Where the hell do people with kids eat in this city?

Got to meet up with my niece tonight and the hardest thing to do in

Manhattan is find a place to eat that will even look twice when you want to seat a toddler.  Luckily, the Katherine is an executive assistant and has perfected the call ahead sound that makes it so that there sounds like there is a table pretty much waiting when we get to Shakespeare and Company pub.  Well, there’s not a table waiting, but they’re making one for us and I decide to run Oscar around the city streets so that he might sit still through dinner.  We had a tragedy today with the loss of our sippy cup that most likely fell out of the diaper bag when I was bumping over one of a thousand things we went into, over, under and out of today, so we walked to the Walgreens on the corner and

found a new one.  I tried to see if we could get away with the straw from our juice box, but no, milk will not be drunk this way and Oscar thinks that it’s great fun to drink wildly out of a cup and spill it all over the place.  Fun for him maybe, but not for me.  So, another sippy cup it is.  We return to find our little party being seated and are able to catch up, eat some decent food, and proceed in surprising the patrons who looked at us with horror when we first sat down with a toddler.  I have to admit that he cried once when he bit his tongue while eating and I apologized to the women sitting closest to us and one said that it was “amazing” how they didn’t know that there was a kid in the room with them.  One of them was a mother and she stated that she never even brings her kid in to eat because of how it’s treated around here.  I don’t get that.  Are people not supposed to procreate in New York City?  And if they do, are their favorite eateries now closed to them and they must become patrons of “kid-friendly” dining.  I mean, I know that I didn’t want to eat with screaming kids when I didn’t have one and guess what?  I still don’t want to be around screaming kids when I eat.  But, it’s really rare the times when there is a screaming kid that never stops and the parent doesn’t take them out of the way while they do.  Most of the time, the parents are trying I would say.  But they’re probably scared of the looks they get like we did when we entered and don’t even try.  If you don’t prepare a kid for eating quietly in a restaurant when they’re young, when do you teach them this skill?  Anyway, rant over.  Some planning for the next day on John and Rachel’s part before bed and John is now well enough that I could ask for a should rub because schlepping the toddler and his stuff around is starting to hurt my neck, back and shoulders.  John will probably have a relapse now in order to avoid these duties….