On our way home from a weekend trip last Sunday, we needed to make one of those urgent just-potty trained stops and quickly exited the toll road and entered a fast food restaurant. In our family, we stick pretty close to a no fast food rule and pack lots of snacks to avoid the 99-cent lure. But, as it is with kids, sometimes those rules are really guidelines and sometimes a boy who actually asks to pee and then does in a rather unkempt ladies room while singing (and thus distracting mommy from the fact that she's squatting on a very nasty floor to hold the Wee Idol on the big potty), gets a treat at the otherwise unacceptable fast food restaurant.
While I usually prefer McDonald's when we deserve a bathroom break, that day we ended up in a Wendy's and Lil E ended up happily covered in Jr. Chocolate Frosty. And because rules are sometimes guidelines, I was pleased to see that Wendy's actually has some parent pleasing kid offerings. The Kids' Meals can be customized and if you and your child can see past the cheeseburgers and fries and sodas, there are deli meat sandwiches and yogurt and granola and milk to fill their bellies.
And what's more, the food in the Kids' Meals isn't even my favorite part. It's the toy, or rather, the lack of toy. Instead of a craplastic character figure to add to the clutter in your car and kid's room, Wendy's has audio books. Yeahhhh for audio books! This means you can turn off the Wiggles CD while your kids tune into an Arthur, Junie B. Jones, Geronimo Stilton or Magic Tree House story on CD and also play along with accompanying puzzles and games (which can be discretely tossed with the Frosty cup). Audio books won't change our family fast food edict but at least I know that if we have to stop at one, there's a place where the kid stuff doesn't have to be completely ruled out.
