Randomness and Restaurants

I’m having one of those days where I feel like I need to write a blog post, but I’m not too into deep thinking nor am I feeling very philosophical. In fact, I have no idea what this post will be about. Those multiple blog posts running around in my head that I have mentioned a time or two...this isn’t one of them. In fact, this is probably going to be pretty random.

This evening, we went on a family outing. We went to one of those pumpkin patches set up in a local church parking lot. It was actually fun, and we got some cute pictures. Sorry, you have to wait. I’m saving those for “Sunday Snapshot.” But we also went out to eat. When your first child is adopted from China, and you spend your first two weeks as parents eating out in restaurants by necessity (and in a foreign country, at that), you just don’t get as intimidated by the idea of taking kids out to eat as you might otherwise. People see us coming in with our 3 little children, and you can see some of them cringe because they know that this is going to be a noisy evening. Our children have been taught how to behave in a restaurant. They have to sit at the table...no random wandering around, and generally, they stay fairly quiet. They entertain themselves with the crayons and kids’ menus until the food arrives. They wait for the blessing before they eat. When we are at a fast food place with a playground, they know they have to finish eating before they go and play. Of course, they are kids. Their table manners are by no means perfect, and they always have to go potty right in the middle of the meal (because you must explore all public restrooms...), but overall, they do very well. Funny thing is, there is almost always a table of all adults around that is much noisier than we are. And it gets noticed. People often stop to tell us how well behaved our kids are. And it makes us feel like we are doing a good job as parents...sometimes it really helps to hear that from an objective outside observer. (And of course, since I’m putting this in writing, our next restaurant experience will be a disaster.) I’m thankful that God puts people in our paths to say, “Good job!”, especially since some days don’t feel that way.

Oh, and just to keep with the idea that this is a random post, a funny from yesterday...It was very foggy when I was taking the girls to preschool. K hasn’t seen much fog, and we live in Florida, so her take on it was, “It’s snowing!” (Did I mention she’s never seen actual snow?)