So The Husband went away for his annual fishing trip this weekend (which somehow began Wednesday), leaving me on full-time Princess duty.
Let's just say I'm not sure he'll recognize the woman he comes home to, what with the unwashed hair, the unshaven legs, etc. On the other hand, I may very well be wearing the same thing I was when he left, so that may tip him off.
All that aside, it's actually been a wonderful few days. Once I resigned myself to not getting any work done, the concept of doing nothing but playing with The Princess set in and I have felt incredibly happy and in love, doing nothing but being with my beautiful little 9-month-old.
So last night I bravely decided she and I would go out for dinner. A "girls' night" sort of thing. I had planned to take her to our neighborhood pub, which is never crowded on a Saturday, let her sit in her stroller and read and play while I enjoyed a beer and a burger. So I packed my little Princess kit in the stroller compartments, changed her into a cute sunsuit, put on my favorite jeans and, in a nod to girls' nights everywhere, put on my little kitten heel slides. Off we went.
But when we arrived at the nearly empty pub, the same pub my husband and I have gone to almost weekly for two years, lately avec stroller, the waitress looked at me like I was a stranger.
"You can't have that thing in there," she said, pointing to the stoller.
"Oh, we've done this many times," I said. "We can just get rid of a chair and pull the stroller up to the table. It won't be in the way."
"It's because of insurance. That thing folds up, right? You have to fold it up and put her in a highchair."
"But we always do this."
"They just started it. Insurance."
Then, she proceeded to seat me in the corner, next to the bus station where the dirty dishes sit and right in front of the door to the basement where the walk-in freezer is located.
Apparently, I had just committed strollercide -- the alleged crime of infringing on other people's fun because you dared to bring a child into public. And I was being punished.
Now, before I was a mother, I used to resent the parents who clogged sidewalks with their massive baby-mobiles. It annoyed me when they blocked subway doors, or even restaurant aisles. So I try very hard to be mindful of this eveywhere I go, allowing people to pass me as soon as I hear footsteps; staying off the subway at rush hour; wearing the Baby Bjorn to go to the grocery. I really would never have tried this had I thought it would inconvenience anyone.
But there I was, now forced to unload all my toys from the stroller, attempt to collapse "the thing" with my kitten heels, and suffer general humiliation as a table full of post-Yanks-Mets game guys snickered as a struggled. (Eventually, a bus boy who always does remember I'm a regular came and rescued me.) And then there was dinner. The restaurant highchair is a still a novelty for The Princess. Most of the meal consisted of her throwing the toys to the floor and me picking them up. That was when she wasn't whipping her head around to catch a view of the soccer match on television, as I was holding on to her with one hand while trying to eat my fish and chips with the other.
But you know what? I spent most of the night smiling and even laughing. It was fun to have her up at eye level with me, and I kept up a running --albeit one-sided -- conversation. We both had a great time. In the end, probably more fun than I would have had had she been in her own little stroller world.
In fact, I think we'll leave the stroller at home the next time. But The Princess definitely comes along.
Recent Comments