My grandchildren certainly get taken to restaurants more than I was at their age. They are generally reasonably well behaved. And they have picked up on some aspects of running the business, including at least one bad one.

They built a restaurant kitchen that is a long narrow structure of pillows and blankets. It is pretty precarious. My grandson insists on crawling in and being the chef, and insists his sister stay out of the kitchen. On the face of it, that supports two discredited ideas: only women can cook, and women can’t be chefs.

At the same time, she only gets to serve as the waitress. She takes a small book from her extensive library and pretends it is a menu. She then reports the orders to him.

To poke a little fun at them, I ordered a plate of blither with some blather sauce. She delivered it post-haste. When Vicki ordered a salad, they cooked it in the “oven.” Tres Chic.

As mentioned previously, my 5-year-old grandson is an avid cook, and learning to bake. His sister, at two, is young for that… yet.