Don't mess with the schedule. Or Texas. But mostly, just the schedule.

Steve is out of town for the next couple of days, so you know what that means…

Party at my house! Woo!

If you’re looking to party with a grouchy baby, two not so well-behaved dogs, a couple of possibly passive-aggressive cats, and my charming self, that is. If not, then you might want to find somewhere else to spend your time. And we didn’t really want you at our party, anyway.

So there.

Anywho, what Brigid and I did do with our first Steve-less evening of the week was go to dinner with the family. There is a pizza place in the neighborhood that my in-laws eat at almost once a week, and last night was the night this time around. My schedule at work is a little lighter this week because of the Easter holiday coming up, and since I’m actually getting home a couple of hours before Brigid needs to start getting ready for bed (as opposed to right at the start of bedtime), we decided to tag along. Well, I decided for the two of us…I think if Brigid could talk, she would have refused to go unless we promised her a piece of pizza. She’s starting to get a hint of crazy around the eyes when real food is in the vicinity, and it’s a little scary. I keep telling her to start popping out the teeth so she can join in the fun, but she’s ignored me so far. Whatever. Someday she’ll learn that mommy knows best. Like when she’s thirty…

At any rate, this baby, she is pretty inflexible when it comes to bedtime, and she definitely has a specific hour when the grouch sets in, usually around 6:30pm. To try to make the whole dinner thing a little smoother (read: less screechy), we tried to push her afternoon schedule back a little bit, with a later naptime, a later wake-up time, and a later mid-afternoon bottle.

Guess what?

Totally didn’t work.

Things started to get a little dicey in our booth right around 6:30, right on schedule.

Luckily, the place is pretty open and relatively noisy, so Brigid’s squeals weren’t really bothering anyone else. But I tried to eat as quickly as possible so we could get the hell out of there before things got worse, and I think I more or less inhaled my salad whole because I walked out of the restaurant feeling like there was lead in my stomach (but that could have just been all of the cheese in the salad…). Also, I’m pretty sure the waitress was standing right behind me ready to throw my check at me the minute I asked for it because it definitely seemed to come quicker than it usually does (Although whether she wanted to get the crying baby out of her section immediately, or if she was just exceptionally helpful, I can’t say. I’m going to lean towards exceptionally helpful, I think. It’s spring…I like to be optimistic this time of year…and she really didn’t seem pissy at all…so helpful it is.).

Moral of the story? Eating out with a baby leads to heartburn. So don’t do it.

You’re welcome.

Side note...our bedtime ritual always includes a liberal smear of Aquaphor on Brigid’s face after her bath, just to keep up her healthy baby glow (Seriously, the stuff is magic…we put it on any kind of skin irritation she gets, and it clears it up pretty much on contact. Scratches, dry skin, pimples. It’s crazy effective. My mother-in-law refers to it as ‘Sean Connery juice’ because she says it’s like the stuff that saves his life in that Indiana Jones movie, or something like that. Not totally up-to-date on my Indiana Jones trivia. Sorry. But Aquaphor is awesome. Moving on…). While I was trying to put the stuff on her last night, she was not having it, at all. Screaming, crying, kicking, it was a mess. So, yeah, I may or may not have started paraphrasing Silence of the Lambs to a six-month old, giggling to myself because, obviously, I thought I was ridiculously clever…

‘It puts the lotion on its face.’ *giggle* *giggle* ‘It puts the lotion on its face or it gets the hose.’

(See, Steve? This is what happens when you leave me alone with the baby!)

Honestly, does this make me the worst mother ever, or just bottom 10?

Side note #2…I know, I know. I can’t hang with Indiana Jones trivia, but I am apparently all over Silence of the Lambs. I can't explain it, either.