Child Containment Devices..unfortunately, a thing of the past

Sometimes I really miss highchairs. Or strollers. Or other Small Person Containment Devices.

Today, I took my beloved son out on a lunch date. We went to the Bread & Company in Belle Meade, as it's one of my favorite lunch spots and they have a great children's menu, too. I ended up chasing him around the store half the time while we were waiting on our order. He'd dash back and forth between the drink station and the refrigerated case with the salads. I tried to hold onto his hand, but that only worked intermittently; he's very strong when he wants to be.

Then, when we finally did get our food and chose a table at which to sit, he could barely stand to sit in his chair. He ran circles around the table while I frantically asked him to stop and sit down. (Okay, and I occasionally threatened him, too.)

Every once in awhile, I'd have to drag him back into his chair. And while I was doing so, I looked longingly at the mom a few tables over whose (much smaller) child was neatly ensconsed in one of those wooden restaurant highchairs. I miss those. I guess I could have tried to cram William into one, but I think that would have been utterly absurd, not to mention potentially impossible, logistically speaking. At some point, I gave up. I decided just to be That Mother, the One Who Can't/Won't Control Her Child. Surely I have accrued enough karma over the past few years to make up for this lapse, though, right?

The weird thing about this is that usually William is very serious about eating, and when presented with food, he gets down to business. I don't know what was going on with him today. And yet, amazingly, William somehow ate all his lunch...except for the bites of chicken finger that I snatched. He also ate my pickle and some of my sandwich. (And he told me about how the castle people like to eat turkey sandwiches for lunch; the knights make the sandwiches.) I am seriously considering finding an All You Can Eat buffet restaurant and taking him to it. I always thought those places were a bad deal for people like me who, most of the time, don't eat enough to make up for the cost. But for my child? I think it might work out just fine. The restaurant will lose money, but I won't.

Too bad he won't fit in the highchairs there, either.