Let's go have dinner at Pei Wei, Applebee's or our favorite Mexican Restaurant dive.
It sounds like such a great idea at the time. All the ingredients to a good time are there. We're hungry. There's a restaurant offering to satisfy a particular craving we have. And so, we go inside.
But after a few visits to the restaurants, we have realized there is a pattern.
The waiter comes. We order. We wait. Daniel is entertained by something or another. Food comes. Daniel becomes bored. The race is on!
It's stressful eating when a child is screaming and forcing you to split your attention between meal, conversation and child. We end up shoveling food into our mouths, gulp the drink and bolt out the door as quickly as possible.
How can you enjoy the atmosphere when your child is decorating it with the entree? Makes you wonder, right?
We resigned ourselves to the fact that restaurants won't be a part of our lives for the next couple of years... at least not with Daniel.
While at work the other day, Claudia sent me a text.
"Are you available for lunch," she asked.
"Sure," I said.
"It's a date and without Daniel," she responded.
What a great idea! We could have our weekday rendezvous sneaking off to enjoy a lunch together at one of our favorite restaurants each week. My wife, in case you didn't know already, is brilliant!
This is a great solution to a seemingly silly problem, but in reality it is extremely important for us to maintain our relationship with each other. We rarely have time to enjoy an uninterrupted hour together now. So these lunches give us a chance to go on our "date" and continue the romance that made our relationship and friendship so great before parenthood.
So Claudia and I can continue enjoying our conversations at meal times, albeit during lunch; and Daniel can decorate our kitchen with his meal while we eat dinner together instead of destroying the decor in a restaurant.
Balance has been restored in the universe and life is good.
