Out to dinner with the kids!

Tonight we decided to go out for dinner to the Golden Corral. We only have 2 kids, but we are a chaotic mess when we try to go out in public. Sometimes we do manage to pull off looking like a nice sweet family, but tonight was not one of those nights. We walked in and were lucky to have nobody in line in front of us. As the girl at the counter filled our drinks, some people came in, and Bethany started unwrapping and handing out straws. I stopped that as soon as I could. People were a bit confused, but they just said thank you. Then I carried the tray and Aaron carried shea who was twisting and whining because she wanted to be put down to walk, and he helped guide bethany who was not at all paying attention and kept wandering off. So we got to the table and I went to get the kids plates of food while Aaron got them seated. Then we took turns going to get our food. Finally we all sit together to eat. Shea is eating a bite, throwing a bite, so Aaron was trying to keep her from throwing food while he ate too, then Bethany had an all out screaming fit because we would not let her eat a piece of watermelon that she found on the floor under our table. She did not want to eat anything on her plate, but she decided mine looked like fun to play with. So I was trying to eat and keep her hands out of my food. Then shea started farting and giggling, so Bethany thought that was hilarious and started burping repeatedly. When they decided they had enough of whatever was on their plates, Aaron went to get them some ice cream. Bethany ate hers up then tried to help the kid at the next table eat his. Then she had a fit because we wouldn't let her. Meanwhile Shea was happily eating her ice cream, but she kept missing her mouth. She would take a big spoonful and aim for her mouth only to have it fall off her spoon into her lap. The lady at the table next to us started laughing when Aaron reached out and caught a big handful of melting ice cream and dumped it on a plate. She told us thats how you know you are a parent is when you do things like that. We were not so awful that we were disturbing other customers. (well maybe one or two), but we were definetly a mess and when we finally just started laughing (because what else can you really do at that point?) some other parents near us were laughing too. Thank goodness we were at a family restaurant full of other parents and kids. We know better than to go somewhere fancy. But I do have to ask myself is it was worth getting kids cleaned and dressed to drive across town and pay a restaurant to let us scarf down some food and keep our kids from causing a riot, when I could have just made a box of mac and cheese? The whole point of going out was to give me a break, lol. Going out takes more effort than staying in, I think.