Baby's first party foul

So, Friday, I was all cocky with my post about how Brigid had survived that morning's six month check-up with no problem. I said she woke up from her nap like nothing happened. I thought I’d gotten pretty lucky. Guess what? I spoke too soon.

I spent Friday afternoon in the clutches of angry baby. Angry baby who was exhausted, slightly feverish, and not at all hungry. Angry baby who continued to spit her food at me over the course of the day and wasn’t happy unless we were dancing around the family room to the Jason Mraz Sesame Street episode on repeat. It wasn’t all that much fun, let me tell you. But, with a little bit of baby Tylenol, and a good night of sleep, Saturday was much better. In fact, she was doing well enough that we decided to brave the Atlanta traffic and head down to Candler Park for Brigid’s first outdoor festival/concert.

**Full disclosure: While I will fully admit that I had a good time, and I very much enjoyed getting out of the house for a couple of hours for something other than work, and I was glad to spend time outside with the baby, I would also like to acknowledge that the whole process of leaving the house for an event such as an outdoor festival is much, much harder when it involves a stroller. But I’d totally do it again. I get cabin fever very easily. And I am a glutton for punishment.**

Now, all started out well for us. We found a great parking spot (I’ll gloss over the fact that I yelled at Steve for passing up an open parking spot so he could drive around a little longer looking for a better one…let’s just say he’s lucky it worked out in his favor.), and there was a nice breeze out. We had to wait in line for a little bit, but it wasn’t terrible. Katie (my sister-in-law) and a couple of friends had headed down earlier and claimed a spot on the hill by a tree, so we could sit in the shade with the baby. We enjoyed the 4pm feeding.


That stroller behind us? That belonged to the group next to us that had brought a maybe month-old baby out for the day. One, is it weird that I barely remember Brigid being that small? Maybe there is something to that whole birth/newborn amnesia thing. Two, when Brigid was that small, I didn’t want to get out of my sweatpants for any length of time, let alone be seen in public, so I was a little in awe of the mother.

Anyway, we hung out for about two hours, before we started getting ready to go home. Katie laid Brigid down for a diaper change, and she seemed to enjoy the spot, so we let her stretch out for a few minutes after the change. I decided I needed a picture to commemorate the event, and Katie set her beer down to grab my phone for me out of the diaper bag. Now, the next few seconds are a little hazy, but I think as we were trying to get the baby’s attention to take the picture, she unleashed her patented ‘double leg kick with a full body twist’ move that scares me to death on the changing table, and she managed to catch the beer in the process. Of course, she was laying downhill of the beer. And of course, she ended up in a pool of the stuff. Which I think officially qualifies me as a bad mom? At least Brigid can claim a memorable first concert experience. Well, memorable for those of us who will actually remember it. As one of the by-standers said, you have to start them off early. Or not. Ok, worst mom ever.

Between the beer bath and the freak out from Katie and I that followed said bath, Brigid was pretty upset. Luckily, I had packed an extra sleeper for her, just in case. Although the just in case I was preparing for was a diaper accident, not a wayward beer, but prepared is prepared. Out of all of this, the part I’m least proud of is that I was laughing so hard, I could barely get the poor kid into her back-up outfit. Needless to say, she was not as amused…


But I think she recovered nicely…


So, yeah. We headed home at this point. I think she probably deserved it. I just hope this experience isn’t a sign of what’s to come for any other outing we make with the baby. Because we didn’t quite make it to the Renaissance Fair this weekend, but believe me, we will go at some point this year. And really, who knows what might go wrong there?