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Thanks to my darling student teacher, who gave me a gift certificate on her last day (I miss her!!), we were able to go out to a pretty swanky restaurant tonight on the cheap!  And there was no need to get a sitter, because there was no other guest we'd rather have by our side than our sweet Sylvia.  We arrived with back-up plans, of course.  We had already browsed the menu online and had our to-go order written down in case she turned out to be super fussy and disruptive in such a classy joint, or in case we couldn't get a table.  I'm happy to report that neither scenario actually happened, and we had a fabulous dining experience, as did about three other tables near us.

Sylvia. Is. Social.

This child was smiling and waving and blowing kisses to every person who passed by our table.  One group of ladies next to us just couldn't get enough of her, so they kept talking to her and laughing at her, which, of course, just made her ham it up even more!  Then an old man at another table started waving and smiling, and before I knew it, I was making eye contact with at least three other people while chewing my crab cakes.  I had to take tiny bites so I could talk for her.  People would say "You're so cute!" and I'd say "Thank you!" because clearly this child can't understand what you're saying nor can she respond to you in any intelligible sense.  Here's how my dinner went:

Old lady: You're a sweet little girl!
Sylvia smiles
Me: Thank you!

Old man: What's your name?
Sylvia smiles
Me: Sylvia!

Younger lady: It was lovely to meet your acquaintance, bye bye Sylvia!
Sylvia smiles
Me: Bye bye!  Sylvia.  Can you say bye bye?  Wave bye bye!  Bye Bye!
Sylvia smiles, does NOT wave at all, and makes me look like a total dork.
Younger lady walks away and Sylvia starts waving at her and doesn't stop until we leave.  Sheesh!

And tonight she started playing this awesome game where she put everything on her head.  To which Sylvain started chanting "Chapeau!" in a sing-songy voice which made her love this activity.  Here's our Chapeau video, and although it might appear that she's running a muck in the restaurant, she's really being very well behaved.  I promise.

Then, at the end of dinner, while we were waiting for our check, I asked my husband a very serious question.  I said, "Did you ever think, in all of that time we talked about having kids, and all of that time I was pregnant, did you ever think that our child would ever be this great?"  I was expecting a smug and snarky response.  I was expecting him to point out the fact that I'm too sentimental.  But he just smiled at her and looked at me and said...

"No."