The Secret to Enjoying Your Cheese Coneys with Kids in Tow

After doing this for three years and two kids now, I think there is one area where I have parenting down pat:

The dreaded dinner out.

No, I don’t have the perfect make up for the either sorrowful or angry stares you receive when your 3-year-old daughter melts down because just the tiniest sliver of ketchup touched her cottage cheese or when your 18-month-old son throws a fit because he wants to hold his own cup and doesn’t like your parental attempts to save the restaurant from flooding.

But I am a fast eater. I mean really fast. And if there is anything I have learned as a parent of toddlers, it is that you have a very short window when eating out. You basically need to plan your get-away while being seated and ask for the check as soon as your food reaches the table. Otherwise, you are playing with fire. And I mean fire of the worst kind: a complete melt-down-by-a-3-year-old fire.

I used to be one of those single guys who ate out by himself, quietly reading the paper in between trips to the buffet bar. I hated when my Frisch’s fish sandwich was interrupted by the temper tantrum of a 2-year-old. I looked on in disdain at the parents who couldn’t keep their kids under control in a public place.

No more.

I now know that there is no controlling the emotions of a toddler. The littlest things set them off and getting them back on course is more difficult than moving Disneyland to Ohio.

Threaten to take them to the car? Three things are going to happen. First, they are going to escalate and get louder at the thought of losing the privilege of eating out. So your situation actually worsens. Two, all eyes will be on you when you carry a kicking and screaming toddler from the restaurant. Embarrassing. Three, you are going to miss your dinner.

Those who know me know I don't like missing dinner.

Threaten punishment at home? As “soon as we get out of here, I’m going to…” Good luck. They will have long forgotten the incident and punishment will be a moot point. You can’t learn if you don’t remember why you are being punished. Children have the attention span of a gnat.

The best thing you can do is prevention. Get out of there before a melt-down happens.

I am one of the fastest eaters you will ever meet. When I was a kid, we were poor. Hot dogs were a regular meal. Hot dogs come in packs of eight. There were five members of our family. I can guarantee my dad was getting a second dog. The other two were up for grabs to the fastest eaters.

I learned young.

So when it comes to restaurants, my wife and I have a game plan. We sit down and immediately ask for the kids’ food. That gets delivered first and we hope it holds their attention. When our food comes, we immediately ask for the check. We sometimes have to explain our “short window” to the server, but most of the time they get it. They either have their own kids, or they are thankful we are willing to get out of there before the floor under our table is covered with Splenda packets.

Then I do my thing. I eat like Hannibal Lector at the county morgue. My fork flies fast and furious. Just about the time the kids are starting to get antsy, I am cleaning the last bit of Skyline chili off my plate.

Then, it is wait-and-see time.

If we all get to stay at the table until the wife is finished, that is a bonus. We just enjoyed a nice family dinner. But if one of the kids is on the verge of a Tasmanian Devil impersonation, I am free to swoop them up and run for the car as fast as possible, leaving my lovely bride – and our fellow diners -- the luxury of a peaceful meal.

Voilà! There you have the Gregg secret to eating out.

Parents-to-be, take heed. Start practicing now. Study the menu for the shortest cooking times. Learn what goes down smoothly and what will take time to eat. (This is no time for crab legs, for Heaven’s sake!) Know what restaurants have the best items of distraction, or bring them with you. (We have even been known to bring the iPad.)

You heard it here first. Bon Appétit!  

Daddy's Main Goal: Keeping Baby Alive

Women and men take care of babies differently.

I’m being nice here by simply differentiating. The fact is, women are just plain better at it.

Taking care of Sydney is an EVENT for me. If that is my job for the day, that is pretty much all I do. Plan on hunkering down in the house, with a pile of toys to one side and a stack of diapers to the other. This is a job that requires 100 percent of my focus, for fear I screw it up.

But it is not unusual for me to come downstairs and see my wife with Sydney in one arm while she does the dishes with another. Or, she has no problem taking Sydney with her to the store, or incorporating her into other normal parts of her life.

For her, Sydney is just part of her daily routine. For me, I won’t even make a sandwich if I am watching Sydney. When Brooke went away for a weekend bachelorette party, I lost seven pounds.

Why is it like this? Why are the genders so different when it comes to baby rearing? I realize I am generalizing here, but in my conversations with other mothers, I’ve discovered many dads are just like me: inept at multi-tasking with the baby.

Why can I never miss a beat at work while simultaneously taking a call from the media, writing a speech for my boss and directing one of my employees on how to handle a client complaint, yet I can’t seem to keep an eye on my daughter and feed the dogs at the same time?

My attempts at multi-tasking usually end up with the daughter crying. Loudly. Either she has a dirty diaper for four hours or she has plopped off the bed onto the floor or she is choking on a piece of debris she mistook for a tasty treat while rolling around on the carpet.

Seriously.

I can be sitting there with my daughter for two hours and my wife will enter the room and within 15 seconds say, “She needs her diaper changed.” I check and she does. Mommy wins again. Daddy 0, Mommy 1,247.

Sigh.

If we decide to go out to dinner, Brooke has no problem packing up a couple of bowls of baby food and feeding Sydney dinner while she is eating her own. I would be completely uncomfortable doing this and would opt to feed Sydney before or after the restaurant. That way, I ensure she is not a distraction from my own eating (very important if you know me!) and I decrease the chance of her causing some sort of scene in the restaurant.

But my wife nonchalantly feeds Sydney her sweet potatoes and peas with one hand while nibbling at her Frisch’s Big Boy with the other.

I once took Sydney outside to sit on the porch and wait for her mother to come home. Easy enough. It is like being inside; we just sit here and play.

Well, there is sun outside. And babies are fair-skinned. And there was a huge yellow jacket burrowing its way into my wooden porch railing, so I got distracted tracking down a can of wasp spray and flooding the hole. Next thing I know, Sydney is sweating and turning lobster red.

Dad of the Year strikes again.    

I wouldn’t even attempt to take my daughter on some kind of adventure outside the house without my wife. I’m just grateful I have managed to drop her off at the day care every morning on the way to work without forgetting her in the car.

Someday, this will change. A day with daddy will be a trip to the museum or the playground. But for now, I am not taking any chances. When mommy is not around, the living room becomes command central. Sydney alternates between the Jumperoo and her toys on the floor while daddy stands at the ready, diapers in one hand and baby food in the other.

My smug, multi-tasking wife can look down on me all she wants. At least Sydney will be alive when she gets home.