Control issues

A school friend who's coming to town in a few weeks suggested we arrange to meet up for an early dinner somewhere, with our cumulative four children.

Well, I don't know about her children, who are probably models of decorum and eat what's put on their plates and are seen but not heard except when saying please and thank-you with adorable lisps, but the mere idea of trying to do that with my children set my head spinning in Exorcist manner (strangely prescient of the demon-possessed way they'd behave, I think) and I nearly ran away from the Facebook on the spot.

You know how my children do in restaurants. Even when not being truly awful, they're still a handful and I'd spend my entire time shushing and re-sitting and placating and not getting to eat my own, never mind actually chatting to someone I probably haven't seen since we were on the 6th-year debating team together.

Then I remembered that you don't control your children: you get smart and you control their environment. That way, they're happy, you're happy, and nobody has to think that you're totally incompetent as a parent, whatever about your erstwhile public speaking abilities. (To be honest, she was better at that too.) So I suggested that we meet in the National Building Museum of an afternoon (or morning, even).

The National Building Museum in Washington DC, if you've never been, is one of my favourite places. I rarely look at the exhibits, but it's an oasis of air-conditioning in summer or of dry space on a rainy day, with plenty of space to run around, building blocks and an arch to put together, a Red Hook bakery shop with coffee, and the best museum shop in the city, full of clever and beautiful toys, kitchen doo-dads, paper goods and books. On top of that it has a separate play area for small children, with giant lego and a little house and books to read and everything to keep them occupied with one parent at a time while the other goes and browses in the shop.

See what I mean?

The only possible quibble I could have is the two fountains in the middle of the floor, which might entice an 18-month-old to get rather wetter than you intended.

This is somewhere I could imagine meeting up with two toddlers, a four-year-old and a five-year-old and actually getting to chat in a somewhat adult manner.  Without using a large amout of duct tape and velcro, that is.

 

B and a much younger Monkey, with a bunch of strangers, having successfully erected the arch together

Where do you go if you want to keep the kids happy and talk to grown-ups at the same time?