Fathers day- Eating Out with the Monster!

"Go to a restaurant with a baby? Are you Fucking mad?!"

"You want to eat in public with your child?!"

"I'd rather eat my own bollocks than put myself through that!"

These are all things that I've heard people say when I mentioned that I was going to take the little one to a restaurant. Call me naïve or even deluded but I've always thought the little one should be taken out to eat as much as possible. I'm not talking 5 star dining by any means- fuck me, judging by the state of my bank balance, we're lucky if we can stretch to a deluxe meal deal at Maccy D's but eating out together once in a while should be something that we do as a family. The snobby part of me is also terrified that she won't know how to behave when she is able to start going to restaurants by herself.

So with this in mind I decided that for Father's Day I wanted to have breakfast out as a family.

The day did not start well.

It wasn't helped that the little one decided she'd had enough of sleeping through the night and instead thought it would be a good idea to wake me up at 3.30am. Not only this, but once the obligatory nappy change had been carried out she then thought an early father's day present would be to have a shit in the clean nappy. Obviously she decided this just as I had finished buttoning the final popper on the baby grow.

Anyway a few hours later we all get up and get ready to go out for some breakfast. Now, I was really craving some pancakes, so with that in mind we decided to head out to our local Frankie and Bennies.
We arrived around 10am and fortunately there was one table left.
After settling into our seats the waitress took our order and left us to it.

It was at this point that the gravity of our situation dawned on us. What were we thinking?!
What if she starts screaming?! What if she flings food across the restaurant?! What if she has a massive shit and stinks the place out?!

Alas we needn't have worried. For a good 5 minutes she was as good as gold. Cooing cutely, waving at passers by, smiling at the waitress. All was good.
Until that is, boredom set in.

Neither of us had considered the fact that sitting at a table when your 10 months old isn't that exciting.
We soon found ourselves taking it in turns at keeping her entertained. Anything from blowing raspberries to playing peepo! with other guests (whether they liked it or not!). Pretty sure we scared the shit out of one unsuspecting customer when they turned around to see a floating head smiling back at them. I should point out that they were sat on a slightly raised platform and we were below playing an extreme version of Peepo that involved flying through the air.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity (it was only 15 mins) our food arrived. Now back in our child free days we would have said thank you to the waitress and tucked in.
Not anymore.

We thought it would be good if little one got to try something other than pureed spag bol so we ordered her a mini waffle with strawberries and chocolate dip. This was a rookie error and it soon became clear that we weren't going to be eating anytime soon. Strawberries, apparently are an alien concept to my daughter, even though she's had them numerous times at home. The fact that they were thinly sliced, completely threw her off and caused her to make a face as if we were force feeding her slugs.
The chocolate dip faired better and went down a treat. It did mean however, that we then had to spend the next 10 mins feeding her tiny bits of waffle dipped in chocolate sauce. She apparently had lost all function in her hands and insisted on being fed like a baby chick.

Finally she seemed to be getting full and therefore sleepy! A quick transfer from highchair to buggy and voila! She was asleep!

This was our signal to eat. A short 10 minute gap that we knew wouldn't come around again anytime soon.

Ladies and gentleman, if you happened to be passing by Frankie and Bennies in Basingstoke at approximately 11am on Sunday morning, you would have witnessed something very special. Never before have 6 pancakes with Bacon and Eggs been inhaled quite as quickly as by 2 otherwise well mannered people. On behalf of Mrs Mcdadface and myself, I apologise.

Needless to say we downed our coffee and paid in record time.

So the moral from this little tale? Eating out is no longer a relaxing experience! I long for the day when we can give her some colouring in to do while we eat in peace.

Like that will ever happen!!

N.B Shout out to the staff at Little Frankie and Bennies Basingstoke- You were lovely! Thankyou!

Bath Time.

So, as promised in my last post, a little insight into our nightly bath time ritual.

It goes a little something like this.

The horror of what was feeding time has just about finished. Both child and parent are exhausted in equal measure. Just to give you an idea, I will use tonight as an example. This was the scene at approximately 6.45pm. My daughter is PINK.

Yes, you did read that right. Pink. Covered, head to toe in fromage frais. Well I think it was fromage frais. There was a slight crust to the upper layers around the eyebrows. This I can only assume was snot mixed with the fromage frais.
Just below the neck area there is a slimey brown liquid which I am hoping against hope is mushed banana. If not, then we have entered a whole new world of pain. The kind of pain that only an explosive nappy can bring.

Luckily on this occasion my poo fears are misplaced.

The next stage in the process is the extracting from the high chair and transferring to the bath. In theory this should be simple. In reality, it is not.

The reason that it is not is because she is currently covered in fromage frais, banana and snot. This therefore makes it difficult to remove the clothes. Once clothes are removed we then have the nightly game of nappy roulette. Has she managed to have a shit in the 30 minutes it took to have dinner?
The answer, dear reader is Yes. Yes she has.

So as things stand we are currently naked, covered in fromage frais, snot, banana and slightly smelling of shit. We are however edging closer to the bath tub.

With one final dash, holding baby at arms length (to avoid being pissed on) we make it to the bath.

This is definitely my favourite bit. She loves being in the bath! Splashing is compulsory and most of the water ends up on the kitchen floor. We tend to go through phases of which toy is favourite. We are currently very much into a fluorescent orange crab and a pink octopus. We've also taken to drinking the bath water (when its full of soap, naturally).

After 10 minutes or so we decide to call it a night and get her out. This has a whole routine to itself.
Let me explain...

You see she doesn't just like to get out of the bath like any normal child. No. There is a very strict routine which consists of two main parts.

Part 1
Stand in bath and do the naked dance. The naked dance does what it says on the tin. She likes to be propped up on 2 feet and "danced" in full view of the neighbours whilst mummy and daddy sing we are the cheeky girls, we are the cheeky girls, touch my bum, don't be shy, cheeky cheeky!
Regular readers of my blog will have noticed that the cheeky girls make an appearance during the drying off process as well.

Part 2
Once removed from bath and wrapped up in towel, it's time for the obligatory game of Peepo!
This is done in the remote hope that it will prevent screaming when on the changing mat.
It doesn't.

Cue second verse of We are the cheeky girls, whilst drying, smearing cream on nappy rash, battling the vest, getting both arms and legs into baby grow, buttoning up baby grow and then finally rebuttoning baby grow because you missed one of the poppers.

Little trick we've come up with to relax her is to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on repeat. This gives us just enough time to do all of the above!

Now finally dressed (and looking very cute!) She's ready for her final bottle of the day.

10 minutes later, the impossible appears to have happened.... She's asleep! 

Enjoy the peace and quiet!