I hate it when people smoke around me – I hate it.
It makes my hair smell, my clothes smell. I feel dirty. I could be getting lung cancer.
So who made me say to Groover over lunch on Sunday: “I’d rather they smoke”?
A group of mothers with babies.
No they weren’t breastfeeding.
Well they may have been but I don’t find that offensive, just normal.
And I don’t have a problem with lactating women going out to share a Sunday lunch of fish and chips with their friends. No really, good on them.
What I do have a problem with is trying to sip my lemon, lime and bitters with the cloying smell of Johnson & Johnson babywipes mixed with baby poo wafting over me.
SERIOUSLY GROSS PEOPLE!
We’d got there late.
The pub was full to overflowing and the only table free was one in the corner next to a large table of mums and babies.
Personally I’d rather sit near the lactation crowd than a bunch of yobbos or even parents with active 4 year olds, so I was pleased when they pulled their stroller closer to them, unblocking the path to the table, and we sat down.
“Ohhhh isn’t she cute”, I said to Groover as we sipped our drinks (Does one sip beer… should I say slurped?), “Remember when ours were that little…”
We gazed fondly over at the crowd as we relived those fast dimming memories, and I also reflected on playgroup lunches… the sort you have when you become a member of the Bub Club.
Hugamuga was at work, and Dippity was volunteering at a local fair so we relished this unexpected opportunity for a middle-of-the-day date.
We started chatting about this and that… Groover’s new business, holiday fantasies, what we were going to do over Easter, the grocery shopping…
When…
“What is that smell?”
I was back – 11 years ago – that revoltingly familiar poo/babywipe combination.
I couldn’t taste the lemon or the lime or the bitters.
The window above our table was locked shut.
The stroller had slid back between the tables.
I was trapped.
And the mother had laid her baby down on the padded bench seat and was changing it’s nappy.
At the table.
In the restaurant.
While other people were eating.
How can she think that’s okay?
On which planet is that okay?
Tell me I’m not alone in thinking that there are places to change baby’s nappies and peak hour dining on a Sunday afternoon is NOT one of them!
I’d have honestly preferred her to light up a cigarette.
For one, the smell would not have been so offensive.
And also, I’d have felt less inhibited about telling her to stop.
Mothers. They can be intimidating. I know. I am one.
{ 5 comments }
Ewww, I must admit, I wouldn’t think to do that, I would move the baby.
However, if the pub was full, maybe she thought it wouldn’t matter.
But Ewwww, my kids’ poop smelt like roses
but I wouldn’t want the whiff of anyone else’s child.
Ugh!!
Seriously not cool.
So perhaps there were no facilities in the restaurant ( although it sounds more like a pub – even a ’boutique’ pub? – people seem to be more lax in a less formal dining environment ), but most people seem to travel by car these days, so there’s always the back of the vehicle out in the carpark.
No-one loves your baby like you do. Some mums seem to forget that ‘natural’ things such as poo and drool and vomit are never delightful/ok/cute to others.
Hope it wafted away fast
I’m with you. Breastfeeding ok, changing poopy nappy not okay in an eating place. Eeeewwww.
WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.
Did she at least go and wash her hands after? Or did she just continue eating……..
UGH.
Were there no baby change facilities…???
If not – leave – it’s part of having babies
ps: I CAN say that because i have a 15month old;)
wrong and gross