Without making mealtime miserable my husband and I over the years have worked to gently prod our children toward acceptable table manners. Now, at ages 7 and 9 our children will usually use a utensil to transport food from plate to mouth and by and large it will be a spoon or fork instead of a knife blade. Frequently our 7 year old son will get distracted by conversation and will remember to use a utensil, but totally disregard posture. I will look across the table to see his knee caps propped on either side of his dinner plate just visible above the table top . He will have slumped in the dinner chair far enough that his head will be barely visible above the table. He will be conveying kernels of yellow corn to his mouth on the tines of a fork with kernels tumbling off with considerable frequency along the way. “Sit up Cabell,” I remind him like a tape recorder playing the same message over and over.
Our 9 year old daughter finds it easier to follow the conversation while leaning forward. She typically leans into the table edge and has no problem lifting tiny vegetables the 3 inches from plate to palate. I only fuss when her chin actually touches the china. Sweeping up after dinner is much quicker around her chair.
A year ago we focused on napkin use at the dinner table. My husband declared that your napkin is your best friend and I repeatedly demonstrated good napkin use. We insisted that the children put their napkins in their laps at the beginning of each meal. After months we were pleased to see improvement. In fact one evening we returned home after dining out only to find a burgundy cloth napkin dangling from our son’s waistline when he unzipped his coat.
This spring we planned a weekend visit to The Homestead in Warm Springs, Virginia which brought on significant manners anxiety. The hotel dining room required a coat and tie for boys and men at dinner. The ladies were required to wear a dress or handsome slacks suit. Music and dancing would accent the dining experience. The week before our trip we initiated a crash course for the kids on behaviors banned at the dinner table. Frank and I were not certain about all the proper table manners, but we were quite clear that propping your knees on the table edge would not be permitted.
On the appointed weekend we joined Grammy and Granpa and arrived at the hotel dining room. We were seated and the children snatched the napkins from their plates and tucked them into their laps even before backsides met chairseats. We perused the menu, selected appetizers, salads and entrees and then turned to engage in friendly dinner conversation. The starving children politely requested a dinner roll to fill the pre-appetizer void. Grammy distributed them and each child received a decorated butter pat lifted from the butter dish with a butter-lifting fork.
All was mannerly and proper until Grammy spied Emma attempting to take a substantial bite of her buttered roll while firmly grasping her butter knife in her left fist with the handle abutting the table and the blade spear-headed toward the elaborately molded dining room ceiling. Our full attention focused on Emma and our adult heads nodded in uniform approval as Grammy instructed Em to break off a portion of the bread, butter it sparingly, return the knife to her bread plate and then proceed with tight-lipped chewing. All eyes were on Emma who was diligently attempting to follow proper procedure when from the opposite end of the table Cabell exclaimed, “I lost my tooth!” We turned from older child to younger one to find him sitting with buttered roll in one hand, knife spear in the other and his tongue tip protruding through the gap in his upper teeth where his bicuspid had been dangling moments before.
“I pulled it out with my bread,” he explained, “But, I don’t know where it went.” Frank and I began a search of the white linen table cloth, white linen napkin, bone china and creamy buttered dinner roll. As we searched for white on white Cabell with the silver knife still planted perpendicular to the table, asked, “Will the tooth fairy come to the hotel?”
“Sure,” Frank replied leaning down to place his eyeball at table surface level and peer across the white expanse. “The tooth fairy will come. Now, stand up and see if that tooth is in your chair.”
Despite standing, sitting, shaking and peering the baby tooth could not be found. “I guess you swallowed it,” I concluded.
Tears sloshed in his lower eyelids as Cabell asked, “But will the tooth fairy come if I swallowed it?”
“I’m sure she’ll come if you write her a sweet note explaining it all,” I replied. By this time boiled shrimp dripping over the rim of silver chalices accompanied by iced cups of cocktail sauce had arrived at our table. We ate with less enthusiasm for manners and more chewing on the complications of a swallowed baby tooth.
Suddenly, between salad and entree, Frank saw it. “There it is!” he exclaimed pointing to the burgundy carpet behind Cabell’s chair. Sure enough the pearly white was clearly visible on the dark carpet. In a flash Cabell was out of the dinner chair squatting to retrieve the tooth from the floor. He stood in the middle of the crowded formal dining room and proudly announced, “It is my tooth.” He held it up pinched between thumb and index finger for everyone to see. “I guess my roll pulled it out and it went flying over my shoulder!”
Now, you won’t find proper etiquette for pulling baby teeth in any of the manners books, so here is the scoop. When the tooth comes up missing announce it promptly to the other guests at the dinner table. Search the tooth-extracting food item thoroughly by shredding it into tiny pieces preferably over your bread plate. Investigate all adjacent napkins by waving them in the air like sheets in the wind. Have everyone at the table lean forward and rub their fingertips over the white linen table cloth to feel for the lost tooth. If you haven’t in fact swallowed the tooth, then the above measures will surely result in locating it. Once you find it throw it over your left shoulder for good luck. Make sure there is not a waiter behind you at the time of the toss since the tooth might then be transported to another table where the search would have to begin all over again. Above all, mind your manners and be nice to the tooth fairy!