Family lunches

We went out for Saturday lunch again today, just us 3. It was lovely, food was great and it was nice to spend time as a family after being away all week. Meals out are definitely more stressful now than before we had Henry. We have to pack things to keep him amused, water, a bib and lunch...which then needed heating up when we arrived. I know there are a lot of people that would say we shouldn't bother going out with Henry until he's older but it's so important to us that he gets used to restaurants and more importantly as he gets older, knows how to behave in them. We go out to eat a lot and we both love food and it's something we want to continue doing as Henry grows up. When I was younger we ate out at least twice a week, every week...often more. My parents never had to worry if we'd behave in a restaurant, we always did because we were used to it, we enjoyed it and we knew there'd be consequences if we messed around! I'll never forget being dragged out of the restaurant and back to our hotel room in London when I was about 6 because I was being naughty. I didn't get to finish my lunch or have pudding to give my mum an easy life. Instead she left our lunch and made a point. The fact that I never did it again and the fact that I can still remember it today says a lot.

I have so many funny and happy memories of meals out when I was younger. 'Pizza for a penny' coupons every Friday with my cousins, the time that Simon sobbed the whole way through a Pizza Hut lunch because the optician had just told him he needed glasses, the time Mum made Simon eat a whole spicy chilli pizza because he'd ordered it, claiming to like chilli at the grand age of 8. Getting dressed in our best clothes to go to somewhere posh and then spending the whole meal marvelling at the candle in the wine bottle, caked in multicoloured wax that I was always so desperate to pick off!! All good memories.

So that's why we'll continue to eat out with our baby in the coming years. I'm sure we'll have nightmare dinners and I'm sure they'll rarely be relaxing for a good 10 years, but we're hoping it should pay off eventually!!

Oh and Henry will NEVER be the child at the dinner table with headphones in watching a DVD or listening to music, but that's another rant for another day!!