Venturing out, Right handed
The other night we went to dinner with some friends of ours. We chose the very kid friendly, slightly annoying, but predictable Red Robin. Jake and I have not made it a habit to dine-out with Quinn… Mostly because no matter how you slice it, taking a child to a restaurant is not easy, at least at this age. That coupled with the fact that Jake is not a huge fan of eating out, I can count on one hand the amount of times we’ve taken her out to restaurants. While it’s not a breeze, it is getting easier as she get’s older. The key is to keep her entertained until the food arrives, once the food arrives we’re usually home free.
Anyway, we went to Red Robin and they ceremoniously gave her the kids menu and crayons. I saw the crayons and my first thought was YEAH RIGHT, but then, I thought, who knows, maybe she’ll know what to do with them. So I pulled out a crayon, showed her what to do with it, and handed it to her. She fondled it for a nano-second and then it went into her mouth. I showed her again, that you can DRAW with it, but she was not interested.
Tonight at home she spotted a sharpie and Jake began to use it, drawing slowly. She then carefully took it into her right hand and put it to paper and scribbled. This is her first pen-to-paper moment.
I think it’s going to be awhile still before we begin arts & crafts around here, but it was so cute watching her little hand, holding this big pen, in a *fist* hold, and scribble on the post-it.
You were modest about your blog; it’s lovely. And Quinn is adorable. The thing I didn’t learn about until all four of my kids were old enough to make eating out a little easier (and Raven really prefers eating out) is that there is a certain kind of restaurant, maybe not Red Robin, but like the neighborhood Thai restaurant where they get to know you and love to see you and your kid come in for whatever reason, but if you take home the menu, you can call them before coming in and have food ordered before you get to the restaurant so that you don’t have that long stretch of time to entertain the child while you wait for them to bring food out to you.
Mara, thanks for visiting, and I love the idea of calling in the order ahead of time. I think we’ll try this next time.