Dinner with a "3C Kid"

I do know why we thought that going out to dinner at a real sit down restaurant was a good idea; I was bored.  You see, we spent all day Saturday at home cooped up in the house because the weather was rainy and miserable.  We did a ton; spent two hours on a game of Star Wars Monopoly, an hour building and playing GeoTrax, way too long watching TV and we had snacked on everything in the house -- so it wasn't like we hadn't done anything, but I was super bored.  Me.  I was bored.

So my hubby suggested we all go out to dinner and that we invite my parents to meet us.

We agreed on the Olive Garden, half way between our house and my parent's house, and off we went.

I was nervous.  I mean, we DON'T take the boys to restaurants all together.  Nick only eats peanut butter (really) and Matthew isn't much better (Matt doesn't even eat fast food except the occasional chicken nugget at McDonald's -- so this is a challenge).

Add to that it is 6pm at night when we decide this, and that Gabe is accustomed to eating at exactly 6pm (he is obsessed with food in the literal sense), so he would have to wait, most likely in a crowded restaurant, stay calm while I entertained Matthew to keep him in his seat.

I looked up the menu online and it said that the Olive Garden serves Pizza.  Sold.  Nick and Matt could at least order that -- whether or not they ate it is an entirely different story.

So, we were off to the Olive Garden.

And the challenges started in the over-crowded waiting room during our 20+ minute wait.

I had prepped all three with the iPhone app from Model Me Kids that shows the boy going to dinner and 'waiting calmly' for his food while driving there in the van (my hubby drove, I turned around backwards and played the app for them; didn't want you to think I was doing both).  They boys all nodded in agreement and when asked how they were supposed to wait, they echoed the short clip by saying "Calmly." 

While waiting for our table, we were given one of those buzzers -- that doesn't actually buzz -- but lights up when your table is ready. We were two feet from the reception desk, but nonetheless, we got the buzzer.

And Nick and Gabe could NOT take turns holding it.

They were insistent on keeping it (*cough* Gabe), and my mom and dad were doing an awesome job (as usual) making it into a game of sorts so that there weren't any meltdowns.

But Gabe was feeling inflexible on the matter.

At Nick's suggestion, I turned the buzzer over in Gabe's hand so the part that lights up would be visible, which didn't go well -- It was met with grunting and Gabe dropping to the ground in protest.
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