One of my son’s favorite restaurants is IHOP, where he somehow manages to fit an entire Funny Face pancake into his kid-size stomach in about ten minutes. We went to eat there last weekend at his request, and as soon as our food was delivered, he gleefully started gobbling up his breakfast.
About five minutes later, I heard a child break out into a tantrum at a neighboring table. Their food had been delivered and, though it was precisely what he had ordered, he’d decided it was unacceptable. He was screaming, yelling, banging on the table—the whole nine yards.
His mother attempted to calm him down while trying to keep his younger sibling from joining the fray. Moments later, the boy’s father stood up, picked up the boy, slung him over his shoulder, and calmly walked out the front door, ignoring the boy’s screams and nearly being kicked in the head.
I knew all too well what was about to happen, because I’ve been there (both as the parent and as the child, but the latter is another story or forty). This boy was in for it. I didn’t know what it was going to be, but I was sure it would not be pretty.
The father and son rounded the corner and stopped just outside the window opposite our table, where they sat down on a bench. I waited sympathetically for the storm clouds of trouble to break and rain down wrath: about staying calm in restaurants, being grateful that their family had even come to IHOP, enjoying the delicious food that was exactly what he ordered, remembering that so many people don’t have any food at all…I could think of more than several handfuls of topics on the dad’s list.
But the father only wrapped his son tightly in his arms and held him close.
Read the rest at The Glorious Table!