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Eating with Kids

 I'm at my most ridiculous when I take my children to the Cheesecake Factory; I try to get both kids to watch iPhone screens, as if to trick them. "We're not actually having the experience we're having. We are with Princess Ariel, in a secret aquatic Versailles!"


Always, I order from the "Skinnylicious" menu, because I think it's absurd. I can picture the Cheesecake CEO. "Americans are so dumb, we can tell them certain kinds of smothered steak will make them skinny! The steak won't just be a reduced-calorie-intake scenario. It will actually remove weight from the diner. It will make the diner look like Gwyneth Paltrow!"

It's probably better to eat "al fresco." The children are always slightly calmer if they're in the open air. But the Cheesecake Factory is a known quantity--and if you go somewhere with outdoor seating, you're risking chaos. Recently, a stoner waiter forgot the kids' order three times--and I thought that my daughter might actually remove her own skin. I saw her rage as a kind of tornado; it would help her to levitate and hover above the table, like a demonic Princess Elsa. My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around!!!

Our best bet is to sit on the beach with fried bits of chicken in paper buckets. The kids dip the chicken in sand; neither baby seems to mind. Occasionally, Susie holds a French fry toward the sky, so that a shrieking, terrifying seagull will visit. More than once, large bands of gulls have surrounded us, as in the Alfred Hitchcock movie. I then pretend that the entirety of Asbury Park is not staring at me and judging me. Nothing to see here.....

It seems like a smart option is explicit training plus incentives. "Look, I've made laminated cards to teach us how to eat....If you sit still for forty minutes, I will reward you with this small plastic fidget...." But: Jesus Christ. I think I'd rather cope with the seagulls.
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