crazy kid at the restaurant

as parents of two children, my husband and i are always looking for family entertainments. we especially look for them on weekends. we go out to the parks, zoo, beaches, indoor and outdoor playgrounds, swimming pools, and shopping malls. as we go out, we usually eat at the place nearby. to be honest, my husband and i love to eat (actually, we are obsessed to food!). we love to try a new restaurant or cafe.

however, restaurants and kids are not perfect to combine each other. when we eat at a restaurant, usually it only takes five minutes to have mizan sitting still in his chair.at the age of two, he started refusing to sit in the highchair and chose to sit in the same chair as us. after five minutes of sitting while waiting for the food (and while playing the utensils, bottles of salt and pepper, make noises -which of course is a shame- and so on) he will ask me or my husband to release him. otherwise he will release himself and start standing on the chair. if he can't, he starts to cry and even scream. after being free from his chair, he usually starts to walk and wander around the restaurant. he will come to one table to another. the worst thing happened when he tried to reach the drinks from someone sitting on our next table. 

as the food comes, he rarely eats well (i mean, a lot) in the restaurant, unless he is very very hungry. it only takes very little time for him to do his meal, and he starts being crazy again, wandering around the restaurant. the next thing we do after this is to quickly finish our meal.

we for sure felt a huge embarassment. some people might smile or just laugh to see that kind of children's behaviour, while some made bad judgement about this. however what we felt was people making judgement that our son was naughty, had bad behaviour, and far from cute. others might feel that us as the parents did not teach our children about manners. 

we have been through that for more than a year, and we are still going to eat out. because we just love to do so. we still feel the embarassment, yes. we still finish our own meal quick, yes. yet we still enjoy it. we can never have some time to chat or just enjoy the restaurant atmosphere with these two kids. however we are getting better with this whole thing. we always try to minimize the 'damage' happens while eating out. for example,

1. we try to go to the child-friendly restaurant. there are some restaurants those child-friendly enough. these restaurants provide some coloring papers and pencils. Kuala Lumpur has chili's, TGI Friday, and bubba gumps and co (but the restaurant is quit packed). however in jakarta so far i only found marche (it also has mini-playground), but i believe there are others that i might not know.

2. opt for restaurant that is not so packed and has wider space between one table to another. this is to minimize accident when my children walk (or run!) around the restaurant.

3. bring our own tools to keep them entertain,such as our own pencil and papers, story books,or ipad. it was a success for mikal. however in mizan case, these are not a long-term fix, but still.

4. try not to care about what others opinionate about our children and ourselves. people who raise their eyebrow may not have any kids, or they just have little girls, those who (i always think girls are much sweeter in behaviour) don't have this problem. but kids will be kids. and boys will be boys. being crazy at the restaurant is a natural thing.

5. minimizing the stress by minimizing eating out. sometimes if we were just too tired and it was just too hectic we just chose to have the take out food.

otherwise, for those who do not so much into eating out, i think it is best to wait to have the restaurant thing until your child is ready to understand about how he should behave in a restaurant while always try your best to teach him about manner and how to act in public. Let say, until they are 4 to 5 years old.