I almost hate to write this, because it absolutely guarantees that the next time we go out as a family, all hell will break loose. But you know, we are pretty darn lucky when it comes to restaurants and our kids.

I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve felt like “that family,” the one that everyone else shoots dirty glances at while the kids scream. Eric is currently testing the waters for standing up, jumping, and climbing all over the place during meals out, and it’s something I want to curb before it gets out of hand. When he was in a high chair, we would strap him in only if he was standing up and misbehaving; now most boosters don’t offer an option of straps, which makes it a bit more of a challenge short of getting up and leaving. (Which isn’t off the table, though a little more difficult for me to do with a nursing baby also joining us for dinner.)

Fortunately for me and John – and unfortunately for Eric – we’re also incredibly mean parents. He still fits in a highchair. Highchairs have straps. Look out, kid.

I’m also becoming a master of redirection in restaurants. When I needed a new purse, I bought two, both of them large enough to act as miniature diaper bags. (I’m not a two bag, or a diaper bag, kind of gal. My diaper bag lives in the back seat of the car with a bunch of diapers and stuff in it, but it never comes with me.) In it is stashed the restaurant toys: a mini-magnadoodle, a couple of cars, a plastic key ring with keys (technically a baby toy, but he enjoys it, so who am I to argue?), and sometimes a small board book. I feel like a boy scout, always prepared. Or maybe a magician with a bag of tricks. Or both.

Of course, it doesn’t always work. There are times when all of the early food, toys, and discipline just can’t help. There have been moments of chaos: holding a baby in one arm while trying to eat with the other, juggling a bottle and formula and water and trying to balance the bottle with my chin so we can both eat, wrestling a toddler onto my lap and letting him pick off my plate just so that he sits down, and the dreaded get up and leave everyone else to eat while I deal with the problem de jour. I think, though, that a lot of what has helped us is that we’ve always done it. We aren’t the type to stop going to restaurants, or to only go to family crazy restaurants where the noise level is so loud no one notices if you’re having a toddler temper tantrum or a heart attack. Eric was days old, just home from the hospital, and we were going out to eat. Not that we do it all the time, or even half of the time, but we do, and we have.

I’ll admit, though. Every time we go out, I still have that tiny mom voice in the back of my head whispering, “Please don’t let it be my kids this time.”

(Yup – blog blasting again! This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by Burger King Corp.)