THINGS ONLY PARENTS SAY (DINER EDITION)

If you lick that mirror, we're going home.

If you go spinny-spinny on the diner stools again, we're going home.

If you dive into that bowl of mints by the cash register, we're going home.

If you try to eat anything that's stuck to the bottom of the table, we're going home.

Unless you crawl under the table again. Then you HAVE to eat anything that's stuck to the bottom of the table. (And then we're going home.)

(With thanks and apologies to the staff of the Elizaville Diner, who make some of the by-gum best fries on earth. We'll be back. With better-behaved kids, we hope.)

NOW MORE NOSHABLE THAN EVER

I've spent much of the evening improving the blog's list of Hudson Valley local and road-trip restaurants we've favored over the years. Most of them are reasonably kid-friendly and won't beat the living daylights out of your wallet unless you're ordering a big-ticket item. Noodle, for instance, has taken a liking to lobster. Since she's not normally the adventurous sort at the table, we sprang for the stuffed lobster at the Barking Crab during our vacation in Boston.

She liked it. Uh-oh.

Well, at least we've got another out if she wants a pony.

ON THE LAMENESS OF RESTAURANT HIGH CHAIR STRAPS

Beast is beyond high-chair age now, but when we take the wee beasties to a restaurant we still have a look at their high chairs by way of divining how well they take care of kids and their general attention to detail. And if the high-chair straps suck eggs...we're outta there.

Restaurant owners and operators: if a high chair is broken, fix or get rid of it. Or at least get it off the floor and away from staff and customers, who will try again and again to use it. I know restaurant work can be fast paced and hectic, but it seems like high chairs get the shaft, if my numerous outings are telling. That missing seat belt is a real bummer, since the high chair is unsafe to use without one. A wiggly kid could squirm, fall or otherwise risk injury. Bussers or managers should regularly check that the chair has all parts, isn't wobbly, and that the belt fastens and stays locked in position. When high chairs are presented as dirty, sticky, and/or missing a seat belt, it sends a message.

Heck yes it does. That's a piece from San Francisco, but with so many Culinary grads sticking around our region I'm hoping our local restaurants get on the ball and stay there.

GETTING THE LITTLE ONES RECYCLING

This idea of mine is somewhere in the queue over at Parent Hacks, but it seems wise to share it now since we're officially rolling into summer, a/k/a Sticky Soda Can Season.

Pet peeve: you set out your bin of recyclables religiously every (in our case) Tuesday, recycle everything right down to the bottle caps, and inevitably there's one or two bits of plastic detritus stuck to the schmutz that accumulates at the bottom of the bin. Eeyeewwwwww.

Solution: set up an itty-bitty mini recycling bin for the kids. A small bucket is perfect. We use an old lobster-scraps bucket from the Barking Crab in Boston. The kids pitch the bottle caps and the other small items into that bucket while the rest of the items accumulate in the regular recycling bin. Come recycling day you dump the contents of the smaller bucket on top of what's in the regular recycling bin, and they're much less likely to stick to the bottom, on account of they're on top and stuff.

If you want to be persnickety about it you can dump the smaller bucket into one of the larger recyclable items, e.g. a coffee can or a plastic salad box.

THINGS I'LL NEVER DO AGAIN: THE MOTHER'S DAY BUFFET

Stupid choice by yours truly. Thought I'd be doing the Nana and Her Awesomeness a favor by taking them out for Mother's Day to a restaurant that they found favor with in previous visits. I won't throw them under the bus here, since they've been an excellent establishment otherwise. (I will tell you that they're not one of the places linked here under Food and Drink.)

Still.

The Mother's Day buffet is a HUGE restaurant cop-out. It's supposed to be about pampering mom, not making her stand in a cattle line waiting for mass-produced steam-table food. Lame, lame, lame. $19.95 a head worth of lame in this case, and even I can't eat twenty bucks' worth of steam-table bacon and eggs with pasta salad. The Nana actually wanted to go to Noodle's favorite diner in Elizaville, but overthinking things I idiotically insisted on bringing everybody to the "nice" place for brunch. My wife and I also learned yesterday that brunch is not a concept that resonates with the little ones. They're not hungry enough for lunch, and delaying breakfast is decidedly not an option.

Lessons learned.