The Wife had a holiday night out with friends tonight. That left me with the kids. Fortunately, that’s a position I’m comfortable with by this point.
Tonight, they were split up for awhile. The lass had dance lessons again, now that her leg is fully healed. The boy had to take a karate class tonight to make sure he got his two nights per week in. I needed to get some paperwork for Scouts signed somewhere in the middle of all that.
As luck would have it, I ran into the fellow I needed to sign my paperwork at the karate school. Turns out, he handles the custom shirts for the school and we just happened to cross paths tonight. Fortunately, I had the papers with me so that took care of one burden.
The boy finished up his lesson and was hungry. He asked me if I knew what I wanted to do for dinner. In truth, I didn’t. It was going to be 6:30 by the time we got home, not leaving much time to throw anything together. I was strongly leaning towards dinner out.
I suspect the boy can sense these things, because he cheerily offered a local restaurant that we hadn’t been to in awhile. A little Mexican food place that he and the lass both liked. At that point, I didn’t need much convincing. We left to get the lass at her dance school. She was pleased at the news we’d be eating out tonight.
This place is a bit different when ordering food. It’s like a mix of takeout and sit down. We order the food at the register, then go and seat ourselves and wait for them to bring it out. The lass wasn’t sure what she wanted, so I ordered for her. The boy and I both ordered our usual meals- he gets a steak burrito and I get a taco salad with chipotle Ranch dressing. They both got bottled water to drink.
We hadn’t been sitting more than 30 seconds when the boy started wondering when they were going to bring the food out. “What’s taking them so long?” he complained. It’s one of those things I remember doing and am now ashamed of. I can only hope he’ll look back on his moments like these with a critical eye as well. He opened his bottle of water by breaking the plastic cap seal and took a drink. I’m not sure if the lass is more patient than her brother, or is just content to let him speak for the both of them. Whatever she might have been thinking, she remained quiet.
I had been zoning, looking out the window when I noticed the boy busying himself with something. I started to observe him and he was whapping a piece of the plastic cap around our table with another piece of the plastic cap. He’d push the piece in one direction, then double it back and bring it back in the other direction.
Then I realized, he was “playing” hockey.
I continued watching him. The lass wasn’t interested at this point. After a bit, I said “How’s the hockey game?”
He smiled a bit and said it was going fine. Then he put his off arm on the table and cupped his hand and started “shooting” the puck at his hand with the other piece.
When the lass heard mention of hockey, she turned and saw what her brother was doing. She was instantly ready to participate and formed her own hands into a goal. She implored her brother several times to start shooting the puck at her goal, but the boy ignored her. As she continued to watch him, she lamented “I want to play hockey…”
She then glanced at her bottle. The plastic piece that had come off of it wasn’t on the table. She looked on the floor, and there, lying next to her, was the little piece of blue plastic. She bent down to pick it up and I could see her beginning to ponder how she’d turn this into an object of entertainment.
Alas, it was not meant to be. Right then, the food arrived and all the hockey games ended in favor of eating dinner.