On Wednesday night, to celebrate Husband’s birthday, we took Aitch out to a relatively fancy restaurant. Believe me, we’re not the kind of people who don’t know that it’s uncool to subject fine diners to our screaming toddler, but there were mitigating circumstances. It was a special occasion, we couldn’t get a sitter, and it was too hot to cook in our kitchen. We originally planned to sit on the patio, isolated from the main event, but when we got to the restaurant it was SO hot, and the dining room was SO cool, not to mention SO empty, and the wait staff was SO gracious, and there was even another family with a two-year-old there….SO….

We were SO sorry.

Aitch began indulging in as manic a fit as I have ever witnessed. Jumping up and down on the banquette, licking the salt shaker, running around the dining room, banging the plates, scraping the silverware on the wall. It wasn’t that he did anything particularly heinous, just that he did a million annoying things at warp speed. To distract ourselves from the carnage, Husband and I wearily analyzed our different approaches to discipline. I believe that Aitch does best with a lot of structure, with clear expectations for his behavior (translation: I wanted to strap him tightly in the high chair and remove all breakable objects from the table). Husband believes in imposing limits as the need for them arises: for example, Aitch is free to play with a glass until he spills it, or is allowed to get down from the table until he runs away. By the time the appetizers came, though, we were both revising our preferred approaches to incorporate the concept of “cattle prod.”

Just as our entrees were being served, and we were contemplating asking for them “to go,” a jazz quartet that was setting up in the corner began its sound check. The bass gave a few thump, thump thumps. Suddenly, Aitch’s head swiveled (not 360 degrees; it just seemed that way) in the direction of the band. He stopped moving, grabbing, flailing. He quieted. He listened. The band started up and he stared, mesmerized. When he finally snapped out of it, he turned his attention to the plate of food he had been playing with and began to eat. It was like the music cleared a mental space for him to organize his thoughts.

When we finished eating, we let Aitch get close to the musicians. He danced, arms outstretched, head tilted up, happy happy Snoopy feet, until we dragged him away. We didn’t have the heart to tell him that wild dancing is not the usual way jazz is enjoyed. We’ll wait until he’s old enough to sport a beret and smoke clove cigarettes.