MARK MY WORD: DINING OUT WITH KIDS CAN BE A MESSY BUSINESS

There's nothing like a nice dinner out with your kids, provided that you are wearing blinders and you don't mind the mess.

Joni and I took our young children to this red crustacean of a restaurant in Cape Girardeau the other night.

There's nothing like popcorn shrimp when you're Becca's and Bailey's age, 6 and 2, respectively.

It also doesn't hurt that the restaurant has subdued lighting. In other words, it's sort of dark in there.

As a parent, you can't help but like that kind of restaurant. It's not that you're seeking a romantic atmosphere, rather you're looking for a place where all the spilled food on and under your table will go unnoticed.

Joni and I always ask for a booth. It's great for a makeshift corral, which you need if you're going to keep your 2-year-old from camping out under the table and you're 6-year-old from wanting to wander around the place.

Restaurants rate with us when their waitresses bring us a lot of paper napkins.

Cleaning up all the spills is a part of dining out for parents.

It's amazing how well we can carry on a conversation and clean up spills at the same time.

On this occasion, both of our children had side orders of apple sauce to go along with their popcorn shrimp.

To Bailey, apple sauce is finger food.

She starts out with a spoon, but soon she abandons the utensil for the sheer thrill of dipping her fingers into the gooey stuff.

Even a spoon doesn't ensure that the food will get in Bailey's mouth. She has a tendency to hold the spoon upside down, which is wonderful for proving the effects of gravity but does little to alleviate hunger.

Getting kids to use their forks, spoons and knives for something besides drum sticks is one of the major goals of parenting. It ranks right up there with potty training.

Bailey's better with more solid food, like shrimp and chicken fingers. You can really get a grip on that stuff, particularly with your fingers.

As for Becca, she can't imagine eating anything without ketchup. She often leaves food on her plate, just not any ketchup.

Bailey loves salt shakers. She likes to shake out a mountain of salt.

The advantage of going to a nice restaurant is that the salt shakers are usually bigger and they're disguised like old beer bottles.

The other night, we managed to dine out without once having to confiscate the salt shaker.

Joni loves those little restaurant sweepers that waiters and waitresses use to pick up all the crumbs on the carpet.

Parents have a solid appreciation of carpet cleaning.

At this point, dining out still means we have to take the diaper bag with us.

Although, Bailey is to the age now where you don't have to be wedded to the diaper bag for every little outing.

Still, it's risky to spend a lot of time in a sit-down restaurant without an extra diaper on hand.

We enjoyed dining out, but it wasn't a leisurely meal.

You can't afford to take too much time when you're eating out with your kids.

Our goal on such occasions is to get in and get out of the restaurant without causing a major look-at-that-family spill.

From that perspective, we successfully dined out the other night. We couldn't have been happier.

Joni and I dined on lobster, our kids didn't flood the table with chocolate milk and we kept the silverware on the table.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.