Mother's Day, Or How My Nephews Danced At Fly

The dancing duo out in the great outdoors.

Now, my family lives far away, my Mom is in Ancaster, my Dad is in St. Catharines and my brother lives in Newmarket. Geographically speaking, you'd think we couldn't stand each other, but actually that's not true. We're all quite close, and even my parents, who are split, still talk on the phone a good deal. At any rate, I arranged Mother's Day down at one of my favourite restaurants, Fire on the East Side, which as some of you know, is connected onto FLY, the nightclub.

I picked the spot, as my Mom has been there before with me, and she likes it, the parking's right beside it, and its easy to find. My brother announces he's coming too. Delightful. He's bringing the wife and kids. Wife, no problem, but the KIDS? Umm. They're three, five, and seven. This isn't Chuckee Cheeze we're eating at here, folks. There are no chicken mcnuggets, pizza pockets or freezies. Plus they're all under the age of seven. How in hell are they going to sit still for two hours?! I try to delicately point this out to my brother, but he's obdurate. They're all coming. I roll my eyes, shrug and think, "Fine. If its going to be hell, its going to be hell."

Well, you could have blasted my garters off. It was a delight. No, I mean, really. I'm not funning either. My jaw hit the floor and stayed there for two hours.

The kids were adorable, well behaved, flirted with the staff and only tried to steal food off other people's plates once. (To be honest, in Christian's defence, that man didn't look like he was going to really eat that sausage anyway....) Matthew was the first one in, and generally, he's quite shy, but he saw my mother sitting across the restaurant and hollered, "Happy Mother's Day Gramma!!", ran over for a big hug, and then didn't leave her side the rest of the time. Melissa, my niece, who's also the oldest, sat there all in pink, and showed off a very pink, very sparkly handbag covered in sequins the size of dimes, and so she fit into the Princess motif of the place very easily. (Actually the necklace she wore that SAID princess would have made her the envy of every 19 year old snap queen on Church). Christian sat down, noticed everyone reading their menus, and very promptly picked up his and perused it quite seriously with no fuss at all . It seemed such a natural act, that it didn't dawn on me right away that, "Waitasec! Dude can't read!!" He didn't care. His father asked him what he wanted, and he pointed to the menu (which was almost as big as he was) and hit the frittata with fruit. He got fries with ketchup instead. It was all the same to him.

So we all had a good time, except for maybe Todd, who had to keep taking the boys downstairs to the bathroom, well, Christian especially, although I think he really just wanted to go down to check out the handdryers and watch everything flush. Keep in mind, when you're three, this is advanced technology.

At any rate, Todd (after taking Christian to the can for the fourth time) came back and asked, "Trev, do they get many kids in this restaurant?" And I said, "Well, not really, why?" He said, "Well everytime we walk by, everyone's smiling at us." I said, "Well Dorothy, you're not in Kansas anymore. They don't usually get Munchkins around here. In these here parts, children are a somewhat exotic commodity. Like carp."

The funniest point was when Todd was taking both the boys downstairs to the bathroom, and Matthew noticed the dancefloor and piped up, "Dad, what's that?" "That's a dancefloor. This is a place where grownups come and dance." Todd replied. Quick as light, both boys ran up the stairs and out onto the dancefloor and started bouncing around and dancing like maniacs. Head-banging dancing to be sure (their father was a metal head in his youth, and when their mother is out, plays Twisted Sister and the like, and all four of them, kids and Dad, practice air guitar and head banging.....quite the sight) but dancing nevertheless.

I wish somebody had taken a picture. Without a doubt, they're the youngest twinks ever to boogie at FLY.