fear of fire

The Japanese steakhouse trip last night did not go as we thought it would. We thought Dennis would be totally charmed and entertained and amused, and if he had bothered to take his nap yesterday, this might have been the case. Instead, he was interested in our seating at the grill, and was 'reading' the menu to Hadden, and was generally settling in for a usual restaurant meal when two things happened. The birthday crew came out and banged a drum very loudly, and it started up right behind Dennis. When he turned his head to check out the noise, one of the other grill chefs had just set loose a giant plume of fire, which Dennis saw. Hadden and I were saying how cool it was, but Dennis had a mini-breakdown, hiding his head behind my shoulder and grabbing my hands and placing them over his ears. He stayed this way for the appetizer course (I think he got the soup course in before he became afraid), and I couldn't eat because he had both my hands. Hadden covertly requested chopsticks, and Dennis' pair came rubber-banded together with a piece of cardboard stuck up in the top, and this saved the meal. He learned to pick up rice and noodles with them and feed himself and his Thomas the Train that I found handily tucked into the front pocket of his diaper bag. The meal was fun, overall, and Hadden was the recipient of many Dennis hugs and cuddles and kisses, and this is good because it was his birthday! Dennis wanted to go back to their house after supper, and he lucked up because they are the kind of very cool hosts that have a treasure box full of Happy Meal toys for kid visitors to play with. Naturally he had a great time with these, and he has carried around his souvenir Sponge Bob all day today. The thing he's still talking about, though, and I probably should have written about it first, is his getting to see baby Hadden in the NICU. He loved this. He was not even in there for a full minute, but he was completely captivated by seeing that tiny little person in his parents' arms. We stopped by the store on the way to the lake tonight for the customary bottle of Bug Juice, and Dennis begged for a baby doll on their shelf that was about the same size as baby Hadden (and, oddly enough, wearing blue and green just as the real baby was yesterday), and said "I want the baby, the baby Hadden, please Mommy". If only I'd had more money in my pocket... Maybe tomorrow!