Last Sunday night, Moonie and I pushed ourselves through the cold November rain and into the warmth of The Big Cheese & Pub.

He was immediately taken with the fishtank. “Fishies!” he kept squealing. The fishies didn’t squeal back.

I managed to pull him away from his swimmy little friends when we were seated at a table. Moonie immediately opened the menu.

“Look!” he shouted. “Little cheeses! That’s me!”

“That’s for wee little folks with wee little appetites,” I explained.

“Oh,” he said. “That’s not me.”

Dan came in a few minutes later, while Moonie was studying the pizza choices.

“What is that little clicking noise?” Dan asked.

“Moonie’s teeth,” I explained. The poor little dude was still chilled from the rain.

“Here,” Dan said, fashioning a skirt for Moonie out of his paper napkin ring.

“Ooh, and it’s purple!” Moonie squealed. “That’s my favorite color! Just like pink is and red is and…”
(“This could go in for awhile,” I warned Dan.)

“Do you know what you’d like to order?” our server asked.

“S-s-s-soup,” Moonie said through still-chattering teeth.

And soup he got.

It sure went quickly.

The next time I looked up, he was already digging into my spinach pizza.

He slowly tiptoes backwards so he could sample Dan’s pizza, too.

In the end, Big Cheese got a thumbs-up from this little cheese.