Yesterday we embarked on one of Hubby's adventures. Hubby occasionally gets these ideas like, "Oh let's go for a little hike" and 5 miles and 5,000 feet up later, you realize that you have different definitions of "little". Or Hubby will say, "Let's do a family dinner at this great restaurant that's one of Boston's best!" and you get there and realize it's a seafood restaurant - like a serious one - where you don't recognize anything on the menu and they have no kids' menu and so your kids (who are, after all, part of the family) are grumpy because there is no pizza or pasta and you realize that you have a different definition of "great".
Can you tell where this is going?
For months, since moving to Boston, Hubby has had this idea that we should do a nice family dinner or something at Top of the Hub restaurant.
Top of the Hub is at the top of the Prudential Building, 52 floors up. It has a lovely view of Boston and area, and the boys and I visited the building back in the late summer. We went to the observation level on the 50th floor and paid for the privilege. We spent an hour or so there viewing (Kid#2 especially likes being in high places and looking down on others... hmm....) but Hubby was not with us as he was working. So I think he's had Prudential Building envy.
We have also been using Top of the Hub as a sort of bribe to get the kids to exhibit better manners at home. If they show good "Top of the Hub" manners, like using a fork for salad, sitting through the whole meal, saying please and thank you, and not dipping their fingers in the milk, then we would go to the Top of the Hub. Lately, the boys have been accusing us of lying - that we would never go to Top of the Hub.
So this weekend, we went. For dessert. We had lunch at home and then went out to the Mapparium (which was extremely cool!) and then dessert at Top of the Hub. I insisted that we check the online menu first to see if there were even desserts that our kids would want to order. Yes, I have picky kids. In France, we took them into a patisserie and offered them "anything they wanted". Kid#2 picked a plain butter croissant and Kid#1 couldn't find anything he liked until he saw the American-style chocolate chip cookies. Sigh...
But I digress.
Kid#1 had a minor freak-out as soon as we sat down because the place was "too grown-uppy". Kid#2 was on good behaviour because hey, if his brother was going to try and wreck things by being bad, then Kid#2 was going to be downright angelic. The kids both had a "wazzup" moment with the dessert menu though (which was buried in the middle of the cocktails menu, which was a whole other discussion....). They both settled on the fresh-baked cookie platter - 12 cookies fresh out of the oven. We ascertained that we could substitute the peanut butter cookies for something else (really? a restaurant that still makes peanut butter cookies and the waitress wasn't sure if we could swap them out?) Hubby went into over-spoiling mode by declaring that each child could have his own platter. (!!!!!)
Hubby and I each had a chocolate molten lava cake with blackberry ice cream. Photos are on my Facebook page (in case you are interested).
Well four gingerales (no free refills), one coffee and four extraordinary desserts later, with tax and tip, the total was just over $80. Adventure indeed.
On the other hand, the boys have left-over cookies for the entire week's worth of school lunches. On the other other hand, Kid#1 complained about a stuffed tummy for the rest of the evening and Kid#2 is at home today with a hurting tummy that he suspects is from "too much melty chocolate in the cookies". Sigh.
Next time, we'll go without the kids and spend the money on the sitter. And I don't think our "Top of the Hub" bribe will be at all effective henceforth. I do have to wonder what Hubby's next adventure proposal will be...
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