Infant Foglifters

We had breakfast out this morning; it was Sunday and our refrigerator was playing host to science projects, mustard and pickles.  No home cooking for us today. 

We were seated by a frantic, grinning waiter who tossed us a menu and dashed away for a while, so I took a look around.  The place was nearly full.  Most patrons sat heavily, and I noticed an unhurried, placid quality to their chewing.  They were murmuring dully and peacefully, mild-mannered folk who appeared to be content with the lulling warmth of a tasty Sunday brunch.  Quietly mature, definitely uninterested in fads and pop culture.   

A young Hispanic couple came in with their two young, energetic boys.  One of them was wearing high-top sneakers with rollerskate wheels in the soles.  New shoes for Christmas, I thought, and he's just getting to try them out.  His parents were pointed to a table for four, far away, beyond five tables of large, middle-class, white, conservative, just-got-out-of-church patrons.   Our boy began to roll across the room from the front door to the far wall, about 25 feet, in a controlled crash, leaning back and forth, missing chairs and people sitting in them by inches, arms pinwheeling for balance, feet shooting away from him as if the room was an icy pond .  Then he was falling into a chair at his destination table, a little proud he had made a notable entrance.  Ma and Pa Churchgoer to his left smiled briefly and looked very relieved.

Next the skater's little brother was sent out on a scouting mission by his father.  He came to the table near us, apparently hunting for packets of sugar, receiving instructions in quiet but rapidly urgent Spanish.  He held up four packets.  No! He put one down and held up three.  No!  His dad shook his head, gestured again and more staccato instructions were given.  Little Brother held up two packets, one in each hand, looking across the room to Senor Papa, who held up one finger.  I thought for a moment he was a third-base coach signaling the runner on first to run on the next pitch, trying to fake me, the opposing pitcher, with multiple useless signs.  His son put down one packet, clutched the other in his fist, turned and glanced at us with a beaming smile and scurried back to his dad with packet in hand.  Score!  Meanwhile, Big Brother on Skates was dancing his feet under the table like a marionette controlled by an manic puppeteer.  Neither boy ever sat still once, but they ate their food and didn't scream, which, in my book, is a big plus.   

You can occasionally have some surprises when kids are brought into restaurants.  For example, soft, cute, innocent-looking babies can generate fantastically, impressively random, paint-peeling shrieks when the mood strikes them.  A baby, born with the ability to suck all sound in the collective universe into its lungs, concentrating it into one shrill blast of sonic energy without equal anywhere, can generate dissonant intensity that is capable of ruining eardrums for miles around.  You jump, your eyes bug out, your hair stands up and you've just lost a year off your life. Windows shatter and plants wilt. Then you're gun shy, never knowing when another intense scream may emanate from the little darling. 

Our cohorts in the eatery this morning were spared the screams of confined small children, so we ate in peace.  Little Mister Skate Shoes exited the place with the same style he'd come in, teetering and tilting wildly but avoiding collisions entirely.

The grinning frantic man who was our server spent about ten seconds at our table all morning.  I wondered if there had been an unruly screaming-beast baby there earlier who'd jacked him up like that or if it was just a few cups of coffee before beginning work.  My opinion:  Baby vs Foglifter double-shot espresso - the baby wins by a mile.