The Responsibility of No

Have you ever gotten tired of being the adult? I never quite realized before how many things the word no can be applied to in a single dinner. And I feel guilty for saying it so many times. And I don't want to anymore!

So down with the 'No, you can't run in a restaurant' and the 'no matter how dull that butter knife may be, you still can't poke your friend with it' and the 'no, you can't play hide and seek under the table'!

Okay, so the only way to teach our children the rules of society is to keep reminding them over and over with negative statements. But I feel like an ogre after spending an entire two hour dinner saying no every few minutes. Luckily I don't have to say it so much when it's just A-chan, this dinner also included a friend of hers who is the same age and they desperately wanted to get down and play. Who can blame them, really? Except the other patrons in the restaurant, the wait staff, etc.

The obvious solution would be to take the little ones to a place like Chucky Cheese where they can do as they like. One problem with this is that such restaurants cater to mainstream american life - ie, no vegetarian food. Not going to happen with our family. Another problem is that they are so incredibly merchandising oriented that it is sickening. I don't want to expose my child to places like that. On the other hand, most vegetarian restaurants are not kid friendly. We have two pure veg places in town and neither offer a kid's menu, kid's size drink cups or seem even to want to treat kids as humans. I don't like either option. What I really want is a vegetarian & meatatarian restaurant that likes kids and has a play area with a good kids menu and vegetarian kids' choices. Why is that such a difficult thing to find? And when did this post turn into a rant? lol. oh well. I guess I didn't realize how much this upset me til I started writing about it.

One more bit of ranting...have you ever noticed that at most restaurants here in the US, the kids' menu have absolutely no vegetarian choices? So if I want a vegetarian meal for my child I have to order it off the adult menu at adult prices even though she won't eat but a fourth of it since she's just (almost) 3 years old. It's ridiculous! And I hate it. End rant. :)