In Which Early Reading Becomes a Problem OR Nat Discovers We've Been Holding Out on Her

The scene: our favorite neighborhood restaurant.  I hand Nat the "kids'" menu and tell her to look it over and choose two things.

Nat: "oatmeal, scrambled eggs, yoghurt, fruit, (pause) pancakes with chocolate chips?"

Mama Shannon: (casually) "we aren't getting that."

Nat: "cheese pizza, grilled cheese sandwich, milk, (pause) chocolate milk???

Imagine the incredulous look in her eye.

The good news is she chose plain yoghurt, cheese pizza and water.  And then she got really, really excited when the water glass came with two straws.

Wonder how long these days will last?

Comments

[Lori]

There are disadvantages when they learn to read :)

[Lisa V]

I still have to tell the 17 year old she is not allowed to order the chocolate chip pancakes.

[Michelle]

I actually detest children's menus. In most (not all) place, no matter how nice the regular menu is, the kid's menu is pretty much the same: Pizza, burger, hot dog, pasta with butter, chicken fingers.

I struggled with this a lot because I wanted the kid to eat what we ate, just like at home. We did okay for a while, sharing our portions with her. But once she figured out things like Chocolate chip pancakes and pizza were ever present, and you could get fries with EVERYTHING, the struggle became unbearable.

Good Luck!

[Shannon]

Oh Michelle--this is the only restaurant where I let them get stuff off the kids' menu. It's essentially the same as the adult food but smaller portions. It's all local/organic/whole food.

Even the adult menu has options like chocolate chip pancakes. But they're ORGANIC chocolate chip pancakes (ha).

[Lucky]

I bet Nat gave you the same look that my daugther gave me when she found out that the "music truck" is actually a mobile ice cream stand and, in fact, is more commonly known as the "ice cream truck"!

[Jody]

Oh, I'm suddenly glad we're too rural for ice cream trucks! That's too funny.

We do eat off children's menus, but the kids know that certain items aren't available. It hasn't been a problem yet.

(We make the chocolate-chip pancakes at home....)

[haitian-american family of three]

Oh boy, I think this is in my future as well. How old was Nat when she started reading? A. has just started learning her letters and she is TWO, I think she will become an early reader also.

[PPR_Scribe]

LOLOL! Just wait until she starts visiting friends and finds out that other families buy things like sodas and Cheetos...

BTW, about restaurants and "kid menus": many places will make half orders of things off of the regular menu. Just ask. (Especially in this economy many places seem to be bending over backwards to accommodate customers.)

[Beth]

We are trying not to be insecure about Nat's reading ability! N. still calls all letters "A's." As in, "I ate all the A's in my soup" (great recipe, by the way). (And we thought we were so inventive, calling the ice cream truck the "music truck"!)