Screw the children's menu. . .

Eating at a restaurant with a toddler is hard. 1) restaurant food isn't always conducive to toddlers, 2) the speed with which the food is served doesn't match a toddlers need to eat NOW, 3) when your toddler needs to get up they need to get up. . . some restaurant patrons don't enjoy a toddler walking by eyeing their food (most do, but not all). I feel like we're walking by and he's saying "you gonna eat that?"

Recently we went to one restaurant and behind us was a man who showed obvious signs of disgust when he saw he was being seated behind Skippy Jr., as if sitting behind him would cause him much trouble. In his defense, toward the end of the meal Skippy Jr. did turn around and try and touch him.

Then there's the subject of food. Mostly he gets bits of fries and bread and whatever we thought to bring along with us. Some restaurants are better than others. Places with a salad bar (like Ruby Tuesday's which is conveniently located about a mile from our house) are perfect, you can load up a plate from the salad bar with everything from fruits and veggies to ham and eggs. We also steal crackers to keep in the diaper bag from everywhere we go. Single serving to go.

Children's menus bug us. Spending money on a meal he's barely gonna touch doesn't seems right. So normally we skip that and just give him some of our food. Of course that means we need to keep him in mind when we order.

Tonight I had a stroke of genius. We were at a local Mexican place. . . and I ordered fajitas. When my dinner came out it was the usual sizzling cast iron skillet on a piece of wood, a plate of cold fixings and a container with flour tortillas. I took half a tortilla (I sliced it with my knife), filled if halfway with cheese, folded it, used my fork to pry up the cast iron skillet and placed the tortilla under it. Two minutes later I had a fully melted cheese quesadilla.

He loved it, especially dipped in sour cream. I was so proud of myself.