A Miss Behaved baby’s guide to fine dining
We are a well off couple and have finally realized our dream of having a child because we were running out of things and people on which to spend our money. Since we are old and sophisticated, we feel that just because we have a child, we shouldn’t make any kind of sacrifices in our life style. After all, aren’t babies just future adults? Should they learn the difference between imported and domestic caviar? And since we have money and prestige why not give this child all the advantages that we didn’t have when we were children?
What we’d like to know is. We love to dine out, in fact, in our hectic busy lives, we dine out often, and Lucinda spends her days with the Nanny so the only time we have to see our precious darling is during dinner. Do you have a list of the best restaurants in town who also welcome our little Lucinda, make special concessions for her and in fact, welcome a small child as a future diner?
Signed,
Buying it all at Baby Chanel
Dear Buying,
You mentioned that this will be the first fine dining experience for Lucinda, and we commend your completely Miss Behaved attitude towards raising children and what your part in it should look like. Your part is apparently distant but you are writing checks. So you are quite advanced for you age, and in fact, have all the requirements down for raising a teenager.
The good news is that babies and toddlers are naturally Miss Behaved in fine restaurants. They are naturally Miss Behaved at McDonalds, why should they think Aureole would be any different? Here is a quick and by no means complete guide for Miss Behaved babies:
Babies
Because gravity is a new concept for babies, dropping and throwing are the main activity one can do perched from a high chair. After a while the other diners will get accustom to the sound of spoons, forks and steaks knives clattering to the tile floor. After fifteen minutes or so, all the utensils will be removed and the baby is left with quiet bread that the parents mistakenly think will be okay.
The bread and crackers are quickly demolished and crumbs scattered in a five-foot radius. Bread sticks are a special treat, and we are certain they are offered in fine restaurants because of their versatility. First, they can be used as drum sticks. When the parent finally notices the noise and persuades their little darling to stop the drumming, the baby discovers that the ends of the average stick will fit neatly into her nostrils. As the baby mature s, she’ll discover the bread stick trick will garner entertaining reactions from the diners around her. If the break sticks are pushed up far enough into the nose so they hold there, then the child can gurgle for attention and surprise the surround guests with how clever she is.
If you 13 months, ask for the steak knife. A baby has an instant vocabulary of want the minute she appears on the scene, so it’s not difficult to come up with the correct collections of gestures and pouts to get the message across. Give me the knife. A knife is pointed, sharp and dangerous and your parents won’t let you have it, so it must have magical powers. What’s not to love? Lunge for it at every opportunity, spilling your milk for the 18th time.
The spilled milk will, of course, offer a temporary distraction from the pursuit of the knife. If there are any breadcrumbs left on the high chair tray, mix the milk and bread crumbs together for an interesting paste. Offer to share your paste with the next person who passes by.
While the parents taste the salmon tartar and the halibut with olive remoulade, the baby usually tastes something far more interesting. Given a choice, Babies usually stick with the breadsticks, but truly Miss Behaved dining parents will insist on feeding their precious bundles of fun their hand made baby food of chopped liver and pureed spinach. There is nothing more appealing to neighboring diners than gazing on the round baby visage covered in what looks like green slime. There is no matching wine for pureed spinach except perhaps a conciliatory belt of single malt scotch for nearby diners.
Toddlers
The first thing toddlers do in a fine restaurant setting is to quickly slip down the seat and hide under the table. While the parents pursue a wine list the size of a dictionary, their toddler will look for and find left overs on the floor. If the toddler is happily eating any fare served in a restaurant named Le Cirque instead of the Juggling Clown, she has discovered gum from 1987 or is chewing on a favorite toddler food; cigarette butts.
Parents may or may not wish to abandon their search for the perfect Australian Syrah to take action on this; it’s entirely up to them, the loving parents bent on giving their precious child a fine dining experience. Some Miss Behaved toddlers escape the confines of their chairs quickly and often. Activities for an recently paroled toddler include trolling up and down the edge of the restaurant searching through the potted plants for interesting bugs, snacking on perfectly fine left-overs from the bus boy’s tray and asking people for their bread sticks because you know a trick.
If the parents are savvy enough, they will not interrupt this activity as the noise from a thwarted toddler is equal to an air raid siren. But if the parents brought a two year old out in public in the first place, they will not posses the common sense to realize this and randomly discipline the child just enough to evoke wrath and tears but not consistently enough to have any kind of positive effect.
Grammar School Age
This is a magic time when a child still loves her parents and yet, is old enough to sit still. For short burst of time. For as long as the bread sticks last.
Request extra straws. Created the longest straw in the world by linking them all together, attempt to drink out of your sister’s drink across the table. Fail only because the mid-way point of the straw melted when it hit the candle.
Play with the candle wax.
Every fifteen minutes take another field trip to the restroom. Can you get your whole body under the hand dryer? If there is no hand dryer because this is Trader Vic’s not Pirates Play Gym and Food Emporium, make due by investigating how many paper towels will flush down the toilet with one flush. Five. You read it here first.
When dinner is served, complain loudly about the food quality. The word "yucky" is always descriptive. Ask if there is any Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. If the response from the parent is "why do we bother to take you to nice places?" You could very well ask that same question, but you are just a child, what do you know?
We hope this helps as a Miss Behaved guide for children dining out. You may be shocked to learn this, but as soon as this Miss Behaved trend emerged, we’ve received many requests for the child-friendly, but still chi-chi and expensive so you can impress your friends, restaurant list.
We suspect the list is really for parents who managed to find a baby sitter and want to know which restaurants to avoid.