As you may already know, yesterday was my father’s birthday. In honor of the big day, our family met at a local Mexican restaurant to celebrate the big event–and more importantly so my sister could get the waiters to embarrass the tar out of him. Apparently, this entire dinner was set up as a ruse to get my father to the restaurant so they could sing “Happy Birthday” to him in Spanish while he wore a large sombrero right out of Three Amigos. (Dad got the waiters to sing to her and made her wear the sombrero on her birthday, so turnabout was fair play.)

When we got to the restaurant, my sister and her family had already arrived. Gracelyn had already arranged the seating for everyone. “You sit there,” she said, pointing to a chair next to her. Gracelyn had also appointed herself the dealer of chips for everyone. She liked giving everyone a chip and then watching you dip it in salsa and eat it. Being a good uncle, I couldn’t really refuse, right? (Also, I could eat two times my weight in chips and salsa!) But the part of this game she really liked was when she learned that if she’d break the chip, Uncle Michael would dip in cheese dip and share with her. She would break off a piece for herself and say, “Share” at which I’d dunk her chip in cheese dip, dunk mine and we’d enjoy. I have no idea how many chips we did like this, but I am pretty sure it was ruining both our appetites. But isn’t that one of the joys of being Uncle Michael?!?

Gracelyn is also in swim lessons for the next two weeks and loves them. She runs into Grandma’s office every day and tells her, “I’m not going to get out today.” She is learning to kick, splash Mommy and put her face in the water and blow bubbles. And she loves to tell Uncle Michael all about it, which he loves to hear the stories. Which Uncle Michael eats these stories up like chips and salsa–there is no such thing as too much!

Meanwhile, Davis decided that since he’d waited approximately fifteen seconds to eat, that the table looked mighty tasty and leaned forward to gum on it. Of course, his mother was horrified by this, while Uncle Michael was pretty amused and admired his resilience in trying to get a taste of salsa. For some reason, his parents feel that baby food is more than good enough for him, not even noticing that there are very suitable things all around that could be mashed up for the boy to try. I’ve seen some of the food they give him. He had some peas last week that looked like they’d shredded up Styrofoam and put green food coloring in with it. And the look on his face as he ate it–it was almost like, “I may only be seven months old, but I have some taste!” Last night he had broccoli and chicken, which are two things I like separately, but the thought of mixing them together in a mushy paste does not sound too appealing. (Who the heck thinks up these baby foods, I ask you?) I am fully determined that Friday night at Grandpa’s B’day/Father’s Day shindig that Davis should get a taste of icing from the cake. I think it would change his whole perspective on the concept of what really good food is.