Free Birth Control

When we are in public we like to provide free birth control. We went out to lunch on friday to our hangout (yes, the same on where this little gem of an incident happened). Lady Baby decided that it was a perfect afternoon to remind everyone of why they should practice safe woopie. Otherwise they may end up with a two year old. Who acts a fool in public on the regs. Like her.


My friend and I sat down on the patio so Her Highness could flit around and not be forced to spend more than 5 minutes sitting in a chair like a normal person. Off she went to explore every square inch, while we enjoyed the sunshine and caught up. I made sure the child was in my field of vision and I watched as she crawled all over the picnic tables and rooted around in the mulch looking for old french fries. When she tired of that she tried to make a run for it out of the enclosed patio and I had to wrestle her literally kicking and screaming back to our table. That got me a few sympathetic half smiles and a few stink eyes. I am not sure if the latter happened because I was threatening to give her a reason to scream or because she was ruining their liquid lunch. Not my problem. I obviously have enough of my my own.

No one wants to stare a honey badger in the eye.

Then our food came out and the magic really started to happen. As my delicate flower was slurping the ketchup off her third french fry, she was ogling the people behind us, trying to make eye contact. Many people believe that like pit bulls and brown bears, you should never look a toddler in the eye. She considers that a direct challenge. She leaned more and more forward to try to make sure they could see her amazing cuteness and of course, you know what happened. She freaking fell over. In a metal chair. On a patio. With food in her mouth. Landing a mere quarter inch away from the other metal chair that was directly behind her. You could hear the collective gasp of all the people sitting around us. You are gasping too, I am sure. No worries, she was fine. Absolutely unscathed.  She only cried long enough for 20 people to judge my inability to get my child to sit in her chair and eat her grilled cheese and then tell their companions that if they ever have children, which they are now reconsidering, they will not act like that. 


Lady Baby ate 1/10th of her grilled cheese, all her fries including  the ones she dropped on the ground, and was down and running around again within 7 minutes of the chair incident (that is what I am calling it now.) She went straight over to the pots waiting for their vegetables to be planted and started digging around in the very black dirt. When she turned around she had smeared it all over her pretty little face, her clothes, and it was caked under her tiny fingernails. That got boring and she moved into phase two of free birth control for all. All of the sudden my friend said, "Oh no. Um, Thea. Gross." I turned around to see my beautiful little girl laying on her stomach on the ground drinking out of a puddle of stagnant rain water ringed in dirt and leaves. Because that is normal and something she has seen other people do. Because she didn't have a cup of clean fresh water on the table. I squealed and jumped up and snatched up a very unhappy little girl who was just trying to quench her thirst Survivor style. I was hoping no one noticed because it happened really fast, but one glance around and I knew for a fact at 

It was like this, but with my first born.
 Not a dog.

least half of them witnessed it. They had that look, the kind you get when you cannot believe that you just saw what you just saw. Like the time I saw a girl pooping behind a port-a-pottie at St Patties in Savannah. Disbelief, amazement, and wonder why no one taught her better. In this scenario I am the someone who should have taught her better. Sorry. I have been pretty busy just trying to keep her alive. 


The nice thing about this particular dining spot is Lady Baby can be out of her chair and free without bothering other people eating. Except for when she is bothering people on purpose. Which is what happened next to a very nice lady who was enjoying her salmon salad. Which my child wanted to help her enjoy. She toodled right up to her table and reached her little black cow covered hand right up into the lady's salad. The kicker is my child won't touch salad with a ten foot pole. Unless a stranger is eating it. Not only did she do it once, she continually did it even after I threatened her and moved her away from the innocent salad eater. Then, for her grand finale, she stuck her grimy finger in the lady's dressing. Props to the granny for not slapping my child's hand. She just kept laughing nervously and saying "no, no honey." In all fairness, this lady was way past her child bearing years. However, the people sitting at the table staring at this debacle were most definitely making a pact with their eyes that they would wait a minimum of 10 years before they think about adopting a 15 year old. At that moment I was totally with them on that. 


As I have said before, I was the judgiest non-parent. Hubs and I would sit in restaurants and watch crazy toddlers disapprovingly. We would smugly talk about how our perfect children would be in public. The wee DeLoretos would never scream or throw food. They would sit quietly and enjoy their meals, with smiles and shiny halos. Fools. FOOLS. Instead, I have a cuckoo-bird child who doesn't care if we are in public or at home. She is going to do her thang and act a fool when she feels like it. Which is most of the time. I just smile at the strangers who are unlucky enough to sit around us and tell them they are welcome for the birth control.