Sweet Extract

Ah, the blissful spoils of mother’s day. Is there anything more a mom can ask for?

Disclaimer: My sweet, SWEET WONDERFUL husband did his best. Most everything that went wrong was not his fault and he could not have stopped it from happening.

Javier made reservations at a new restaurant in the city. A restaurant whose chef we have “experienced” (to our delight) in that past. The resto’s schtick is comfort food… well-crafted, highly original comfort food. How can you go wrong with that for a mother’s day brunch, you ask?

Well, the greatest injury was the first. After having TWICE requested high chairs – once when reserving and again the day before mother’s day to be DOUBLY sure – turns out there were no high chairs. NO HIGH CHAIRS!!! Two eighteen month old children and no high chairs to sit them in. As we were told upon our arrival: “Oh, the hostess was mistaken. We thought we could borrow some from another resto but it turns out that no one has a high chair to spare on mother’s day”. NO SHIT! Really? OMGWTF? The woman greeting us continued: “But we’ve put you at a table with a banquette so the kids can just sit there, right?” HA! No, really, HA! HAAAA! Why, yes, of course my toddlers will sit still on a banquette… in a parallel universe… the same universe where my dog isn’t getting fat from all the scraps of food that hit the floor during lunch, thanks.

This lack of child restraining hardware was enough to have called the brunch a bust. We certainly didn’t need anymore help beyond that point but, alas, when it rains, it pours.

No menus for 15 minutes. Only to be followed by the classic moment where the waitress comes and says something to the effect of: “So you must have looked over the menus and someone’s taken them away?”. Uh, given that you’re our waitress, we were hoping that you’d be the one in-the-know here. In other words, NO. NOOOO. And we have a couple of toddlers squirming like greased pigs at a bacon factory so, please DO take your time.

It should come as no surprise that when we finally DID order, our food came about as quickly as mail on a Sunday. Everyone around us was eating AND LEAVING before we got our main courses. We got there slightly before noon and despite eating as fast as humanly possible, were in no position to leave until 1:30 pm. The service was a disaster. Which is fitting because of the aforementioned toddlers… you know the ones… the squirming ones. But, heck, they offered us a free plate of waffles for our troubles. Score!

Back to those squirming toddlers.

It goes without saying that when you restrain a toddler against his will, he’ll fight you with every fibre of his soul. Especially if he knows you’re a mere mortal and not an unyielding, unsympathetic high chair. So, a third of the way into our outing, Nicholas starts to lose his shit. He’s had just about enough of us plying him with Pepperidge Farm Goldfish and every utensil, placemat, shiny and/or edible thing within grasp. He’s ready to go now. NOW. GO. NOW. So he starts wailing. Wailing in that way that makes you, as parent in a public place, recoil in horror. But you know what? It’s mother’s day and it’s brunch. If ever there was a potentially sympathetic audience for this sort of meltdown, this would be it. I mean it’s not like we’re ruining anyone’s romantic supper, right? It’s not like we’re totally insane for taking our toddlers out on this of all days, right?

You’d think that.

Except leave it to the smug woman sitting at the table next to us, the woman with the single sleeping-in-a-stroller 13-or-so-month-old to actually get up, walk over to Javier and say: “Can you take him outside?”.

Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME!? It’s mother’s day. Is there no solidarity between parents of young children trying to live a normal life? Are you so lulled into a sense of superiority by your sleepy little angel that you think you’ll never find yourself in EXACTLY the same situation hoping for the kindness of strangers? God almighty. If I hadn’t been so stunned, I would have punched her in the nose. Or thrown Nicholas at her.

(As slight consolation, this woman’s mother stopped to talk to us on her way out and told us how beautiful our boys are and how crazy it must be to have twins. I think even she was embarrassed by her daughter’s – daughter-in-law’s, maybe – gall.)

So that’s the gist of our mother’s day outting… except for one thing.

Javier took some photos so that we could remember this day. An opportunity we seldom get, capturing Mama with her boys

… with the camera on Manual mode.