Little did we fully comprehend that when we decided to become parents we would be open to
scrutiny by the general public. Until now, we had only noticed friendly smiles and quick waves when dining with Hayley, but lately for some reason, those smiles have turned to looks of disapproval each time we've strapped Hayley into the highchair. We shrugged a lot of this off as just being paranoid and nervous about not wanting to disturb others with out talkative (yet VERY well behaved baby). (Besides, it's not like we were ruining someone's candlelit anniversary dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town. Think kid-friendly before 7pm dining type establishments!) However, last weekend was the straw that broke the camels back. Keep in mind that Brian and I have taken extreme measures to follow the "rules" of parenting. Being the germaphobes we are Hayley's little buns have never touched a highchair because we smother every inch of the chair with a cloth cover. We then cover the table in front of her with a Tabletopper so as to keep her "plate" as clean as possible. I suppose this looks neurotic to some, but if neurotic keeps me from having a sick baby then so be it!
Since Hayley's arrival, we haven't had many family dinners out, but we are trying to go and
enjoy ourselves a little more now. My beef begins last weekend as we went through the above prepping process at one of our favorite breakfast spots. We did notice the annoyed look of the woman at the next table, but shrugged it off as something unrelated to us. Of course when she started badmouthing us as parents to her dining partners loud enough that we could hear it, I took it personal. She just couldn't understand why we "didn't just get a plate for our baby?" Right, because most 10 months old eat their Cheerios off of a plate!! When our meal came, she really got fiesty. Apparently she was appalled and disgusted by the fact that we were feeding our baby the same food we were eating!!!! Now, in light of the dirty looks we've repeatedly received, this seems to be disturbing to a lot of people. From the looks we get we might as well be feeding her a big vat of chocolate rather than the veggies, chicken, and ground beef that are part of our meal.
One of the many benefits of making your own baby food is that it always has some "chunks" and never gets as runny as jarred baby food and so sometimes the transition to table food can be a little easier because babies are already used to the consistency. Hayley had absolutely no trouble adjusting to table food. She's not picky and leans more on the side of being a bottomless pit rather than finicky. In short, she likes to eat, she knows what she wants, and she's not afraid to tell you what she wants! If she wasn't happy eating what I was giving her, she'd let me know. At home, we sit down and eat dinner as a family with Hayley eating cut up bites of what Brian and I are eating. Why should it be any different at a restaurant?
Perhaps it is because Hayley is small for her age and people assume she is younger than she is. Maybe many of these people passing judgement have never had children of their own or had them so long ago that they've forgotten what kids do at each stage. Either way, I've learned a valuable lesson about passing judgement and we're doing our best to not let other peoples' opinions upset us. We're also trying to teach Hayley to spit soggy Cheerios at the "offenders" on command. How's that for taking the high road??!! :-)
Hayley's cousins, Nate and Caleb, were in town this weekend and so we headed down to Nana and Papa's for dinner on Saturday night. Hayley had an absolute ball playing with her cousins! She was particularly mesmerized by her oldest cousin Caleb who crawled around like Spiderman and let Hayley crawl on top of him. She loves watching the "big" kids and wants to be smack in the middle of their playing. Caleb and Nate brought Hayley a Dora the Explorer car to ride on and Hayley gave her two favorite cousins a Go Diego Go pool toy.
Nana and Papa have a swimming pool and it's an unwritten rule that if there is a pool then Hayley is going to get in and swim! She DEMANDS to get into any pool she sees. We couldn't even let her out on the lanai before dinner because she was so determined to get in the water and she fussed when we would restrain her from getting in. After we ate dinner we put her swimsuit on her and 
she immediately knew what it was for as she made a beeline for the pool.
