Eating out and other musings

Ok this isn't a post about one of my meals but about eating out and other general parenting trials.  I was reading an article just now and some comments about a restaurant banning kids in it's dinning room and it had me thinking.

Now my two aren't angels but they are relatively well behaved for 2 year olds and now and then we like to eat out.  This gives me a break from the kitchen and gives them lessons on how to behave.  Now here's my two cents.  Yes I think a restaurant should have the right to ban kids.  Honestly there are certain restaurants I wouldn't dream of taking my kids to because I don't think it's appropriate specially the higher end places.  My reasoning, as an adult and parent of two wonderful twins there are times I want to eat kid free.  It's a treat and a pleasure to sit have an adult conversation and not have to worry about unruly kids running around the place who have a hard time sitting still.  To this end I will not take my girls to certain places until they are older and know how to sit at a table and not act up, it is a common curtesy.

However I will take my girls to kid friendly places and casual dinning places because I need a break from the kitchen and clean up at home.  I probably manage to eat out maybe once a month and most times it's a lunch at Chilis and the difference it makes for me on those days is night and day.  However as any parent knows dinning out comes with it's own challenges.  I promise you any time one of my kids really starts to act out I will remove them and we will go home end of story because I am stressing out more than the person next to me I can assure you.  In terms of service, honestly give me good service and I am more than generous specially at lunch time I often leave a 20 to 25% tip for good service.  However give me lousy service and you will barely make the minimum.  I had lunch with my neighbor a couple of weeks ago and the server was distracted and a ditz, we asked for a split check before placing our order...which didn't happen, he barely showed up, food took forever, and for a change I had to split the shared meal, neither of us were happy and figured he hadn't taken his happy pills or something she said he was normally better than that, so he got the 15% and the headache of working out his own tip, thanks to his screw up, and no it wasn't that busy.

Now this had me all thinking about kids and public places.  The other week Mum and I were in Costco the girls were in a great mood, so much so they started yelling out whilst sitting in the shopping cart Miskamouska Mickey Mouse with gusto.  Now we are talking about a warehouse store not a quiet department store here most people were amused and smiling at the happy girls however my Mum did get some stoney looks from others.  It's a store people, they weren't crying they weren't really screaming and they were happy so what is your problem?!  You get your item you move along in less than a minute you won't hear them.  Oh and we were trying to get them to be a little quieter about it but sheesh that annoyed me.