Why it's worth thinking twice about lunching out with friends... and toddlers!

I mean we’re not even talking dinner here. This is JUST a sodding LUNCH. Something that was SO easy pre-kids… but now… well… it’s definitely f*&king not!

(thank goodness photographs don't capture the chaos)

A message pings up on whatsapp… ‘We must all get together soon’, dates are thrown around and after endless to-ing and fro-ing to find a date that suits every husband, wife, due date and other commitment, we finally find ‘THE ONE’

A restaurant is booked for ten, eager to socialise adults and eight, less than enthusiastic children, (who would probably rather be anywhere else), ranging between the ages of one and five. Mine included the youngest and the most unpredictable! JOY!

I’ve been here before (as in lunch out with friends and toddlers) yet I forget the pain… much like childbirth I guess!

So here we are – doing it again!

The restaurant is Pizza express. I love Pizza express and I’m hungry! I bound through the door, optimistic that I might actually get to enjoy my Soho 65 with extra jalapenos. For risk of a spoiler alert. I don’t. I have 2 toddlers after all.

As soon as we approach our friends and the table they have been allocated, (which is fortunately at the very back of the restaurant in a dark corner), my three year old announces very loudly that he needs a poo.

I apologise to all those tucking into their dough balls, with their well-behaved children quietly sitting beside them, and I have that all too common inner voice wondering why my children never sit that still during a meal… LIKE EVER!

I haven’t even got as far as saying hello to my friends before I land my youngest in one of their laps, scream out another apology and leg it to the toilet with my very recently toilet trained toddler, trying my best to avoid an accident en route. (That's him not me avoiding an accident, although post children, it's anyones guess which way that could go)

I mean, we meet up once, at most twice a year and these first impressions count for a lot, right! How’s she coping? Is she sane? URRMM IS SHE ACTUALLY COPING… AT ALL?

The reality is, that most of the time I am not coping… AT ALL, but moments like this don’t help my, mostly successful, cover up!

Also not helped by the fact that my husband was still parking the car and wasn’t there to assist me.

My son and I emerge from the toilet having avoided an accident, my husband has arrived and we all set upon having a lovely catch up lunch with our friends. YES - We are ALL fucking delusional!

I did manage to get half way round the table saying hello to a few people before I discover, the son that isn’t hanging off my hip, is now under the table and literally getting under everyone’s feet!

My husband and I, hideously embarrassed that ours is the only child playing up, try to calmly talk him out of the tangled web of peoples feet, but obviously being under the table is much more fun that sitting nicely up at it.

Oh god, this is going to be a very long lunch.

I prize the youngest child from my hip and TRY to wrestle him into a high chair. I might as well have threatened him that Father Christmas wasn’t coming this year, with the fuss he was making! I don’t know what it is about high chairs after a certain age (in our case this was about 18 months) but the body goes rigid, they become AT LEAST ten times stronger than you … and you look like you are literally torturing them, by trying to insert them into this small innocuous wooden structure!

One legs in, one legs out, both legs are unbendable and with this rigid being, no part of him, let alone his bottom, is ever finding its way into that seat. The one attempt that does work comes with a realisation that both legs have ended up in the same hole and would result in the aforementioned toddler imminently sliding into a sprawling, screaming heap on the floor, as soon as you let go. So the process continues again … and I can feel our friends trying to ignore our struggles, so as not to make us feel uncomfortable, but I know that they’re slightly smug that their children are already sitting nicely, colouring in the children’s menus which have been kindly provided by the establishment.

Anyway – we FINALLY get him into his seat (with a little snack bribery and a dummy!!) and then deal with the older one who IS now sitting up at the table, but feeling desperately hard done by because all of the other children have crayons, but he doesn’t.

Why is it that toddlers immediate reaction is to whine incessantly… and not just ask politely for some more?

When I pass him one, it’s not the right colour – OBVIOUSLY!

I repeat to myself – ‘pick your battles, pick your battles, and don’t reveal to your friends you are COMPLETELY NOT IN CONTROL OF THIS SITUATION and mildly (COMPLETELY) losing your shit!’

A new pot of crayons is provided… and finally, a moment’s peace!

Another lesson we never learn is ORDER STRAIGHT AWAY!! Instead we get consumed with catching up with each other (after all that’s what we are all there to do!) But, we forget that the (our) children have a VERY limited attention span and sure enough they only sit tight until the moment we put our orders in, so we now have at least 20 minutes to keep them entertained before their food distraction arrives.

Does any of this sound relaxing to you? NO! It doesn’t. It wasn’t… and SOMEONE PLEASE REMIND ME OF THIS THE NEXT TIME I ENTERTAIN THIS LUDICROUS, IMPOSSIBLE TASK!

Thankfully, someone WAS looking out for us that day, as just outside the restaurant in the market square, OXJAM had just started a performance.

We took it in turns to take our children outside to be entertained by the music and run to their hearts content around the square. Of course, this meant that we were constantly chasing after our own children who all had their own agenda and were running in different directions, so we didn’t get to speak to the people we’d driven all that way to see in the first place.

We kept this rotation up until the food eventually arrived and the entire duration of the meal consisted of a snatched sentence here and there … but never really finishing a complete conversation, to glean any REAL information about how anyone ACTUALLY was.

We saw them though, so that counts right!

Well, at least till next year, when we’ll all have forgotten the stress and pain of it all and agree to do it again and learn absolutely nothing about anyone!

I love you all though! And hope you’re all well. Whatever you’re doing!

See you next year. xx