Jackson Goes to Dinner

(a guest post from Daddy):

Last night, I had the opportunity to take Jackson to dinner. We made the plan on Sunday that we would go out, but when I got home, tt almost didn't happen!

It took considerable effort to get him out the door. Jackson has a lot of fears. At first, he was afraid that it would be too dark for me to see the road and we would crash. Then he was afraid that no one else would be able to eat dinner and they would be hungry. Next up, that mommy would miss him. That no one would play with Bentley. That Grandma would miss him. That he'd never be able to go to bed. That we'd never come home. Eventually it just devolved into a crying, screaming, hysterical child... who got sent to his room.

After beating down his door, he decided that if Daddy played with everyone for at least 15 minutes, then it would be ok.

That was resolvable!

One last stop measure he threw in was, "we just went on an adventure! We threw rocks at the water!" I had to remind him the last time we did that was in October. He couldn't beat that, so we were on our way. To where? Well, every minute on the road Jake gave a new suggestion of a place he wanted to eat at. Not helpful. Kara had suggested Lonestar - the kid is a fan of steak, and it was Tuesday so kids eat free - so I headed in that general direction. About halfway there, Jake was a much calmer child, simply watching out his window for the aliens that he was sure were going to abduct us. ("Daddy, do you see any blue lights coming to get us yet?!")

Once at the restaurant, he was all smiles for the hostess and the waitress! Never ending peanuts, bread, crayons, and a word-search (which I didn't know he could do) were the perfect combo to making this Jake very excited to be there.

Somehow, he even knew exactly what to order: Steak and fries and a milkshake! And when the food appeared, repeatedly all I heard was, "Cut my steak." "More steak, please!" "I like these fries!" "This was a good idea." "Here Dad, you can have a little of my milkshake." It was all about the food.

He almost ate it all, except for a few bites that he wanted to make sure that he could share with Bentley and Viva, "in case they like it and want to come here too".

Our adventure ended happily. As we left the restaurant, Jake assured me with "that restaurant was really cool. Didn't you think so, Dad? I'm glad we went to this restaurant."

A grand adventure for sure!