Eating Family-style: No thanks!

Spent some time with Angel Baby this weekend, and the love continues. She’s this perfect little bundle of smiley cuteness – and I’ve found, she’s cuter than basically every other kid in town. The other thing I found is when you have a kid in the city and you go out to restaurants they make you sit with other families with kids. That’s annoying. Other people’s children are annoying, they bang on tables, they drop things onto the floor, they cry and scream and are all around bad brunch company. Bro-in-law and I took AB to Cinema on the UES, and they lead us through aisles of empty tables with little flower vases on them to a sad little backroom where they store the families. It’s packed with strollers, and high chairs, and crayons and crap like that, along with weary parents who just seem happy to have put on pants that morning. They must take everything off the tables because kids grab at stuff and try to eat it, so it took us forever to get salt or sugar for our coffee. And as I sat with AB trying to get a piece of mushroom omelet passed her grabby fingers into my mouth, I glanced over at the happy couples sitting in booths in the non-family part of the restaurant. They looked so care-free and relaxed and enjoying a leisurely Sat. morning meal. Then I looked at the haggard, non-washed parents in my sad section, they were all skinny from lack of time to eat trying to keep kids occupied and they seemed all around tired. Then I looked at Bro-in-law and saw the same from him. He was wearing the plain white t-shirt he probably slept in and am pretty sure he hadn’t showered that am. And worse than that he was hacking up a lung because of the cold he got from the snotty kid. He was barely able to finish his banana pancakes, luckily, he persevered. Love AB to pieces, but am in no rush to join the ranks of NYC parenthood.