Is that the ghost of F. Scott Fitzgerald?
Dang hamsters!
Here we go again.
So yesterday was my father-in-law’s birthday. My brother-in-law, who’s actually a raving lunatic but that’s another story, had done some work for a local country club (and his daughter is married to one of the managers) and so in exchange they let him have us to dinner there, even though we’re not even remotely members.
So we all got dressed up, and I stocked the Going Out Bag with fresh crayons and coloring books and those wax tablets that you erase by peeling up and whatever else, and off we went. The kids were actually pretty good, though Paidhi Boy was contemptuous of the whole coloring thing and ended up playing with his 2 year old cousin’s Hotwheels under my chair, or going for walks with me or Mr. Cameron. Because dinner in a place like that takes a long time, when you’re three.
Paidhi Girl, all of six, was very, very good. She ordered her own dinner, and said please and thank you with no prompting whatever. She was amazed that they brought out the appetizer first, all by itself. She was baffled by the multiplicity of forks, and wanted to be sure she didn’t dig in with someone else’s.
They brought the kids’ meals with the salads, thank Og, and those were a hit. “What are you getting, Mama?” asked Paidhi Girl. I told her I was having fish–salmon, it was. I haven’t had salmon since I stopped working in a restaurant, myself. “I’ve never had salmon,” my daughter says. I offered to let her taste some of mine when it came. “It’s pink!” she declared, impressed, and then, after a few moments considering the most exotic, wonderful dining experiences of her life declared, “I’ve never had salmon before. Not even at Old Country Buffet!” We’re not exactly country club material.
After that she wanted to know if the lettuce under the pickle on her plate was real, which we assured her it was, and then she worried that since she hadn’t been able to finish the (huge) plate of chicken fingers with fries (and a gigantic pickle spear, and a huge slice of apparently dubious lettuce) that she wouldn’t get dessert. We reassured her she’d done a good job, and this was a special occasion. So they brought out the carts with gas burners, and started sauteeing fruit. They added sugar, and eventually the rum, and then *whoosh[i/] it was on fire. “Oh, no!” exclaimed Paidhi Girl.
But of course, it was just fine, and though she couldn’t quite finish her ice cream, she did her best. I was very proud of her, because she’d managed to be polite all evening, and I was relieved that Paidhi Boy’s potential for trouble never really emerged–partly because the manager let him blow out some of the candles on the tables, and partly because he got to slide on his butt down the wheelchair ramp in the hall. No, I don’t know what was so amusing about that, but he and his two year old cousin spent at least fifteen minutes doing it, under adult supervision of course. Sunday night at the country club isn’t exactly party central, so there were lots of empty hallways to walk up and down. The cousin’s toy cars were an Ogsend, and I’m thinking I need to add some to the going out bag. So all in all, what could have been a disastrous evening was actually pretty nice. The leftover chicken fingers made a lovely breakfast for the kids, too. Every now and then, everything lines up and you say, “I’m doing something right as a parent.” I try and save those moments up, because they have to go a long, long way.
Cute story.
Kids rock don’t they? It’s nice when things go just right and you have a wonderful time as a family.