0807032330 Alex’s 18th Birthday Dinner.

0807032330  Alex’s 18th Birthday Dinner.

Alex has been a man for a while, and now, according to local time, he is ‘legally’ a man. It has been almost a year since Alex has demonstrated his manliness by living away from home while finishing his final year at school and driving solo in an all expenses paid Ford Falcon.

Parenthood has a distinct and defining point where it all begins - there is an urgent rush to the hospital so the parents can be in time for the anxious 27 hour wait during labour, but after the fairly dramatic start, significant events seem to fade out.  As a parent I cannot remember the last time that I tied a bib on a kid before a meal.  I cannot remember the last time that I picked a kid up from school nor can I remember the last time I packed a school lunch.  I wonder if I would regard these everyday events as a special occasion if I had known that I was doing it for the last time?

My mother, who died a long slow horrible coughing death because of smoking, tried to remember the last time when all her children were in the same place at the same time.  As my mother remembers it, there was an insignificant everyday family dinner with eight people sitting around a small round kitchen table eating burned chops and three veg in a housing commission house in a small Victorian town where my dad sold second-hand tractors.

There was no ceremony, no speech, no last goodbye and no awareness that this family meal time was anything other than yet another ordinary meal at the end of another long line of insignificant days.

Alex is now eighteen and soon he will going off on his own fabulous adventure to BYU.  We will only see him on special occasions.  The family meal together will become a special occasion simply because Alex will be home.  To mark this particularly special auspicious occasion we had a family dinner together at the restaurant on the Eiffel Tower.  

The kids loved the whole evening. They were all so happy and laughing and, this is the clever bit, so well mannered and polite at the same time.  

There is a certain age, a turning point, when a parent loses creative control of a child.  That point is when they can speak.  Alex, this new man sitting with the family at the table, talked about his views on US politics, his observations on the customs of his friends from the US, China and Australia.  The kids were talking and agreed that it is highly probable that within the next five years Alex will be married.

Sunrise, sunset.  Tevye, I am starting to know what you mean.

We all had a great time.  The meal was superb.

The Meal.

Amuse Bouche

Entrée’

Main Course.  

Dessert.  Cheesecake.

Our happy waiter.

The waiter was delightful.  He really enjoyed working at the Eiffel Tower.  He laughed and joked with Hugo about the availability of chocolate dessert and he talked to Rachel Ruby in French.

At the end of the meal, we asked for the bill for the drinks - the waiter replied in a happy French accent and with a comical dismissive shrug ‘comme ceci comme ca’ (‘its OK’ it doesn’t matter, don’t worry about it’.)  It was if the restaurant was not going to demean itself by asking us to pay for a few miserly bottles of lemonade.

Our family now consists of two parents, one boy, one girl and one man.

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