In a perfect world, whenever SPH and I wanted to go out to dinner, we would have a sitter and we would enjoy a wonderful meal. Alone. In an almost perfect world, we would take the boys with us and they would be on their “very best behavior” and we’d dine in perfect harmony, all four of us.
Since life ain’t perfect, but we still love to dine out and are determined to teach the boys how to act in what we deem “a very fancy restaurant” (note: any restaurant other than fast food is deemed very fancy), I am always thankful for those restaurants that cater to children without being overly kiddie.
We were feeling daring, so SPH and I took the boys with us to Bravo several weeks ago. This restaurant has ambiance, real ambiance, and (!) tablecloths, so I was hopeful that our dining would be relatively sedate, meaning, no huge outbursts or ugly stares from other diners.
Things were going smoothly when our waitress brought our drinks and (drumroll please), a plate of dough for each of the boys. Brilliant. She declared that this was the restaurant’s version of play dough, real pizza dough that the boys could use to create something or simply eat.
We ordered our meals and for the next 15 minutes, SPH and I sipped our wine and enjoyed an unfettered conversation. The best thing? As delighted as SPH and I were at our discourse, the boys were thrilled to have something with which to play.
Needless to say, we’ll be going back to Bravo. In fact, R won’t let us forget. Many times when we mention going out, he says, “I want to go back to the restaurant with play dough at the table!”
By the way, this strategy works just as well at home when you are trying to cook up some pizza. We let the boys play with the dough while I am prepping things and then let them make their own pizzas. Here's R prepping his pizza:
SPC
SPC
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