The Top 10 Things You Will Do When Going Out to a Nice Meal with a Baby

10. You will call ahead to the restaurant to ensure that they are child friendly. You will make sure that they have high chairs. And avocado mashing abilities. And liquor. Lots of liquor. *see #7
9. You will pack a suitcase filled with baby toys, baby snacks, baby rattles, baby teethers, baby cheesedoodles, People magazines and multiple changes of baby clothes.
8. You will order food that, if need be, can be eaten with one hand. No thick cuts of meat, here. You may not be able to use a fork and knife at the same time, folks.
7. You will drink. You will order lychee mimosa after lychee mimosa, and then top them off with a sake mojito. *see #10
6. You won’t get carded. (May also be filed under “You will pout.” and “You will make mental note to invest in new eye cream.”)
5. You will apologize to the people around you; to the woman sitting two tables away who got rice stuck in her fresh blow-out; to the man seated right behind you, who will have to continually answer the baby’s request for “Hi? Hi! Hi? Hi!”
4. You will take the antsy baby to the bathroom to try to nurse her. This will not be easy because you’ve just enjoyed your lychee mimosas and sake mojitos. And there are stairs involved. And a blouse with buttons. And you will use your one free hand to slap yourself in the face while telling yourself to “get it together” to make sure that when you’re finished, you can walk back into the restaurant without your boob hanging out for all to see. You will check in the mirror 5 times to make sure that you have, in fact, put your boob away, closed your blouse and tucked in your shirt. You will still walk through the restaurant, back to your table, sure that there’s at least one button undone, exposing two extra inches of unnecessary, inappropriate flesh to your fellow diners.
3. You will disinfect everything. You will Purell the baby’s hands. You will Purell the table. Then the hands, again. Then the table, once more. You will keep doing this until your husband tells you that you’re being crazy and to “get it together.” And that you’ve gotten some Purell foam in your hair.
2. You will, at some point in the evening, inevitably have to change the baby’s diaper. You will not, however, be able to use a changing station, as such restaurants never have anything of the sort. Diapers are not chic. Instead, you, your sister and the baby will cram into the tiny bathroom stall, and while your sister holds up the baby, facing you, so that baby’s legs are dangling, you will remove the baby’s diaper, wipe her, apply diaper cream and put on a new diaper, while the baby kicks and squeals, and you and your sister gossip about people, hoping that they can’t hear you from the next stall over.
And the number 1 thing you will do when going out to a nice meal with a baby?
1. You will pray. Because when all as said and done, it does not matter what you pack or whom you call; baby does what baby wants, so all you can do is hope for the best and keep breathing. One lycheemosa at a time.

No Comments Yet.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *