Dining Fine?

18th June
12:30pm

My friend Charlotte is always asking if we've tried this new restaurant or that new bistro in our area. She's well-versed in the catering potential of E&C where we live and somehow always has her ear to the ground.

She knows I don't like to venture far with both boys by myself, as I dread toilet trips en masse. In the first instance, there is the issue of locating a clean loo. Then getting there with Boat Buggy and two kids means that usually, we have to 'mis'use the disabled toilets and hog them. We seem to be a target for the do-gooder, bossy toilet attendant, or risk being tutted by everyone else. A poo nappy affair is not pleasant at the best of times but on a stinky, filthy, tiny bench designated the changing area, with the squirmiest of kids, is really not my idea of fun. So before we even think about the restaurant or cafe, the loo trip has already been a complete mission!

It's true that we only venture as far as McDs and crave a real time in a grown-up space. When I hear Charlotte talk about all those nice eateries, I do feel terrible and wonder if I'm depriving the boys of different dining experiences in our wonderfully cosmopolitan city. Sometimes one of us will suddenly have a moment of amnesia of the last ghastly eating-out episode and cry out with those misguided words: "let's go out for a meal and treat ourselves!"

In a perfect world, the ideal scenario would be us seated at a secluded table with high-backed sofa seats, away from scrupulous eyes, in a quiet restaurant. The one-year-old would be napping deeply and wee big bro would be so hungry that he'd focus on eating every morsel without protest. He'd also have a Picasso moment and set the art world on fire with the crayons.

In actuality, one of us ends up snatching bites of food that is barely out the oven or has long gone cold, while the other distracts the one-year-old. Said kid will end up on my lap, elbows deep in my spaghetti, and I'd be entertaining and blowing bubbles and/or balloons on the sly, getting frowns from unsympathetic neighbouring tables, who may as well be sitting at our table as they are placed so closely. And then there are the disapproving looks from waiters, just for good measure.

Even worse is eating out with childless relatives who spend preposterous hours deliberating over the menu, or chat for ages about what to drink and don't order right away! Do they not realise we are all in a limited time frame here, with a ticking time bomb or two? The kids, by hook or crook, always need to poo in that time which means you don't even get to be in the nice restaurant space for most of the meal anyway!

I wonder if Charlotte has selective memory and has a program to sugarcoat traumatic events? Perhaps she's just plain nuts and has the tolerance of a soldier on guards duty. I sometimes think that she has special nostrils that make her children smell like roses; does she only see the good and positive? I don't eat enough with her and her girls to really comment or know but they do seem to sit properly at meal times, omitting the high chair somersaulting and competitive acrobatic manoeuvres that my boys demonstrate quite frequently.

Bless her, she is so enthusiastic and optimistic but I would be if I had kids that sat that well! My no. 2 kid hasn't turned out much better and I seemed to have wasted my second chance at getting a child to competently make it through meal times in public, or even in private. I just don't know where I'm going wrong but I'm certain it is because she has girls! Or just maybe, we have dodgy genes.

What I fear when we dine out with the kids, besides that they are awake, is that the restaurant is full and bustling, or my kit of bubbles and balloons suddenly lose their appeal, as does the iPad. Said iPad becomes a game of how many times can it be dropped onto the floor, along with all the cutlery within reach and those crayon things. My boys think that crayons are intended to be broken up into a thousand pieces and that the table is supposed to be drenched with spilt drinks and buried under soggy, soiled napkins. Do all kids actually like doodling in every restaurant they go to? After the third time eating out, my boys caught on quickly and were fed up of the usual freebie colouring-in pack. So we were back to trying our 'bag of not-so-sugar-free tricks'.

At the end of it all, we have the luxury of a bill of £50+ and growling stomachs. Wait a minute – Charlotte did say that Druchers down the road was really child-friendly though. Maybe this restaurant will be different and change our eating-out attitude for good?

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