For the Sea Food Lover in You

Richard's parents sent a Red Lobster gift card for Rich's birthday last month. We were going to use it to go on a date together, but Rich called from work today and said he wanted to use it to go to lunch as a family. So off we went. The event started as we got out of the car at the restaurant and Max had a poopy blow out! Yuck! And while we were taking care of that Peter was running back and forth across the parking lot where potential cars could be driving, but thankfully weren't. I was worried this was an omen for how the lunch would go, but I was wrong. Lunch was nice. Rich got to order all you can eat shrimp, which he took full advantage of. I ordered the coconut shrimp appetizer for my lunch (along with a side salad that was swimming in ranch dressing, forgot to order that on the side) and it was way yummy!! The kids wanted mac & cheese to share. I always feel funny ordering mac & cheese at a restaurant. I feel like if that is what they wanted we should just make it at home where it is free, not $5!! Oh, well. Max had fun swaying in his highchair to the background music. He was very well behaved considering I can now count on 2 fingers the number of times he has been to a restaurant. (A strong difference from Sophie as a baby. When she was his age we couldn't count the number of times we ate out. But that was a different life really.) Well, there was a point where I wanted to take Max on a walk around the restaurant to keep him from getting fussy. Sophie wanted to come too and we went to see the tank with live lobsters. The host at the front asked if we wanted to pet them. He actually took one out and we pet it! Sophie said he felt like a wet rock on his back. Peter was a little jealous when we got back because he had missed out on that adventure so Rich took him out to the front. He wasn't interested in petting the lobsters after all. But leave it to Peter to notice that the lobsters are actually pirates because they have little plastic swords tucked in their rubber bands around their claws. He was very impressed and excited about that. All in all it was a great lunch. We asked the kids what their favorite part of lunch was and Sophie said "Coloring with dad" and Peter said "seeing the monsters" (monsters is what he calls lobsters)...