More Ranting!

Okay, I'm the first person to admit that I'm not perfect (well, maybe my ex-husbands would jump into that too, but fuck those guys), but I have a very strict sense of the way children should behave in a public place like a restaurant. Matt and I went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner last weekend, and of course, they were very busy. That's not the issue we had while we were there. The issue we had was that there was a large group of people there with a small number of children with them. I think it may have been a soccer team or some nonsense like that, but I digress. The children with the group ( I think there may have been about 5 or 6 kids) were all being very noisy and it seemed that they had some terrible magic causing them to have what seemed an endless supply of balloons. That they wanted to draw on. And bounce around. And yell about. For 25 fucking minutes. I think there were 4 balloon poppings that I can remember, and it seemed like they just magically regenerated like they were some kind of fucked up balloon T-1000 or something. The worst part: people seem afraid to say anything about things like that now. I kind of understand why, in some ways, but those kids were just behaving awfully. There was no excuse for any of that. At all. The noise level in the place dropped by a huge amount after they left, and there were actually MORE kids there when those people left than when we first sat down.
So just as a general rule, from now on, I think I'll make it a personal policy to let people know when their kids are being awesome in a place like that. I have had people tell me that my kids are incredibly well behaved, and I have to say that in my own opinion, I think that they are, especially in situations like being in a crowded public place. If anyone has any ideas about how to approach a large group to let them know that the children of the group are behaving like extras in 'Lord of the Flies', please let me know.