“Hi! I just read your article on dining out with kids,” chirped the lovely young mum when our prams collided at the weekend markets.

“But what do you do with kids in the moments when they aren’t eating? And how do you physically get into a decent restaurant, without mowing down half the diners with your monster truck pram?”, she asked.

Excellent question.

So last week, after a long day filming, and with the man-about-the-house away working, I decided to take all six to a local bistro. Eagerly anticipating something fabulous cooked in oodles of butter and that first crackling hit of fine Champagne, I had extricated three munchkins from the car when I realised, “where is the pram?”

Scrolling back through my debris-strewn short term memory, I could picture precisely where I dumped it on the driveway after school pick-up, and in the frenzy to get away, failed to put it back in…bother! So did I just turn around and go home? Waste a precious hour and strain my children’s already tenuous patience by going back to retrieve it and return? No, here was my chance to prove my mothering-mettle. We had that meal, commando-style. It is possible. I have only managed it that once, but we all lived to tell the tale.

So here is my guide to dining out with small children, freestyle, or, 10-and-a-bit tips on how to successfully herd your tribe to the trough, even when you don’t have the pram.

1. Keep those that are able to walk trapped in the car until the minute you are ready to go. Unloading will be a slow process and you want to avoid any opportunity for bored munchkins to wander off, probably into oncoming traffic.
2. If travelling with more children than you have hands, retrieve your emergency supply of safety pins from the glovebox (every self respecting parent, having faced the last minute “but today is the Easter Bonnet Parade/book week dress-up day/dress as a character from the olden days” proclamation at school drop-off, or dealt with a child who has managed to rip a hole in the seat of their shorts getting out of the car, will have a ready supply of safety pins for last minute costume creation or garment mending). With these safety pins, attach one sleeve of each child to the hem of your shirt. They are now effectively bound to you. This is not haute couture, this is fine dining as an extreme sport.
3. If travelling with infants, apply the Baby Bjorn(s) and said infant(s). Yep, there are folks out there who, like me, have been known to carry both twins at once (just call me a pack horse).
4. Sling nappy bag/handbag/snack bags over your shoulder, and shuffle carefully to your destination.
5. If your phone rings, do not attempt to answer it! It will invariably be some telemarketer who wants to waste your time and will invariably tip the balance causing complete collapse of your carefully orchestrated operation.
6. Once at your destination, release the hordes of children.
7. Politely request banquette seating so you can lay any babies down as you attempt to shovel food into the mouths of the other children (or at least get some food into their mouths as opposed to on the floor, on their clothes, and in your hair) and keep toddlers caged, I mean contained.
8. Insist on ordering dishes they have never tried. They will never know if they genuinely do or don’t like something if they never have the opportunity to try it.
9. Insist on table manners. The change of environment alone will encourage children to be aware of napkins on laps, correct use of cutlery, and appropriate behaviour at the table – all areas which can become sadly neglected at home.
10. Insist on also ordering them a side of something exquisitely deep-fried. This is your opportunity to eat unashamedly, because it would be terrible to waste it, right?

Part II: how to survive the meal without electronic aides, hired help or a circus performer

1. Bring electronic aides.
2. Bring hired help.
3. Bring a hired circus performer.
4. Hire two, and sell a few kids to the circus in exchange.
5. Pay someone to pretend to be one or all of the above (young wait staff can pull off some incredible YouTube clip reconstructions when you wave $20 under their noses).
6. If all of the above prove illusory, pencils and blank paper are always well received.
7. Play illustrated 20 questions, whereby in turns, each person has to draw a picture and as they do so the rest of the table has 20 guesses within which to guess what they are drawing.
8. Read them a story between/during courses if you can juggle it.
9. Play ‘taste test’ whereby they must each take a mouthful of their dish and nominate what they taste or what that mouthful tastes/feels like, in a manner not unlike wine tasting. This keeps mine occupied for ages, with the run-on effect that they actually eat.

Bon Appetit!

P.S: that first sip of bubbly will never have tasted so good!