A Savory Supper

"How was your meeting this morning?"

J gave me only a weary look in reply.

"Didn't you go to Jitters?"

"Yes, we went, but James made sure that the meeting was very short."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Aren't there high chairs and toddler seats at Jitters?"

"Yes, but he was not cooperative."

I didn't press the issue any further. Any time I'd ever taken James to a coffee shop he'd done fine when he sat in a high chair. If you gave him food, he'd be happy. If the food failed, a bottle or sippy cup would do. And if he didn't even want a sippy cup, there was always Steven Bear. But, I reasoned, it must have been a particularly bad morning for James. Or maybe J had forgotten a bottle. Because why else would he be ill-behaved in a public place?

It turns out that James is officially big enough to be deliberately ill-behaved in public places. This, which J learned at Jitters, was confirmed for me last night. J and I had been planning for a week to go out to a Savory Supper at our old church. There were several reasons for this, which I list here in no particular order:

-We never go to church functions together, since we go to separate churches
-We don't go out to eat very often
-James and J don't get out of the house when it's cold out
-We don't spend time with people other than immediate family members and co-workers
-We're always washing dishes. It would be nice to have a night off from dishes

So a "Savory Supper" seemed like a good way to have a cheap meal out with church friends that we didn't have to prepare or clean up! And we could bring James, of course. He'd have a great time.

I moved the Wednesday evening trumpet lesson I usually teach, and we drove into church for the Savory Supper. As we expected, the majority of the crowd there was in the 65 and older crowd. (After all, the supper started at 4:45.) We paid for our tickets and made our way into the big fellowship hall/gymnasium. James looked around warily. We found a booster seat for him, and looked for people we might know.

We didn't see anyone.

"Let's sit over at that table. That looks empty."

"No, said J "the whole point of this is to spend some time with other people. Let's at least sit near someone else, even if we don't know them."

So we sat near some friendly looking older folks, and J insisted that I go get some food while she set up James in the booster. He was very wiggly.

I loaded up my plastic cafeteria-style tray with beef au-jus, steamed carrots, a salad, yogurt, a dinner roll, and italian sausage. I was hungry and fairly excited to start eating. When I got back to our table James was fussing loudly.

"He's very hungry" said J "and he keeps on asking for food and trying to get down. Can you give him some of yours while I get in line?"

James loves carrots, so I tried to give him a bite of carrot. He shut his mouth tight and turned away, then tried to climb out of his seat. I held him down and offered him a bite of beef. He shook his head no, and tried to climb out again.

"James, are you hungry?"

He nodded yes and made his please sign.

"Would you like some yogurt?"

Another nod, another please sign.

I offered him some yogurt. He pushed away the spoon and tried to get down again. He ended up getting both legs out of the booster, and I was trying to wrestle him in when J arrived back. We decided that maybe a high chair would be a better restraint than a booster seat, and then he could at least touch and explore the food on the tray. I jogged back to the entrance and dragged over the one remaining high chair.

As soon as I put him in the high chair he began to shriek. Loudly.

"This is what my meeting was like the other morning."

I understood now why "Weren't there high chairs?" was a dumb question. He still wouldn't eat any of the food ("but James, it's savory!") and I eventually pulled him out of the high chair so he could get down and run around. So much for having a meal together.

I'd managed to get more gulps of my own food down than J, so I took the first shift with James. There was a big open space on one side of the gym, and I carried him over to set him down. He'd been attempting to twist out of my arms for the entire walk over, so I figured he must want to do some running and exploring.

I set him down, and he immediately gave a loud whine (sort of an rrrrmmmmm!!!!!! sound that isn't really a consonant or a vowel) and motioned to be picked up again. I picked him up, and he flailed in my arms trying to get down. I set him down, and he immediately clung to my knees and begged to be picked up. I looked at J, who was eating all alone at a deserted table, clearly eating as fast as she could so that she could get me back to my dinner.

We traded off for a few minutes, and I finished most of what was left on my tray. When I went back to James he'd discovered a small one foot wide ledge by the enormous 20-foot windows at the edge of the gym. It appeared to make him happy to walk the length of the ledge back and forth while keeping his balance and making little finger smudges on the glass. As I trailed behind him keeping a steady hand out to catch him in case he fell, I heard the sound of little footsteps behind me.

I turned to look and saw a little blonde boy about 4 years old running up to me, and his slightly older-looking brother right behind.

"Hi, what's his name?" he asked, pointing at James.

"This is James. What's your name?"

"I'm Jason."

"And I'm Myles!" piped his brother.

"Do you want to see how fast I am?"

Knowing how important it is to be fast when you're a four year old boy, I told him that I did, and when his brother asked I told him that I wanted to see how fast he was too.

They were very fast. They ran around the gym with such speed that they didn't even have time to see which older people they were crashing into, and when they came back they wanted to know all about James and if we would play with them.

I said that we would. I told them how old he was, and how long ago he was born. (These were separate questions. The younger brother, learning that he was 14 months old, wanted to know whether he was born this week or earlier.) I learned that Myles was born on June 2nd, and Jason was born March 15th. Or maybe May 15th, he couldn't remember which. They were not impressed that I was born in August. That is too far away for a birthday.

Their mother came over after awhile, and then J came. She said to James "I see that you've made a new friend!"

"Hey," interrupted the older brother defensively "he's made two new friends!"

J was very apologetic. The boys also showed her how fast they were, and we attempted to have some polite conversation with their mother while the boys showed James their window-ledge balancing tricks and he tried to touch the dinosaurs on Jason's shirt.

I would periodically rush over to catch James from falling off the ledge (It was only a few inches off of the carpet, but still.) and answer all manner of questions about which brother might be fastest. At one point I lost track of where they were, and then one of them grabbed my legs from behind and popped his head between them, twisting it up to tell me I wasn't playing with them enough.

They were very upset when we left, but I had to get back home to teach my trumpet lesson. James was fussy on the way back, because he was still very hungry. He kept his hunger at bay however, when we did a quick ten-minute clean of the downstairs before my student arrived. He toted around a spatula and walked behind us. When I put two teddy bears and started to straighten the couch blankets, he pulled the teddy bears out again. When I put books back on the shelves, he immediately pulled the same books out again and put them in their proper places on the floor. He even emptied the tupperware cabinet again as soon as J left the kitchen.

We're thinking of a new nickname for him...Control Z.