That was fun!

On the eve of Hubby's birthday, we decided to go to The Melting Pot for his birthday dinner. Keeper Boy was most excited. He's been there twice in his young life and loves the whole fondu experience. J-Mav seemed fine with it when we told them that's where we were going. But then it was bedtime. All the wackiness happens with J-Mav at bedtime. He holds in all of his insecurities and fears and they all come out in a ball of sobs at bedtime.

So Hubby comes out from his turn at tucking J-Mav in on Sunday night and says, "[J-Mav] is totally stressing about going to The Melting Pot and cooking his own dinner."

Eh?

Turns out he must've thought he had to go into the kitchen and MAKE DINNER, like he sees us doing at home. But he didn't want to do that. He doesn't know how to use the stove. He's not allowed to touch sharp knives. On and on.

Hubby tried to explain to him about how he would put his food on a big fork and put it in a pot of broth and that's all he would need to do to cook it. I don't think he got it, but he agreed to go. Good thing, because he was going whether he wanted to or not. :)

Flash forward 24 hours and we arrive at the restaurant. J-Mav is now a little excited... although I think it's more because of the obnoxious, sparkly, "The BIG 40 balloon" he has toted along to the restaurant -- and the gift he has to give his Daddy -- than because of the restaurant at this point.

We ordered the full dinner, so we started with the cheese fondue. He liked that, and there was no cooking involved, so we were all good. He had some bread, apples, celery, and carrots. And he tried both of the cheeses we had on the table, though he preferred the cheddar over the Wisconsin Trio, which had blue cheese and green onions in it.

Next was the salad course. Neither of the kids even got a salad. Ours were good though. :)

And then it was time to cook. He still didn't quite get it when the waitress brought out the food. He said he didn't want anything because, well, raw meat and seafood isn't exactly appetizing to look at on a plate. I think he thought he was supposed to eat it like that. Eew. We gave him all the raw broccoli and mushrooms (instead of putting them in one of the pots of broth) from one of the orders and he started munching on those while we explained how to cook the food. He agreed to try a piece of chicken and Hubby showed him how to put it on the fork and put it in the pot. After he saw that one come out nice and cooked, he was fine. He tried everything... even the Ahi tuna, which he was a little leary about because it was red when it was raw. But he loved that. He ended up eating several pieces of it. And he tried shrimp! This is big because (a) he's tried it before and hasn't liked it, and (b) it was GREEN in its raw state because it was some kind of island lime shrimp. I think they died it a little. *I* didn't even try the shrimp... there was enough other yummy stuff and I just had a little trouble getting past the fact that it was green. Keeper Boy had no problem eating my portion of shrimp (and Gma G's portion of steak).

Anyway, J-Mav really liked everything and had a good time once he figured out what the cooking entailed.

He didn't eat too much during the chocolate course. I don't know if it's because he was full from the entree course, or if he's just not that huge of a fan of chocolate. I suspect it was a little of both. He gets the ambivalence over chocolate from his Dad. It's certainly not from me. :)

So, J-Mav's first experience at The Melting Pot was a good one. He had fun and wants to go back. We told him that's a restaurant you go to only once in a while. He wanted to know why. Because it's EXPENSIVE! He said, "what, like $20"? If only... if that was the case, he could go cook there all the time!