Parents Eat Free

Because my son is paying!

Just kidding!  We are beginning to think like parents with two kids these days.  When they were smaller, it was no big deal to drive a half hour up to our favorite pizza place in the cities because they would nap in their car seats, or at most, gnaw on a crust.

But now...do you have any idea how much kids' meals cost?  And what the liklihood of my children eating them are?  And should I buy one or two, since M ate 3 of the 4 nuggets in the last McD's kids' meal, but neither ate even one the time before? 

So last night, as Hubs and I hemmed and hawwed about going out to eat (we really wanted  to, but...should we?), I typed into the search engine, "kids eat free sunday" and found this website: http://www.mykidseatfree.com/welcome.asp.  You enter your state, then choose a city from the drop-down menu, then choose a day of the week and VOILA!  It tells you which restaurants have free kids' meals!  We called to double check the offer was still valid and were out the door to a local sports bar/grill place. 

Hubs and I had visited this place once before, years ago.  It's one of those neighborhood-type places that we would likely eat at frequently if were in our neighborhood.  But it was the perfect solution to last night's problem (and hey, if that's our biggest problem, we are doing really well!): free kids' meals, football game on TV, friendly staff, and decent food.  Hooray!  This might be our new favorite place!

Despite warnings from people (you know who you are) that the worst time to take kids out to eat is between 18-24 months of age (they're 19 mo.), we think last night's foray was pretty successful.  That means no fits, the boys ate something (mini corndogs and rice krispy treats were a hit, but cheeseburger and fries were not), there was minimal food-dropping, and the parents ate a meal (a sandwich and salad - quickly, of course, but still, a meal).  Woo hoo! 

Since we were there well before the normal dinner hour, it was funny to see people's reactions to us as they entered.  An elderly group asked for a different table when first directed to a nearby booth, but a family with two school-aged girls sat nearby smiling, watching the boys, and saying things like, "I remember putting those mats on the table!"  The staff said "Hi!" and "Bye!" in response to M's greeting, and retrieved planes and sippy cups kindly.  I guess a place advertising Kids Eat Free better be prepared for some kids.

So maybe, just maybe, we'll do this again. 

Watin' for the food, dude