Warning: Mommy brag ahead!

When we went to lunch earlier today, we were seated immediately next to a table of three older adults. As we took our seats, I saw “the look.” Parents, you know what I mean. The look where you realize they would rather sit next to a hungry lion than a table full of children. The look that says that they have been subjected to poorly behaved children in such a setting in the past, and are certain it’s going to happen again.

Now, our children are usually well-behaved when we go out to eat. They’ve been taught to speak quietly, stay in their seats, say “please” and “thank you”–all the basics of dining out. But since we had been out in the heat all day, at different parks, and since it was almost two hours past their normal lunchtime, I was a little worried. Surely if there was a time that there was going to be an embarrassing restaurant meltdown, it was when we were seated next to people who obviously wish the host had seated us anywhere but there.

I shouldn’t have worried. The children behaved as they usually do in public. They weren’t loud, they weren’t getting out of their seats, they were polite–Ladybug even only dropped her restaurant-provided crayons once, and didn’t make a big production out of retrieving them. So I was relieved–surely these people couldn’t find anything to complain about with our family!

I was right. On their way out, one of the older women stopped by our table and put her hand on my shoulder. She leaned down to me, and in a quiet voice said, “You have very well-behaved children.”

It was just one of those moments where, not only did the worst case scenario not happen, but someone actually recognized the hard work that has gone into teaching our children how to behave properly at a restaurant. And what more can a mother really ask for?