...my child sold your honor student the answers to the test...

Monday, February 27, 2012

Dinner For Fourteen

The other night I received a text from a good friend of mine:

S: You wanna get some Chinese dinner for tomorrow night?
Me: You and me or the whole family?
S: Whole fam... or I guess we could leave them all together with a take and bake pizza and me and you could eat a meal in peace!
Me: Ha! (gulp) yeah, we're game
S: Awesome. Ask K if she wants to come too

Now let me explain this: I have three children. S has two children. K has three children. We were contemplating bringing our entire families out for dinner IN PUBLIC!

I was nervous the whole day preceding this experiment of ours. It's one thing to bring your rambunctious kids out to eat. I do have respect for other diners and it's only been a month since J and I have relaxed our no eating in public only drive thru stance due to Soren finally behaving when we attempt to go out. I actually agree with a lot of folks that young kids who can't sit in a booth for 30 minutes really shouldn't be eating out unless it is a REALLY family friendly restaurant. And I respect that the adults who go out to dinner may actually be trying to get a break from their own crazy kids and may not want my two year old staring at them from over the booth, licking his lips as they *try* to enjoy their own feast.

So take my family, multiply by 2.97 and that's what we were going to attempt. It would make any mom cringe in fear of all that could easily go wrong.

We joined my friends at the local Chinese buffet restaurant and mentally apologized to the waitress as we asked for a table for (gulp) fourteen. Six adults and eight kids ranging from age 1-9. I already started calculating the ginormous tip we would offer to placate our waitress.

BUT, miracle of miracles,  every child behaved perfectly. The older kids got their own table beside us adults. The younger two hung out on our laps. there was NO fighting! there was NO squabbling! The kids actually stayed in line nicely to choose their foods at the buffet line and ATE what they chose!!!

We parents tried to have a normal conversation, but you could feel the air crackling with anticipated tension, all of us waiting for the moment we would have to jump up and try to save the other diners from impending doom and tantrums. It's like waiting for the other shoe to drop, only you have eight shoes that could be thrown at any time. And yet.... the shoes stayed on.

Maybe we got lucky. Maybe we don't give our kids enough credit. HAHAHAHA Ok, even I couldn't write that last sentence with a straight face. But whatever the cause, however the stars and planets aligned, six parents somehow pulled off the major coup of bringing eight young children out for dinner together, without a hitch. It was an amazing feeling and all of us parental units breathed a huge sigh of relief when we stepped out and realized that we tempted fate and won.



You do realize we're stupid enough to have discussed the possibility of making this a monthly habit.




6 comments:

Anonymous said...

That has rarely happened for me. I have 4 kids from 12-2 and even sometime the oldest makes it hard to go out. I would call your night out a miracle.

JMS said...

I love conquering the mommy fears. It is definitely empowering! I hope month #2 goes just as well!

Big Fat Gini said...

I'm definitely impressed! There's no way I'm brave enough to even attempt to take out all four of mine at once.

Hope Month Two is just as enjoyable!

Anonymous said...

I'm definitely up for another try. The girls are in love with Chinese now, though they mostly ate fried things :)

K

Cheryl said...

We have been fortunate (knock on wood)that our 2 do pretty well when we go out. We went out with friends the other night... 6 adults, 4 kids and an infant. Even with 2 1st grade boys we didn't have any spills or screaming and no one knocked down any elderly. Love when it happens that way.

SRM said...

Broke, I agree, it was a miracle. And I'm going to be stupid enough to try it again LOL!

JMS, thanks! I love it too, but I'm not used to that feeling when things go well. call me a realist ;

BFG, bravery was helped along with copious amounts of alcohol after to calm my jangling nerves on edge.

K, what's our thoughts on Golden Corral next time?

Cheryl, it's nice to hear others were able to do this. it makes me wonder if we could actuallypull it off again.

Thanks for the comments everyone!