After two less-than-satisfactory outings on Wednesday, I’m declaring this family’s restaurant days officially on hiatus. Wednesday at lunchtime, my sister and I headed to Original Pancake House – a long-time favorite. Our waiter said to us, “Today all our specials have fresh peaches – waffles, pancakes, or crepes.” When Ellen exclaimed, “I LOVE peaches,” he didn’t miss a beat. He bent right down to her level and said, “Would you like me to bring you some peach pancakes, sweetheart?” Ellen nodded. “And would you like some chocolate milk to drink?” She nodded again. (Really, his entire pitch could not have been more tailored to Ellen).
When our food arrived (after ten minutes of trying to get Cecilia to eat something, anything), Ellen’s peach pancakes came with a humongous dollop of real whipped cream. She stuck her finger in and licked. “Mmm. I LOVE whipped cream,” she said as she swiped again. Rachel cut her pancakes into bite-sized pieces, and Ellen continued her Whipped Cream Finger Dip. “No more finger dipping,” I said. “Try your pancakes. You’re supposed to eat them WITH the whipped cream.” Ellen’s response to this request was to attack the whipped cream with her spoon instead of her finger. While I silently gave her props for considering that the introduction of a utensil might improve her chances of being allowed to continue a whipped-cream-only course of action, I said to her, “Enough of the whipped cream. You need to take a bite of actual pancake, or peach, or both.” Again, she took a cream-exclusive bite. “Okay,” I said. “Next time I see you eating only whipped cream and no pancakes, I am going to remove that big dollop.” She looked me straight in the eye, slowly put her spoon down, extended her pointer finger, and gave her whipped cream a little test swipe. I grabbed my own spoon and relocated her whipped cream onto my plate. Next came the eruption of tears and screaming “I NEED MY WHIPPED CREAM! I NEED MY WHIPPED CREAM!” Her whining did not stop, so I got up from my own chair, picked her up, and carried her out of the restaurant, where she continued her tantrum for another minute or two. Then we snuggled, sang the alphabet, and went back inside, where Rachel and Cecilia both greeted us with smiles. Rachel said to Ellen, “I will fix for you the Perfect Bite – peaches, pancake, and whipped cream – and then we can ‘cheers’ and take bites at the exact same time.” The Perfect Bite was carefully constructed, Rachel put together her own perfect bite of strawberry crepe, and she and Ellen clinked their forks together, opened mouths wide, and stuffed them in. “Mmmmm,” said Rachel. “Yuck,” said Ellen, after reopening her mouth and letting her Perfect Bite fall back onto her plate without even chewing at all. “What, you don’t like pancakes with peaches in them?” Rachel asked. “No way,” replied Ellen. She sat there with the pain of the world on her face for a few minutes, periodically taking little sips of chocolate milk, and sighing dramatically. Finally I said, “Do you think you might like to try your peach pancakes with a little butter and syrup?” She shook her head and said slowly, as though the thought was just occurring to her, “Maybe they need some whipped cream or somethin’.” Aaaand…we’re back. She downed a grand total of zero bites.
So Wednesday night, Ellen had swimming lessons. Our usual routine is to have Panera right after lessons, since it’s so conveniently located across the hall from Foss in Knollwood Mall. But on this particular night, we trekked a little further to Applebee’s, to meet Dad and Sami for some dinner.
This time the dining ruckus was caused by Cecilia. She just really doesn’t care much about eating. This is a quality that will serve her well later (ability to refuse unneeded brownie), but doesn’t serve me very well now (inability to distract with snacks). When she wasn’t shoving away the hand that was holding her spoon, she was reaching out for me and letting loose her shriek. (You know the shriek. The other times you’ve heard it, it was coming from the kid in the seat behind you in the airplane, and it was so ear-splitting that it made you turn around immediately, almost involuntarily, to give the mother the stink-eye). Taking her out of the high chair resolved the shriek, but presented a new problem – uncontrollable wiggling, which eventually necessitated restaurant bail number two for the day. We returned to the table just in time for our waiter to arrive and ask if we’d be interested in having some dessert. I laughed and said, “Only if the kids can go hang out in the kitchen with you while we eat it.” He should’ve taken me up on that, because I would have left one hell of a tip.
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