Kids nite out

One of the restaurants in our neck of the woods does something crazy-yet-brilliant: they feature a kids nite. I think their marketing literally goes a little something like, “We're here to help kids learn proper ways of eating in nicer restaurants.”

Upon reading this the first time I immediately I started daydreaming of something akin to ski school…where we might leave our young diners with a professional, maybe dressed as a lion tamer, tackling the job of teaching table manners. Imagine my disappointment when I found out it was the restaurant’s position that parents were still responsible for their children throughout the dining experience. They were simply willing to open their doors to the vertically challenged, and they weren’t a Chuck-E-Cheese.

Even so, here was our opportunity to go out as a family and enjoy a meal that wasn’t eaten in the car.

Not wanting to take any chances, I managed to rope about six other neighborhood families into also taking their brood to the restaurant. “Come on,” I cheered, “it’ll be fun and the kids can hang out with each other while we throw back a few!” My secret plan was that with the extra families there, someone else’s kids might actually be worse behaved than mine. I needed to stack the odds in my favor.

I went so far as to over-stimulate my three with a trip to the zoo in the morning followed by ferocious play in the afternoon that involve hurling Wii discs like ninja stars at one another. I got them good and wired and tired so that everyone collapsed into a nap by 4. I let them sleep until 6:15, when I attempted to dream transfer them to the car for our 6:30 reservation. My hopes were that they’d still be comatose for the first half of dinner.

Husband would be joining us directly from work, so I had the pleasure of bringing the three into the restaurant by myself. As I entered I got a heart-warming mix of looks that said either “how sad” or “oh no.” When someone says to you, “You are so brave to come out by yourself with the kids!” what they are really saying is, “Your kids are obnoxious and you are crazy to leave your house without back up. Please don’t sit by me.”

The quote of the night came from our waiter who joyously announced, “I don’t have kids and these family nights make me want to drink.”

The rest of the evening progressed with far less drama than I expected. Eventually the cavalry (Husband) arrived, and though he only got to eat the leftovers from a kids meal barely touched, I think our outing was a moderate success. Our kids behaved relatively well, ate a fraction of their dinner, and we made it out of the restaurant without the assistance of a boot in our collective ass. Yes, what we consumed still amounted to nothing more than hot dogs, chicken tenders, fish & chips and apple juice. But it cost us about $80, so it must have been good, right?

I dunno. Maybe the drive thru isn’t so bad after all.