The Dinner

“Excuse-moi Madame, ma chaise est cassee”. (my chair is broken) That’s how dinner ended last night. I chose those words because I don’t yet know how to say “Ma’am one of the legs of my chair fell off completely”. So I had to mutter the previous sentence while waving around the aforementioned chair leg. Standing alone, that event might have been humorous; however, it was far from an isolated event. Rather it was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back, or chair rather. Since I started at the end, I’ll work backwards for you.
The chair broke when I lunged suddenly to keep Lane from falling, unsuccessfully I might add. His chair was tipping over which was a result of him sitting in it sideways and leaning to reach rain drops. This was, of course, after he had been told in no uncertain terms that he should not do this. “Why?”, he had asked, “because you are going to tip your chair over and get hurt”. One of the things that I do enjoy about parenting is having a young audience that is often convinced you can see the future, even if it is a situation like this.
The reasons why Lane decided not to listen to this particular “order” is complicated. Probably a combination of a couple of things. First and foremost is that Lane’s brain doesn’t work like that. Meaning that he doesn’t always process all previous conversations before deciding to do something. Another reason is that this was roughly “order” # 38 for the dinner that evening. Remember how, in my last blog, I mentioned the impeccable behavior of the children during the 2 hour dinners? I was asking for it.
Lane spent most of the dinner crying about not wanting to eat, crying about not having anything to play with, and shouting out whatever it was he was thinking. Unfortunately for us, the sewer tour is still relatively fresh in his mind, which meant that many of the things he shouted dealt with “poop”. Not speaking the native language isn’t always a bad thing.
I mentioned that he was catching rain drops, right? Yes, we were eating outside(like usual) and it started to rain. Not hard at first, and it bothered the proprietor worse than it did us. She came out asking if were fine, wanted to move, and/or wanted an umbrella put up. At least I deduced this is what she was asking based on her actions. As it was in French I only caught part and couldn’t even begin to answer her questions. So she took matters into her own hands and started to erect a massive umbrella. In the process she drew all restaurant attention on us especially when the moving umbrella knocked 3 glasses off of the table next to us.
Upon arriving the restaurant, I told Lane to hop up in his chair. He looked at me matter of factly, with the gears in his head obviously turning, and said, “you know, I don’t have to do everything that you say”. A statement that I quickly rebutted, but he later proved right. He’s going to be fun in a few years.
Perhaps you’re wondering why we chose to go out to eat after having just been on vacation. Well, that wasn’t the plan, just all part of the evening. The plan was to meet Dana (on her way home from Germany) at our favorite pizza truck, pick up pizza, head home and have a nice relaxing evening. This being August, all businesses (including pizza trucks) are subject to closure without notice. So there we were, the kids and I, waiting for Dana next to a closed pizza truck at 7:00 with no other plans for supper and no food in the house. Luckily for us there is a nice little café in our village.