Saturday morning, bright and early, we thought we’d give our son a special treat and take him over to the Westchester Mall for Breakfast With Santa Claus.
He loved it, as you can see.
Later that day, another special treat: a trip to a hibachi restaurant (which completely transfixed him last time we went, so we were thinking this would be a definite win).
What happened at the restaurant was:
a) One of those very special moments of total parental mortification that do happen once in awhile;
b) Possibly not quite as bad in reality as it was in my head;
c) Very possibly just as bad in reality as it was in my head;
d) An experience that resulted in a bill approximately twice what it should have been, thanks to the fact that it was 100% necessary to buy the other people seated at our communal table a drink on us and tip extravagantly;
e) This, but in a restaurant;
f) All of the above.
Ding ding ding!
This photo pretty much sums it up.
So we were 0/2 this weekend.
The other day, a reader who’s expecting her first baby in a couple of months asked me how you deal when these sort of Public Perfect Storms involving meltdowns and/or truly overwhelming bodily function issues arise, and the answer is this:
Find your Zen Place and take it one thing at a time.
1. Make sure baby is safe. He may be covered in things you wish he wasn’t, but is he reasonably likely to survive the next five minutes? Good.
2. Make baby feel better. Yes, you’ll get whatever’s on him on you. That’s OK; it’ll come off. (This is also why I no longer buy dry-clean-only clothing.)
3. Once baby is reasonably calm, clean him as well as you can. It helps if you’re organized enough to always bring extra clothing with you. (I’m not.)
4. Clean yourself. Maybe. That sometimes waits until you get home.
5. If other adults without children were present and unable to escape (say, in a restaurant or on an airplane), do what you can to be awesome to them (a sincere apology goes a long way; alcohol-as-peace-offering is even better).
6. Get over it. And then laugh about it, because nothing helps in situations like these more than a sense of humor.
So that was my weekend. How was yours?
