This is why we never go to restaurants

Blurry photo to match the haze of parenting these three.

For her birthday, Sienna asked to go out for dinner to a restaurant. This type of request is not ever undertaken lightly. We very rarely do this as we know that children + any eating establishment that requires reservations and that uses glassware and has carpet on the floor = exponentially high stress levels for the parents. This place even has tablecloths and no play area so you know it's classy. For a few days leading up to the event and even as we were getting out of the car on the night, we reminded the girls of how we expected them to behave otherwise someone was going to get it. We arrive at the restaurant with the plan to finish dining before we can disturb all the childless couples arriving to enjoy a quiet/romantic/insert-any-adjective-that-is-the-polar-opposite-to-dining-out-with-children dinner and, ideally, before anyone recognizes us. We sit down to our table but only after the children have run around it and under it several times and tested out all the chairs to see which one they want to sit on. The seating arrangements last just for a few minutes until they decide that actually, that other chair furtherest away from them does look more comfortable. I'm feeling pretty good having made it to this settling in phase using only my mildest hushed threatening voice.

Once they are all sitting nicely and can leave the cutlery and empty wine glasses alone, we offer the girls something to drink. From glasses. With bendy straws. I told you this place was classy. To their credit, they do remember to speak nicely to the waiter taking their orders, and only need reminding a few times to say please and thank you. We tell them several times to make that solitary drink last because it is the only one they are getting, but there must have been some deaf tonic thrown into the fizzy drink because they are emptied within minutes, so with nothing more to occupy them, I sit back and wait for the slippery slope of boredom to come beckoning while we wait for the other dinner guests in our party to arrive.

I love it when I can sit back and observe my children causing mayhem in the restaurant. It's delightful. I really feel like I have done my job as a parent. Because if children cannot behave decorously in public, then that surely is a reflection on how they have been parented, and usually the finger of poor etiquette points directly at the mother. You know it's true. We all know that Dads are just put on earth to teach them all the bad manners and that brushing your teeth only needs to happen the day before you have a dentist appointment. It's the yin and yang of parenting. So, when one of the girls lets out a burp at the table, my husband laughs, stopping short of giving her a hearty "That's my girl' pat on the back, but only because he sees my death stare. So, yes, these little cherubs sitting in the middle of a restaurant with straws shoved up their noses clearly learnt that trick from him, but I will be the only one at that table being silently judged by onlookers. With drinks downed, and straws banished, I wait for my favourite melody "When can we eeeeeaaat? and its harmony "I'm hunnnggrry" to start on repeat.

At this time of the year, this restaurant is offering Christmas-style buffet dinners, complete with sparkly Christmas crackers. After they have eaten their fill from the all-you-can eat buffet, the children are finally allowed to open them to play quietly with the treats that lie within - ha! The stuff of fairytales. Of course, someone wins a toy that the others all want so then there is a mad rush to ransack the remaining nine crackers at the table to see if there is an identical toy. There isn't. Never mind that we are on a rare outing on a school night with their younger cousins and they have just filled their tummies with some delicious food and a single flavoursome beverage, the measure of the success of the evening rests on whether we are going to leave with three tiny plastic soccer ball yo-yos.

So, once the bill has been settled, there is the small navigational issue of herding all the children back into the same lift simultaneously while correctly remembering whose turn it is to push the button and then out to the car without the need for any of them to practice their cartwheels in the hotel lobby or to have to go back up the lift to use the toilet because they suddenly remember they have a bladder or we need to find a missing shoe.

This is why we never go to restaurants. It is all just a bit too hard. We thought we were over the days of needing to bribe our children to behave in certain social settings. We're not quite there yet. We may need to wait another 12 months to see how far along the etiquette path we have travelled. In the meantime, it is strictly McDonalds drive-through for us.