Settling down for lunch with four young kids is no joke. It doesn’t matter if there are seven adults at the table, chaos still ensues.

To make things worse, we were at the ever-popular Itacho. The queue is usually long so the wait for a table is about half an hour or more. I was there early to queue for a table, but it didn’t help because some of the girls were late. Itacho at ION Orchard has a policy that states that all guests must have arrived before being seated. (In fact, most of the restaurants in ION have that rule.) So PK and I waited, lost our table, waited some more until the whole gang finally arrived, got our table again and…it was a smaller one. Not wanting to wait any longer, we decided to squeeze. The request for three baby chairs became two, and then there was chaos trying to get the kids to settle down. Hur hur.

And yes, every time I meet up with the 7ners, I unlock new motherhood knowledge/skills. This time was a lesson on how to get kids to eat during mealtime. When you have more than one kid, suddenly you become octopus mum. While focusing on feeding the baby, your eyes have to also watch the two other kids. That was how Nad was. Trust me, it’s tough. Since I was seated opposite her three and five-year olds, I decided to try my hand at managing those two so Nad could actually focus on feeding the baby. Example: Despite her telling them NOT to touch the croquettes with their hands, the hungry little ones’ fingers kept creeping up to the plate. There were only chopsticks on the table, no other cutlery. So I picked one croquette up with my chopsticks and fed the two with strict instructions to blow first because it’s hot and then take a bite.

I used to think that her kids are really active, mischievous and out-of-hand, but really they aren’t that bad. They do listen to instructions if you say it firmly. Of course, each kid has a different character so responses differ based on that as well. Like I noticed her oldest one, Zayden, tends to push the limits until you really tell him off in a crossed tone. The second one, Reuel, is more observant and listens to instructions, but will ‘monkey see, monkey do’ what his older brother does. But having said that, Zayden has improved quite a lot…hmmm…maybe it’s because he is going to school and there’s the teacher to listen to.

Also learnt something from Jo to make kids sit down at restaurants and not run around. I think earlier on at the restaurant entrance, Zayden must have spotted the restaurant’s security camera and pointed it out to Jo. Later on, Jo was telling Zayden to sit down because the camera is watching his every move and he better not misbehave. Haha.

And speaking of observant Reuel, while saying goodbye when we were parting ways, he suddenly came up to me mumbling something. I thought he wanted to give me a hug, so I squat down. It turned out that he was actually asking what happened to the missing bow on my right shoe. OH!

PS: I know the meet up was for Jo’s birthday, but I just had to blog about this instead. Erm…how about a nice picture to end off? Heh.