dear emily post

Last night, the kids and I ate dinner with our visiting aunt and uncle at Indochine. I’d like to say that all the good table manners we practice at home pay off, but no. Kan has a winsome grace which totally vanishes—poof!—at dinner. The child eats with a sort of desperation that I’ve never seen before. She stands when she eats, shovels food in, forgets to chew, chokes, weeps, and shouts for more. So, at the restaurant, she dropped half her dinner on her shirt, in her hair, in my water. She shook out her napkin full of pad thai on the floor as a server was walking by. Stood in the booster seat, slurped and gurgled and smacked, eyed everyone else’s food with a proprietary air that made us all hand over baby corn, beef, salad, whatever she wanted.

Meanwhile, Aaron couldn’t be less interested in food. He makes his area at the table a war-torn country. Forgoes actual eating to play dead by slumping over my lap. Stabs lemons with forks and knives. Absent-mindedly brushes his hair with his straw. Wriggles like he’s made of fish. But while he was fairly offensive yesterday, nothing can top last weekend’s dinner at the same restaurant.

He’s eating pad thai. Sim and I have cautiously decided that things are going pretty well, even though Kan is acting like her mouth has a 2 quart capacity, when suddenly Aaron starts making this retching noise. Let me just say here that THIS is exactly where I totally fail as a functional human being. I stare at him in horror: Stop. Making. That. Noise. His hand is in front of his mouth and there is clearly a live animal in his throat. Sim has this fixed polite smile on her face. I’m busy still not giving him the Heimlich maneuver. Then, when we’ve secured the attention of the whole restaurant, Aaron reaches into his throat and pulls out a noodle. And people, it was the noodle that never ended. It was a magic trick from a horror movie. A scene from a sci-fi flick wherein we’ve somehow ingested noodle aliens. An old carnie side-show: Noodle Boy. Used to be, I lunched with ladies who pretended to be full after nibbling a side salad--such delicacy! And now this. Three foot long regurgitated noodles.

*Amendment: Sim has just read this and was v. indignant.

--'You forgot,' she said, 'the part about you shouting at him.'
--'...I don't remember shouting.'
--'CHEW IT CHEW IT CHEW IT!!!!'