Flat, Sparkling or Xanax?

While in LA, I learned that dining with a toddler requires the patience of a saint, the wit of an improv performer, and the body of an octopus. Breakfasts and lunches usually go without a hitch, but dinners...that’s the challenge. Do you taste the subtle hints of yuzu in that yellowtail carpaccio? No, you don’t. Because you’re swallowing pieces whole while trying to wrestle a steak knife out of someone’s hand. How are those velvety pillows of pumpkin sage ravioli?  You don’t know, because you’re busy puppeteering a napkin, or scooting around the restaurant trying to keep a small person from getting scalded by potential falling bowls of hot soup. What’s that funky, sweet, nutty aroma? No, it’s not the aged fontina, it’s someone’s diaper.

You know you’re a parent when you can be face-to-face in the restaurant bathroom with the stinkiest, gloppiest mound of shit one second, and sit down and eat eggplant parmesan the next. And you know you’re a parent when your dinner conversation is filled with swift segways and non-sequiturs.  Who cares about “how so-and-so are doing.” Twyla wants to talk about “who’s here.” Mommy...Daddy... Aunt Kara...And you better talk about it or risk a meltdown.

Now, I come to a restaurant armed with bags of snacks, crayons, toys...if it buys me 5 minutes of a quiet toddler, I have it. Nevertheless, my hands and arms are constantly going. Grabbing this away, dicing this, mashing that, picking this up, apologizing. Dinner becomes a juggling act, whereby you hope to eat some food while it’s still hot. By the time you ask for that check, you’re saying it with desperation and defeat in your voice. You end your meal on your hands and knees, trying to conceal all evidence of the disaster your progeny’s created by scooping up peas and bolognese sauce up off the floor with a once-respectably-white restaurant napkin. Before you know it, you pay, leave a huge tip, and are walking out of that restaurant, frazzled, slightly sweaty, with indigestion, needing a drink, and with linguine between your toes.