This post was written by Anne – mama to an almost 2 yr. old little girl who loves saying “NO!” to me as much as possible.
I will never forget the night we decided to try a “burger joint” in town that was getting rave reviews online. I should have known the minute we walked in that the sleek white interior, red lighting, loud music, and psychedelic videos playing above the bar were a red flag that this was NO place to bring our 1yr old. Even better, they had really high tables that required us to stack two high 
chairs in order to get my little lady properly positioned so she could eat. At least they had highchairs. I think we ended up spending a whopping $70 on burgers that night. Yes they were good, but was it worth it? No way. I will stick to our local fast food place with their amazing food, ketchup dipping tubs, fruit buddies, books for kids meals, stellar milkshakes, and dinner for $15.
These days, I’m more excited to go to a friend’s house for dinner where kids are welcome and dinner eaten standing up while chasing kids is totally acceptable. Yes, date nights are fun (and important) but I realize that the amount of time that I will be able to drag kids to dinner on the weekends will be relatively short-lived. In 12 years I’m sure I’ll be taking a back seat to some sort of electronic device that I don’t even understand how to use, a new best friend, or a *shudder* boyfriend, and I’ll look back on these days when weekends were for family and friends who get where we are in life and are embracing it instead of fighting it.
We are still very social. Just a different kind of social and in my opinion, we are way more fun now than we were before. 
Kids actually change everything in us. Oftentimes, we mature more and started to feel like are able to do anything in this world. We become more sociable and more able to handle situations where we never think of handling before. Overall, kids boost our self-confidence in so many ways.
Haha, I remember we had a series of mishaps that stopped us going out with our kids to restaurants. Baby daughter vomited all over me in a coffee shop once, and when she was a bit older, she upended and totally smashed a glass-topped table somewhere else. So we kind of withdrew from eating out for a while.
It gets better though – when they’re a little older, they’re a little less unpredictable. They’re calmer and more in control, so taking them out isn’t as stressful.