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For all those who are pregnant, about to give birth to a newborn, or are caring for a baby.
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Dining out with Lucia
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So, overall, it's a good thing we don't remember how painful and humbling having a baby can be. But I find that when we do remember some of the bad stuff, it's softened by the rosy glow of nostalgia, like a survivor of a shipwreck fondly recalling the months spent in a liferaft on the brink of death. So it is with my wife and I, which is why we decided to try to dine out the other night. We got a babysitter to watch Blake, and then proceeded with baby Lucia to go out for an evening together. (note to single folks and those couples without kids: that, right there, is already something extraordinary! Here's a simple formula that few without kids know: the amount of time that you have to stay home and look after the kids, X, while already large with one child, increases exponentially by the number of children, Y. Thus, as there are more kids in a family, the time required soon surpasses the number of hours in a day. This explains why families with more than a few kids vanish from social situations for months at a time: they are actually in a fold of space/time, living a single day of looking after their kids! They emerge for major holidays, blinking in surprise that it's a different season, unsure how much time has passed or what year it is.) After some discussion, we decided to go to a local French restaurant, Left Bank, because it was close by and had good food that we could both eat. We've eaten there a number of times before and highly recommend it. So, we arrived in Menlo Park, which is a fancier community and less diverse than the one in which we live (a much higher population of rich white people there) and walked into the restaurant. Now, when we didn't have kids, we would actually get dressed up for a night on the town, with me in a suit and my wife in a dress. At the very least, I would shave and comb my hair. With a baby, though, I was just happy to be wearing pants. Still, I was a little self-conscious entering the restaurant in shorts and a T-shirt. Well, that wasn't all I had to be conscious of: I also had all the baby gear.
After we were shown to our table, my wife sat down with the baby while I unfolded and set up the chair, then decided to forgo the tent as it was still light outside and I was hungry. The server arrived and proceeded to regale us with an impressive list of specials...unfortunately we couldn't translate his outrageous accent, so we ordered from the menu. Our baby, Lucia, is on the verge of learning how to walk (like Blake, she is skipping the whole crawling thing as a distraction for suckers; she's holding out for the whole homo erectus shtick), so she's constantly flailing her body around, trying to maintain perpetual motion. So she was strapped into her chair, rocking back and forth. No, it's not a rocking chair - it was a restaurant chair with her baby chair strapped onto it - it's just that, like an 80s metal band, she lives to rock. But, by the time we'd placed our order and were approaching the prospect of an adult conversation, she started to fuss. Note for those without babies: "fuss" is a genteel code word for "shriek incessantly and with ever growing volume, with the attendant flailing of arms and contorted face usually reserved for victims of dismemberment in a horror film".
By the time my onion soup arrived, I had her mostly calm again. Whereupon she proceeded to spit up on me. Note to those who haven't raised a baby: "spit up" is a genteel term for "vomit", "spew", "hurl", "yakk", "throw up", "toss your cookies", "drive the porcelein bus", and/or "technicolor yawn". I dunno why there's this need to soften the blow by coming up with cute terms for things like this...except that, of course, it helps us to forget the gory details so that civilization can continue. Now, the thing with spit up is that it can be a little...or it can be a lot. There's no telling when the spigot will be turned off so that the flow will cease. Now, I'm not saying that my daughter rivalled Mr. Creosote exactly, but there were parallels.
Now, the Left Bank, being a pretty nice French restaurant, had set the table quite nicely with four place settings. So I had four lovely cloth napkins to use to sop the stream. These were quickly saturated with baby throw up (inserting the adjective "baby" here is an attempt on the author's part to lessen the impact on more sensitive readers, by fooling you into thinking that it's somehow less putrid than regular vomit. Rest assured, this is not the case. It's just more liquid, is all), at which point I had to figure out what to do with these dripping napkins. In the end I had to plop them on another chair with a squelch as I had no better place to put them. Then I just sat there in the funk, holding the steaming baby, watching my soup get cold. I couldn't get up or otherwise move from my chair, for that would have caused a wave of vomit to wash across the floor, spilled from my lap. Soon the hyper-vigilant maitre'd arrived, unbidden, with an armload of additional napkins, shrugging and saying only "It 'appens" to my mortified look (did I mention it's a great restaurant?). This allowed me to mop up further, and once Lucia stopped the stream, I was able to soak up enough to stop worrying about my skin wrinkling from the moisture. My wife arrived shortly thereafter, replete with wet wipes. With these I was able to wipe off most of the oily film which had collected on my arms, shirt and shorts, and somewhat clean the chair (luckily my clothing and body had absorbed the brunt of the vomit attack, and not much bled through to the furniture) while my wife prepared the baby's change of clothes. Thankfully, as parents we always come prepared with changes of clothes for our kids...unfortunately, I neglected to pack a valise for my own wardrobe. So I was left holding the tidied baby in my filthy clothes while my wife proceeded to eat her dinner, which had arrived at some point during the "baby toxic spill". She quite enjoyed it. Once she'd finished her repast, I handed our daughter over to her and proceeded to the restroom, somewhat surprised that my footsteps didn't squish more. To get to the restroom in this restaurant, you have to walk all the way across the wide-open dining area, then past the kitchen and through a little staff area where all the servers congregate when they aren't filling orders, then mount a flight of stairs to the nicely apportioned rest room on the second floor. The whole way I was very aware of my surroundings, and tried very hard not to touch anything with my pukey hands or bump into any of the servers so as not to leave a greasy stain. It's a bit like the feeling you have when dealing with a bout of conjunctivitis: you know you can't touch anything if you've touched your face or eyes, because you'll contaminate everything. Getting into a restroom without using your hands is always a fun challenge. I proceeded to towel myself off with paper towels from the dispenser, having a flashback to a recent potty training accident with my son at Crate & Barrel. There, too, I found myself using a copious number of towels to clean up a biohazard site. After several minutes of dabbing and wiping, I was satisfied that it was no longer obvious that I had been used as a barf bag. I washed my hands and returned to the dining room, realizing only after I had started that walk across the restaurant that I now had huge wet spots on my clothes. My shirt was made of a light cottony material that hid it well, but my denim shorts had a huge wet spot on them where my lap was (basically, all around the crotch). It no longer looked like my daughter had been sick on me, it just looked like I had lost the title bout with incontinence. There's a jaunty whistle that you develop in these situations, with a sort of "I'm not at all aware why everyone's staring at me - must be because I'm so good lookin'" insouciant air, that helps somewhat with the embarassment. No one is fooled by it, but it's a little fun to at least act as if you aren't fazed by all the attention. The other problem, I find, with using a succession of cloth napkins, wet wipes and paper towels to clean up a regurgitation accident: it doesn't do anything about the smell. So I was faced with choking down my fancy dinner amidst the pungent aroma of human stomach acid. There are some people who are so repulsed by the smell of vomit that they themselves get physically sick. Others gag or at least lose their appetite. Then there are parents. My dinner was, as any parent who has gone through anything similar could tell you, absolutely delicious. After the soup, the marinated skirt steak, the lovely vegetables and a generous serving of fresh pommes frites, I decided that I didn't have room for dessert and so we settled the bill, packed up our camp, shouldered our packs, loaded everything back into the car, and returned home, where I was finally able to change my clothes. If I didn't write this down here, I realize that I would eventually forget the whole sick aspect of the episode, and merely remember the fine, fine dining. As it is, it's fun to recount the story. It's the wonder of human memory, for the benefit of mankind. To anyone who was disturbed or dismayed by this account of our travails, and perhaps are having second thoughts about ever having kids, remember this: your parents went through similar things raising you! They just might not remember them so well... |
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Second...you nailed it. Spot on. Applause.
Dining out with kids can be a harrowing experience. Akin to washing them or changing their diapers. I love to dine out. And we continue to force ourselves to dine out with the little ones. Mind you, as you recount in your story, there is often little spousal conversation or relaxation in these instances, but we think it's important to get the kids acclimated to dining out.
Oh, and re: the spitup -- you nailed that one. I remember how gross I used to think vomit was. And then I had kids. And yeah, it's still gross, but I've caught it in my bare hands, had it in my lap, mopped it up with my jacket. It's just another fluid to me now ;-)
Hats off to you dad...
"caught it in my bare hands" - all I can think of is Chris Rock in "I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka" inviting one of the heroes to "pour it in my hands for a dime!"
I have 4 kids, but I still would have lost my own pricey meal once the smell of it reached my nose...
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