No Dancing Allowed!

HRH is all dressed up for a happy-family dinner at a fancy restaurant. There are ten of us, in-laws and out-laws with our only sons—and the lone grand-kid in this extended family. While everyone else is looking forward to fine food and wine, Baby looks around the room expecting to see a 'stage’—a raised floor, like those she saw at the two wedding receptions she'd attended several months ago.
                               

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Where's the stage? I want to dance!
People are here to eat. No dancing.
But I wanna dance!
Can you hear any music?
No.
There's no dancing, Baby. Only eating.
Ooohhh.

She refuses to be pacified and she climbs down from the high chair to jiggle her body and spin on her heel on the crowded floor next to our table. The servers are walking up and down with glasses and hot tea and platters of steaming hot food. Sooner or later someone will bump into her and the result won't be pleasant, I am thinking.

The Big Boss has read my thought and she comes unsmiling and tells HRH she should be in her chair blahblah... Later, when Uncle takes Baby away from the table, Miss Big Boss doesn't mince her words for him: "She shouldn't have been brought here if she can't behave herself."

I am harried enough without being reminded of my failure at keeping a 3-year-old hyperactive toddler glued to her chair. Maybe next time I should bring lengths of ribbon to tie Baby to her seat? Or perhaps I shouldn't take her out until she realizes that she has to observe certain rules in polite company.

But what if she doesn't learn? What if she is still hyperactive at age five or eight or ten? Or she becomes worse and develops loud, violent tantrums and turns into a howling, human windmill? Must she then be confined to the house? Then what? Lock her up so she won't taint the atmosphere around civilized society?

I dunno. Someone, tell me.

(Note: I’d be the first to make sure the toddler doesn’t hurt herself or causes mishaps to happen. In her defence I have to say she’s a little kid acting her age. She is not a little adult and it is unfair to expect her to ‘behave’ like one.)