Shout it Out

Anonybabe and Anonyhub and I went out for a belated mother's day meal Monday night.

Anonybabe has heretofore behaved herself nicely when out and about, so I risked going somewhere I figured there wouldn't be many kids. Although the restaurant describes itself as a casual, neo-southern place, it is decidedly nice. A man in a blue button-down (who we later decided was the owner) greeted us at the door and looked none too pleased to see us toting a baby. We asked for a high chair, and a table where it wouldn't be in the way. They apologized for doing so, but stuck us way in the back. It worked beautifully because Anonybabe's chair was tucked away and Anonyhub and I could both reach her.

She was extremely antsy, so to blow off some steam I let her crawl on the floor from the bathroom to our table. I got those half-smiles as we crawled the gamut to our table that told me - oh, that is so...not cute.

We made the mistake of feeding Anonybabe a little ice cream. Peach ice cream made with local cream. Damn, it was good. So good that Anonybabe whined and yelled for more.

And then there was the squealing. Squeals of delight, squeals of displeasure, and squeals of "check out these bitchin' vocal chords I just found!" Anonybabe has been upping her vocalization day after day. Like the frog in slowly heating water, I didn't realize we'd reached the boiling point until I was suddenly faced with a restaurant full of unhappy patrons. She didn't sound like a tea kettle the whole time, but she damn near did. She gave us looks when we shushed her and tried to plug her up with her pacifier; usually we are trying to get her to "talk" as much as possible.

Anonyhub and I kept her nominally quiet by talking to her through her grover doll (Oh! May I have a sip of your wat-ter, please?" "Mmmm! Can Grover have a bite of your green bean?"), but aside from being embarrassing in and of itself, this would periodically crack her up so much that she would cackle uproarously and we would shush her and look around.

Overall we were not too much of a burden on our fellow diners or our daughter, but I'll not be taking Anonybabe out to any places that don't have a handy supply of crayons and dinosaur place mats in the near future.


You're welcome.