KDUNK

Taking a kid to a restaurant is scary.

Talk to any parent of a kid of any age and they will most likely agree. Also – depending on the age of the kid the levels of scariness varies. At Lili’s age – clearly – I do not have to worry if she will stay in her seat or throw food or even the toys we brought to entertain her at the other people sitting nearby. But I still worry.

My best memory of such an incident was dining with my best friend and her freakishly well-behaved two-year old boy and girl twins last summer. At one point the young boy accidentally in genuine excitement threw his fake bug toy in the air and it landed on the table of the people sitting behind us. There was an awkward pause. And right before my friend went to apologize the man sitting at the table looked her son square in the eye, took his fist and smashed the fake bug saying, “Got him!” We all laughed. Not everyone is so understanding.

We got a call this morning from our non-kid friends. They wanted to meet for brunch. Their exact words were, “Call whenever. We’re just sitting around reading the paper.”

Reading the paper. Huh. I remember those days. In fact just last weekend we were strolling Lili down the street groggy and grumpy passing by all these bed headed, kissy faced, leisurely strolling couples walking down the sidewalk with their New York Times tucked under their jackets and I wanted to stab them all. Ok. So I was a little jealous.

I called our friends and said, “How about noon?” trying to be all cool even though noon in kid havin’ time is like 5:30pm. Bring out the wine and cheese. The amount of stuff that is accomplished by noon when you have a kid is insane.

When we got to the place Lili was very well behaved. She stared at the ceiling fans, ate her hands, flirted with some men – etc. I dropped some bacon on her head while holding her. The usual. Luckily the whole meal didn’t end in a big ball of burning crying freakout flames resulting in a room full of eyeballs staring at us like we were ‘those people’. Those people that have kids and actually bring them places.

Towards the end of the meal I handed her off to the hubs and headed to the restroom. While on line I was approached by an older, bright-eyed Mom type wearing a college sweatshirt.

Mom: I just wanted to say your daughter is so cute!

Me: Thank you so much!

Mom: I also wanted to thank you. My husband and I spent the whole meal going down memory lane remembering what our daughters were like at that age. One would light up the room. The other didn’t want the attention. So different. They are now both in college! Enjoy it. It goes so fast. I love being a Mom.

For once I felt proud. Finally I was one of those people.