Eating out

We went to visit some friends in Stockport last weekend. It was great to see them - they used to live down south near us but relocated about 18 months ago. They seem to have chilled out so much - the commute to work is easier and the house prices seem daft to N and me!

N has known S since secondary school and they're really close, so it was lovely to be able to ask him to be our daughter's godfather. I think he was pleased - we didn't really know how to ask him and so it was a bit abrupt. I'm glad he said yes, as he's a fantastic bloke and our daughter is already fascinated by him!

While we were there, we visited the Trafford Centre for a wander and some lunch and so we went to a restaurant (a well-known pizza chain). Now, the pram-cum-pushchair we have is not small, and the table they showed us to was in the middle of the restaurant. We had to leave it in the middle of the aisle, which really bothered me - more because I didn't want to annoy anyone else! We sat in the very crowded restaurant (Saturday lunchtime in a major shopping centre should give you an idea) and ordered our food, hoping that our daughter would behave.

About 10 minutes before our starters arrived, she started getting crotchety. Uh-oh. So we decided to bring out our first (and only!) weapon: lunch. Not having brought the high chair to the shopping centre (I know, I know, school-boy error) I held her on my lap and N fed her. Cold goop from a jar - not the nicest. We got halfway through the jar and the starters arived, and of course they were far more interesting to her than her own lunch! Some minor rearranging of the table to remove all cutlery and salad from reach and we managed to finish her food. N ate his starter while I gave our daughter her bottle and then he burped her while I ate.

The waiters were excellent - although a little over-zealous when it came to plate clearing. Obviously our friends finished eating before us, and so the waiters were trying desperately to clear our plates, and then getting confused that we hadn't finished. They later told us that this was their second day open, which explained their keenness (and the fact that there seemed to be one waiter for every two diners!).

Once we'd finished feeding our daughter and our starters the rest of the meal passed without incident (apart from our daughter pulling cute faces at everyone sitting nearby that is). We were so proud - and so relieved!

Every little achievement like this feels like such a milestone, and allows N & me to think that we will possibly be able to have a social life again. We have our friends from York visiting this weekend and possibly next week, so it will be interesting to see how much difference there is between our daughter and their son who is 8 weeks younger. Of course, me being such a big soppy softy, I also feel slightly sad that she's growing up so much. But not enough to want to go back to the early days of no sleep and all that screaming!

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Sorry that I've not been posting so regularly - life has been getting in the way again! I have a couple of posts floating in my mind at the moment, so I will try and commit them to screen in the next week if possible.