Motherhood FAIL of the Week: Side Salad

Recently, I've been making an effort to get out more and socialize with other Mommies.  This is due in part to the fact that spending hours alone with a baby seven days a week has me in danger of turning into Nell, but I also think it's good for the Muffin Man to socialize with other babies.  Last Tuesday, I met up with two Moms and their kiddos at Griffith Park.  Everyone brought their lunches and we set up a big picnic blanket so the kids could crawl around/ pull each other's hair/ try to eat leaves and grass.  Thanks to my annoying quinoa, kale and bark diet I was unable to bring a sandwich, like a normal person, and instead brought a tupperware full of leftovers and an arugula salad (ridiculously unpractical for a picnic, but what can you do).

The afternoon unfolded nicely, with the kids interacting a little bit while the Moms discussed such scinitilating topics as dairy allergies, breast feeding, and the consistency of baby poop.  After getting settled on the blanket and providing Noah with an assortment of toys and a baggie of Happy Puffs, I opened up my own lunch and proceeded to enjoy having other adults to talk with over a meal.  Eating while also juggling a small and very active human being is a bit of an art form.  Even under the best of circumstances, which means having someone else there to make sure your child doesn't somehow harm himself or others, it's basically impossible to have a relaxing and leisurely meal.  Prior to having a child I know that I had good table manners, but I'm afraid that now whenever I sit down to a plate of food I resemble a hog at a trough.  Unaccustomed to having time to savor anything, I've learned to inhale as much as I can in a short time in order to reap the benefits of caloric intake while Noah remains occupied.

At one point during lunch I had to put my tupperware down in order to retrieve a toy that the Muffin Man had thrown off of the blanket.  In the few seconds that I had my back turned, Noah somehow fell over, landed on top of my lunch tupperware, and ended up on his back with salad and quinoa all over his face and body.  In the process of becoming a human buffet table, he also incurred a nasty scratch on his cheek from the sharp edge of my plastic lunch container, which probably hurt like a mother when it got doused in salad dressing.  Of course, Noah started wailing hysterically, so there I was, comforting my poor kiddo while simultaneously getting myself covered in quinoa, arugula and grilled chicken.  After drying Noah's tears and ensuring that no permanent damage had been inflicted by the tupperware of death, I did my best to clean the two of us off with baby wipes.  I salvaged what I could of my lunch and my dignity and resumed conversing about the cost of preschool and the consistency of homemade baby food.

I'm awfully grateful that my Mommy dates were normal, cool ladies who didn't seem to pass judgement on my parenting skills and who still want to hang out with me despite my propensity for turning my son into an appetizer.  However, I think the next time we get together I'll eat at home, because I just don't think I can handle another week of picking quinoa grains out of my son's hair.