It’s a rainy, dark, cold winter afternoon in Luebeck. My children are going antsy. It has been one of those Difficult Afternoons. True, my two children have played some. We have even experienced a few fleeting moments of quiet. But, basically the hours are taken up with bickering, screaming, yelling, whining, and other marvellous techniques that allow my children to express their discontent.
It’s four o’clock: another two hours, at least, before I can possibly start the eating-dinner-taking-a-bath-and-voila-off-to-bed routine. Oh, how I wish I could start cooking dinner and drag it out for those two hours before putting the children to bed. No, two hours is too long. There has to be something I can do. Out of desperation I take them off to the steak restaurant down the street for an ice cream.
This restaurant’s ice cream special for children is perfect. It comes on a big Mickey Mouse plate with fruit and some Smarties, various decorative umbrellas and swivel sticks, and it is little on ice cream. The whole ice cream production is Much Too Do About Nothing. The children love it though, and I love it that there is only one very small sugary scoop of hyperactivity in a forest of decorative knickknacks.
Wonders of wonders our favourite spot to sit is free. The three of us climb up on the bench at the bar without any quibble of who is to sit next to whom. I place my order for a cup of tea, my son places his for an ice cream, and then my daughter looks over at the elaborate salad bar and says she wants a salad.
The ensuing conversation goes something like this…
Mom: We came here for an ice cream. What flavour of ice cream do you want?
Four-year-old: I want salad.
Mom: We are not here for dinner. Just ice cream. What flavour of ice cream do you want?
Four-year-old: I want salad.
Mom: You have to have ice cream.
Four-year-old: I want salad.
Mom: No, you can’t have salad. You have to have ice cream.
At this point in the dispute, I look up at the waitress waiting to take our order and I am confronted with her look of complete and utter stupefaction. What sort of mother refuses her child a salad? What sort of mother forces her child to eat ice cream? Has the world gone crazy?
After note: This is true story that occurred about eight years ago on a day just like today.
I laughed so hard! I've done that sort of thing myself!
ReplyDeleteThat was a great story.
ReplyDeleteI remember once telling my son that he couldn't have more broccoli before he ate more pasta...