It’s easy to eulogise about one’s own child but important to remember that high praise is for personal reflection only. Don’t forget: nobody feels the way about your child that you do. You know she’s the most perfect, exquisite intelligent life to grace this earth, but to most other people she’s just a small child with a snotty nose.

This blog, therefore, is not a eulogy, simply a note about an evening well-spent in the company of one small  child.

We’d arrived in Washington well before E, and, feeling like we’d crossed the Amazon on foot, not flown over two states, we were eager for dinner and bed.

The restaurant was not quite what I had in mind when I asked for a pizza place, but it was Italian, and I was not setting myself loose on the streets in search of a another. To his credit, the maître d’ barely flinched when I asked for a table for two, and paused for only the briefest moment to scan my face and plummet his eyes to my daughter. “That will be all, madam?”

Threading our way through the flickering gloom surrounded by neck ties and rouge, eddies of worry began to wash through my head: these people were dining, not pizza-ing. There is a time and a place for everything, and it seemed that this might not be the either in terms of a small child. Had I become one of those parents who believe their children are universally loved and welcomed where ever, and however, they go? Had I finally lost perspective and respect for other people’s lifestyles? One sees other people with children doing despicable acts, but had my time also come when I was no longer aware and respectful of social norms. Like a kind of maternal Alzheimer’s, where everything is clear except self-awareness. By the time these thoughtlets matured into full-blown angst, we were sitting at our second table, the first having been suitable for lovebirds but not for mother and child, and so far from the front door that my courage failed me. It was like the party-conversation-you-wish-you’d-never-started with the stranger who truly is as dull as he looks – one minute in and you are looking for an exit, but running away will be too blatant a put-down.

But oh ye of little faith, I need not have worried. The two-year-old failed me not. She sat demurely, munched bread sticks, demolished pizza, discarded lemon, sipped water, wiped with white linen, dismounted brocade chair and left clutching one remaining bread stick.

Those moments are the magic ones. When you know you have created another person, simple and true, not a challenging, demanding, screaming tyrant. Like Thatcher and Reagan, or Bonnie and Clyde, mother and child, climb mountains together and dine with the best. Or at least from where I am standing. Perhaps a cohort of wealthy D.C.’ers are still bewailing the brash impertenance of the mother who took her child out to dine rather than to McDonalds. It troubles me not.

On Saturday night my husband and I opted for a romantic dinner at a quaint and intimate neighbourhood restaurant.  As we entered we were unexpectedly greeted by two families in the front section with young children.  We exchanged looks (is it too late to leave?) but decided to stay.

This was quite timely as I had just finished reading an article in Toronto Life magazine on this exact issue; babies taking over the city.  Truth be told I don’t know how I feel about this issue as I can easily relate to both sides.  More and more young couples are having babies in the city and refusing a life in the suburbs (this is my future category) while others decide not to raise a family and remain in the city to lead a chic downtown lifestyle.  Can the two co-exist?

My answer is yes…with proper etiquette.

Before we had been served our Cabernet Sauvignon one of the babies started to scream and cry.  Within five minutes the family was packed up and out the door (probably headed to Swiss Chalet).  “This simply isn’t going to work tonight,” the mom explained to the waitress, “she’s tired and hungry…I’m sorry”.  With that the family was gone and the crying of the baby had been silenced before it had become highly annoying.

My husband and I continued our delightful dinner filled with laughter and amusing conversation.  Then we were briefly interrupted when the 3 year-old daughter of the remaining family waddled by our table to the kitchen.  She wanted to personally thank the chef for her yummy meatballs.  She was very cute, yet still distracting.  Upon ushering her child out of the restaurant the mother turned to us and apologized for the noise disruption. 

On both accounts I was pleasantly surpised at the level of etiqutte these parents displayed at the restaurant.  Apologies were given to both the staff, and to us, for noise disturbances which I was quite thankful for.  In closing, politeness and manners were shown all around and we thoroughly enjoyed our evening -  although next time I’m going to order the meatballs!