This is a guest post from my friend Jeremy Statton. We did not grow up together, but we do blog on the same internet, which should count for something. Also, I think he might be a doctor, so there’s that. Here’s Jeremy…
My wife and I have made the decision that eating out on Sunday is just not our thing.
Don’t get me wrong, we’ve tried to make it work.
We’ve tried telling ourselves that it will be fun and that the kids will be good, and we will be happy with ourselves when it is over…but these are just lies. Lies we tell ourselves because we want so badly for them to be true.
And they are SO not true.
Let me explain.
9 Reasons Not To Eat Out on Sunday Afternoon
1. Spillage – Every dinner has its moment of a spilled drink. Experienced parents will order clear drinks like water or Sprite or watered down unicorn urine. No matter how hard your kid pleads for fruit punch, it is critical to resist…but you never do.
2. Indecision – After spending an eternity trying to get the kids to choose between chicken fingers and pizza, they will inevitably change their minds 5 seconds after the server has taken your order and disappeared.
3. Inconvenience – Kids never choose to go to the bathroom at a convenient time. When traveling they will decide that they can’t hold it any longer right after you pass the last rest stop for 100 miles. Just when the food is brought out one of the kids will suddenly need to poop.
4. Technology – iPads are a promising solution to a noisy lunch, but this will only work if each kid has their own. Despite the long speech in the care about sharing with each other, there will be a fight about whose turn it is and how life is not fair.
5. More spillage
6. Grumpiness – After breaking up fights, making “no touching” rules, taking away knives, and spending fifteen minutes looking for a lost child your patience is spent. Yelling will happen. And just like that the newly married, young assistant pastor seated in the corner booth who has yet to become a parent will begin planning a sermon series on child discipline.
7. Embarrassment – Yelling can be awkward, but at some point something worse will happen. This embarrassing moment can range from one of the kids squirting ketchup on someone to a stranger being told they have bad breath to something you can’t even imagine living through.
8. Whining – Just when things seem to settle down and you finally get to being a conversation the whining begins. “Can we go now? What is taking so long? This is so boring. I have to poop again”
9. Crying – This could be you. This could be the kids. But there will always be crying.
Instead of playing this game we often choose to just invite people over to our house.
My wife cooks a nice lunch, our guests bring a delightful dessert, we lock the kids in their rooms, and the adults get to enjoy uninterrupted conversation.
What about you?
Any horror stories from taking kids out to eat on a Sunday?
And if you’re a Sunday morning worshiper, what do you do for lunch after church?
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For more Jeremy, check out his blog, Confessions of a Legalist.