to the people sitting around us. "Good job Buddy!" we said, "butter those people up in case you throw some mashed potatoes on them later!" The evening continued with him just playing nicely in his high chair and eating! No talking too loud, no disturbing others around him, eating his food, and only dropping a couple of pieces. It was crazy!! We were both scared to say anything about it until we left, but as we got into the car, we were like, "Wow! How did that happen?"

Hopefully it is our great parenting skills (haha!), and we just finally taught him how to behave in a restaurant. But...I have a feeling we just had a lucky night. We'll see, maybe we'll be a little braver to go out to eat a little more.....at least until November!

The little restaurant angel! 

Landon talking instead of smiling for the camera!

Landon tried the fried onion and didn't like it, but he still kept wanting more! :)

I thought cell phones weren't allowed at the dinner table!

Playing baseball with Daddy after dinner