A few years ago while in Cape May, one of our favorite places in the summer, we went to our favorite restaurant, at the request of my son, the birthday boy. We have been bringing our kids out to restaurants since they were super young.
My favorite line to them while visiting the higher end places is, "you are a Victorian child today." What does that mean you may ask? It means you are seen and not heard my children answer in chorus.
My sons birthday falls at the end of July, and most times we find ourselves on vacation in Cape May. At his request we went to one of the fancier restaurants. He put on his seer sucker suit, yes, his choice, and off we went.
Now even if you don't know me, know this, I love to make my kids match for special occasions. This will likely be one of the many things they will be talking to a therapist about later.
So here we are dressed to the nines and going out to our favorite restaurant. I hate to admit it but whenever one of these occasions occurs we get multiple stops by strangers saying that they love how my girls are wearing smocking dresses, or how cute my son looks. My heart smiles when I hear that, kind of like, yes Cynthia you did it, look at these kids!
So we get seated and go over the menu with our kids. I happen to notice an older couple dining at the table right next to us and they seem to be staring. I looked at the kids with "the look" and they nodded. They knew I meant they needed to be on their best behavior because the couple at the next table over seemed borderline mortified that they now had to share air space with a 5, 7, and 9 year old.
My son chose a steak and the celebration continued. We talked about all sorts of things and I remember laughing, most likely fairly loudly, and had to remind MYSELF to behave. The whole while this elderly couple stared. Finally, we got the obligatory slice of cake with a single candle in it, and sang Happy Birthday in English and Polish, as was the tradition in my husbands family.
As we got up to leave the elderly couple stopped us. My heart sank, we had failed. Our fancy dining experiment had failed. "Excuse us, but we just wanted to tell you we watched you the whole time." Yes I knew this, I wondered had I cursed, been too loud, were the kids chewing with their mouths open???
They went on, "We listened to your conversations, and families don't talk to their kids anymore. You didn't give your kids electronics. In fact you didn't even give them crayons. You TALKED to your kids. The way you are all dressed...you don't see families like this anymore. You are the last great American family."
LAST GREAT AMERICAN FAMILY?! HELL YEA
... and I'll take WINNING for 500 Alex.
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