Dinner for Seven

So, the other night we had dinner here in the city with one of Erika's friends, Milla, her parents, and younger brother Alan. The site was a sort of normal restaurant which happened to not be so kid friendly (no kid menus, crayons or fun stuff, etc). But, here in New York City, the restaurant rolls with the blows (no complaints about the underage clientele) and the parents roll with the blow (scrounging something off the menu that has a reasonable probability of being accepted by their finicky highnesses).

After we ordered the food, the crayons and paper came out (moms are well prepared for this sort of situation) and Erika and Milla were having a good ol' time drawing pictures and giggling. And giggling and screaming and screeching and, generally speaking, being rambunctious in a girly way. Which was fine except that there were other patrons - proper adults and everything - trying to eat as well. The couple a table down was looking rather cross, although they didn't say anything. Repeatedly asking the kids to keep it down worked about as well as you'd expect (that is, for about 5 seconds after each time asked). So, I grabbed the situation by the horns and ventured that the girls might want to go outside "until the food is ready". And to my relief they quickly agreed that that was fun, so the three of us headed outside where we could be loud and run about on the sidewalk without worrying about bothering people.

Milla's dad and Alan came out and joined us, and the girls were having fun playing a game which involved running to a flower bed, then back to the dads, and exclaiming, "The flowers stung me!", and we'd act surprised and concerned and shocked etc., then they'd run back towards the flowers, repeat ad infinitum. The fun was brought to an end when my lovely wife, Yoshie, came out and informed us that the Food Had Arrived!

So! We all piled back into the restaurant, and I cleared the crayons and drawing paper. It was at this point that I divined that the "food" comprised appetizers only: a salad for Yoshie and a soup for Milla's mom. The careful reader will observe that there is not actually any food suitable for child consumption. So, we pulled out the crayons and paper and hushed the girls to the best of our abilities for another few minutes until proper food arrived.

Now, in this particular case, "proper food" was meat sauce spaghetti for me, mushroom and butter spaghetti for our little mushroom and butter consumer, Erika, and a "teriyaki hamburger" for Yoshie. There were approximately three small little shavings of red pepper in the mushroom and butter spaghetti, but Erika unerringly found one on her first bite and refused to eat any more. I gave her a test biteful of my own spaghetti, and finding it to be palatable, I took the hit and swapped spaghettis with her. At this point, my lovely wife, Yoshie, knowing that I don't like mushrooms so much, offered to swap with me, and thus did it end up that nobody ate the thing that they ordered.

We managed to make it through dinner, and then we were walking home. And the discussion turned to whether I should go get a cupcake at the cupcake store slightly out of the way or just go straight home to a boring, dessertless evening. This might seem a simple decision, but I was feeling sort of ambivalent about it until I hit upon an ulterior motive. If E and Y were to walk directly home while I took this short cut to get a cupcake, then Yoshie would handle the initial steps of pajamas, teeth brushing and general bed preparation for Erika.

So, off to the pastry shop I went! And instead of a cupcake I took a punt on a chocolate cream pie which turned out later to be quite yummy. I added a bit of dalliance, and walked back home at a leisurely pace only to discover that my lovely wife, Yoshie, had outwitted me! There, in front of our apartment building, was Yoshie holding a bunch of flowers and Erika holding the last remnants of a chocolate ice cream cone! And thus the evening did come to a close, with all my evil plans foiled.