Three Boys and a breakfast diner

Breakfast is my favorite meal. I have ALWAYS looked forward to going out for breakfast...until I had kids. And I don't mean for that to come across negative - it's just how it is when you have a 2yr old, 3 yr old and 4 yr old.
Waiting for the food is the most stressful part. Then once the food arrives it feels like I can't dish it out fast enough, etc.
The good thing is, the few times we have gone out to eat with the kids, I get at least one compliment on how well behaved our kids are.
Here are my tips:

• Before we enter the restaurant, I tell the kids what my expectations are.
• I take advantage of anything the restaurant has to offer to entertain the kids - coloring, crayons, etc.
• The last time we went to a restaurant it had no crayons, etc. It was breakfast time so they had packets of jelly out on the table. Each boy took a turn counting all of the orange jellies, or the purple ones, etc. Then we lined up the jelly packets and made a jelly train. We made a jelly "bed", tucked in the spoon with a napkin and sang Twinkle Twinkle.
• Look at the decor and make conversation about it. "Do we have a rolling pin at home?" "How many flowers are in this vase?" And so forth.
• Save the paper from the straws. I always end up doing random things that crack the boys up like I weaved a wrapper through a fork's tines and pretended it was a giant spagetti noodle trying to attack Brant's mouth.
• Lately my boys pretend it's someone's birthday or that they are Santa Claus. They take a small toy and cover it with a napkin. They give it to me and I "unwrap" it and act all excited. We did this in the restaurant with one of their napkins (we wrapped up a jelly packet, a creamer, whatever we could find) and it bought us some time.
• Praise when they are eating well, using manners, etc.

My favorite part of eating out with the boys is when Adam takes all of the boys out to the car and I get to finish eating and pay the bill. Seriously.