So I'm A Bad Mom . . . . Leave Me Be

All those who know me well, know that I can be a germ-a-phobe. Especially when it comes to things Claire touches. One area that has been tough for me is eating out. Claire does not do well with plates and bowls yet. To her, they are just fun toys that need to be either thrown or banged upon the table repeatedly. So we usually opt to forgo the plates and bowls when we are not at home.

But that leaves a dilemma. I have worked in restaurants as a waitress and know full well how much funk is left on a table at the end of a patron's meal. I also know that the damp cloth (which by the way has been used on numerous other tables through the course of the evening) does little more than smear all the germs into new places on the same table. So I don't really love the idea of putting Claire's food directly on these germ-laden pieces of furniture.

As a result, we have tried several things to provide a "germ barrier" if you will. We've tried those handy plastic liners that "adhere" to the table. Yeah, right. Claire can rip one of those things off in an instant and then the food is tumbling all over the table anyway. I even found a cool rubber place mat with suction cups. That worked until she was about 8 months old. Now she has enough strength to overpower those little suction cups and we end up in the same boat.

So what's a mom to do? I have finally opted to carry those handy Lysol Disinfecting Wipes along with me. Whenever we sit down, I wipe the table thoroughly with one wipe, let it dry and then follow up with a second wipe just to be sure. Then I go ahead and put her food on the table (where it was going to end up anyway) and we can finally eat in peace.

So tonight we dined at Chick-fil-A. After going through my ritualistic cleansing ceremony, I start portioning out Claire's nuggets and fruit. We are eating happily when a mom from another table comes over to us and hands me a napkin. She says ever-so-helpfully, "I thought you might want to use this to put her food on so it won't be on the table." REALLY?!!! I told her politely (although who knows what emotion my facial expression was conveying) that we have tried that in the past and she just throws the napkin on the floor. I even showed her my container of disinfectant wipes . . . . you know, just for grins. She then took said napkin and placed in in front of Claire as if to make a point.

Now I shouldn't have done this, but in the moment, I decided to concede and put Claire's food on the napkin. Wouldn't you know the little cutie grabbed each piece of food one at a time, placed the morsels lovingly on the table and then grabbed the napkin and threw it on the floor. YEA BABY!! That's my girl! EXACTLY what I wanted to do. Glad she did it for me.

The mom just giggled at Claire's "cuteness" and resumed dining at her table with her two elementary-school-aged children who were eating happily on their napkins.

I am still shocked that she had the nerve to actually come to my table to show me how to parent my child. I am sure she thought she was doing me a favor. Shesh. What ever happened to the good ole days when people just talked about you behind your back?