Just Like His Dad.

So after two full weeks of some horrible, evil disease that has nearly wiped out our family, Alex was at last sucked into the fold and succumbed to an ear infection. Last night Christopher woke up at 2:00, and as Steve stumbled into his room, the only thought in his mind as he lifted him out of his crib was, "This can't go on. This just can't go on like this anymore."

But of course it can, and they were all piled into the doctor's office twelve hours later and then onto the pharmacy, where Steve learned the value of calling a prescription in ahead of time.

Calling it in: ready when you get there.

Not calling it in: they tell you to come back in an hour.

So they went across the street to have dinner at one of the fine chain restaurants that live to serve the xenophobic* and wait it out.

Christopher idled away the time by standing up in the booth and made goo-goo eyes at an elderly woman having dinner with her husband.

"Christopher, are you flirting?" asked Steve.

The old woman seemed to enjoy the idea that he was flirting with her, and complimented Steve on Christopher's obvious cuteness. Christopher said something unintelligible to her.

"What?" asked Steve. "Did you say you're wearing big pants?"

This enraged Christopher for some reason, this misrepresentation of the information he desperately wanted to communicate to the woman.

"NO!" he shouted loudly, his voice bouncing off the knicknacks coating the walls, "I SAID I HAVE A REALLY BIG PENIS."

"'Flabbergasted' is the word I think best suited the woman's facial expression," said Steve later, "but her husband had to put his head down on the table, he was laughing so hard."

Steve decided that it was definitely time to go, and asked Christopher where his coat was.

"Under the table," he replied.

"Okay, go get it," Steve told him.

"God, yes," interjected the old man, "You don't want to stick your head under the table when he's sitting there. You don't know what's under there."

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*How well do chain restaurants do at eliminating all creativity from the atmosphere and all life from the food? Not so good, if you ask me, because the last time I went to this chain restaurant the kitchen staff fed me a bee that they'd tucked in among the lettuce. I freaked out (bees taste furry! And crunchy!) and the manager gave me a gift certificate and invited me to come back next week, when they'd be serving ladybugs. You'd think I'd be happy about this deviation from the norm, what with all negativity I direct toward chain restaurants in general, but no. Complain, complain, complain. That's me. Never happy.