In the spirit of Juris Mater's post about her afternoon outing to the bank with children, I have another tale to tell; another piece of documentation about motherhood. Will it win me "Mother of the Year"? I highly doubt it. But will it add to the growing layers of my motherly identity? You betcha. :)
Just this past week my family has been at the beach, enjoying a final summer getaway before the school year begins. They live hundreds of miles away in the midwest, so this week has been a wonderful chance for us all to convene and celebrate time together as family. The beach and the pool have been popular destinations each day, along with an occasional dinner outing to a few of the local restaurant joints.
Two evenings ago, we headed out for a final dinner outing and ended up at a (thankfully) quaint restaurant, "Anchor's Inn". The staff was immediately friendly, the menu varied, and the atmosphere calm and relaxing. That was, until B-mama and clan arrived. T-baby immediately began screaming to locate new crayons for his placemat masterpiece. M, our oldest, (with a usually loud voice) began yelling to let us know he'd like pizza over grilled cheese. And the baby, very sweet and so little, started to squawk to let us know he was unhappy about still being in his carseat (which he seems to hate).
We managed to quell everyone's noise and the waitress made her rounds for drink and dinner orders. She brought back the drinks and all seemed well... Until I made a quick turn from one child to another, only to completely elbow and knock over my large glass of ice water. The drink went flying and landed directly on the baby, pouring into his carseat and soaking him and his "bedding" pathetically. He subsequently screamed and the table recoiled in response. Workers sprang into action, clearing the ice and water on the floor, mopping everything, while I dashed to rescue baby J from his watery calamity. Oh my goodness!
I ran to the car to find more clothes for the sopping wet baby, only to realize I had brought a sole onesie for the poor thing. I returned to report the find, only to meet (what I felt to be) criticism for being unprepared (can you blame me--we are on vacation with a 3-wk-old!) In my sleep-deprived, hormonal state, I *almost* lost it; *almost* gave way to the waterfall of tears that threatened to pour forth.... but I didn't. :)
Instead, I grabbed the onesie, my diaper bag, the baby, and my sister and headed to the bathroom to repair the damage. All was fine. The baby had dry clothes and mom's sling for a cover, the wet clothes were dried under the kitchen's heat lamp (!!), the floor was cleaned, the dinner was served, and we were all able to enjoy the meal together.
Will my motherly pride ever recover? Of course.
Will we venture out to dinner again as a family of 5? Not anytime soon. :) lol.
God bless you on this Friday!
2 comments:
Oh, B, anytime I am out in public with a baby under 3 months old I find that there is such a high embarrassment factor -- when things happen, I feel my face get hotter and hotter. I am proud of you for recovering. One fear I have is that in these tense moments I may say something (to my husband, mother or mother-in-law) that does truly long term damage. I now basically handle this by trying not to be around anyone at all during the first few weeks, not sure if this is really a great solution, though!
Hang in there!
I'm just so impressed that you even went on this vacation 3 weeks postpartum! Your a real star in my opinion.
Great story! We too have stopped heading out to dinner with 3 kids in tow. Our solution, takeout ;-)
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