My apologies to the Chick-fil-A lunch crowd

There are mercifully no pictures to accompany this post, and I am only writing this so that the next time I decide to take Will and Anna out in public by myself, I can come back and read this, smack myself in the head a few times, and decide to stay home. Also, to anyone reading this who is squeamish about breastfeeding, just skip the rest of this post--it gets a little graphic.

So I had both kids home with me today and two errands to run--one to the post office and one to the mall. I fed Anna right before leaving the house and stopped by the playground for a few minutes to wear Will down a little (essential before doing any task that requires quiet standing). We proceeded to the post office--Anna slept and Will was perfect during our entire ten-minute wait in line, so perfect that the postal service lady complimented him and gave him a toy. We leave the post office, me with head held high and smile on my face, clearly a fantastic mother.

We get to the mall just after noon. My errand at the mall actually required me to be there at 1 pm, so we have time to kill, time that I have carefully planned to be spent at one of Will's favorite places. Yay for Chick-fil-A, a mom's best friend. The line moves quickly and I order a nuggets kids meal for Will and (still feeling virtuous) a grilled chicken salad and diet lemonade for myself.

This is where things turn ugly.

Anna, my sweet, beautiful, happy baby girl, starts screaming her head off in the stroller. I panic a little, thinking maybe she's on the verge of heatstroke (it was really hot in the car). An angel disguised as a Chick-fil-A staff person asks me if I'd like to sit down and let her bring the food to us. I thank her effusively and, in my only smart move of the day, push the stroller to a table in the very back of the restaurant area (we were at the mall Chick-fil-A, but it had it's own private table area). Anna is still screaming, so I sit Will at the table, then get her out of the stroller. I try cuddling her, bouncing her, and giving her a pacifier, but none of it works. Then she throws up all over me. I think maybe she just had gas and now she'll be fine, but nope, she starts screaming again.

At this point, people are starting to look over. Anna's cries are reverberating off the walls of the seating area. There's only one thing I know to do to make her happy, so I tell Will I'm coming to sit next to him (against the wall), and start to nurse Anna.

I try to be conscious of the fact that lots of people are not so thrilled to see mothers nursing in public, which is why I carry a nursing cover wherever I go. I pull it out, put it on, and start to feed Anna. After a few seconds, she starts to calm down. Whew! Our food arrives during this commotion and Will and I get to eating. I notice that the waitress forgot to bring us napkins and Will's milk, but decide that's unimportant. Will can share my drink, and we'll just be neat and not require any napkins. Hahahahahahaha...

Will digs into his kids meal, pausing only to request to see Anna and then pull the nursing cover so far over that it pretty much fails to do its job. I glance up and catch a disapproving look from two older ladies sitting across the aisle and try to readjust my shirt. Then Will lets out a cry--he had dropped a chicken nugget on the floor. Not any chicken nugget--his last chicken nugget. Wailing and gnashing of teeth ensue. I quiet him down by telling him he can eat the croutons and chicken from my salad (upon which, unfortunately, I had already poured dressing). He's happy again, and eats everything on my salad except for the lettuce and broccoli. He gets dressing on his hands and gets very upset about this, and asks for a napkin. As you remember, we have none. What does an enterprising mother do? Well, I look down and notice that I do have one disposable breast pad in my lap (since Anna is still eating)--I get Will to hold his hands under the table and stealthily wipe them down with that (and no, I did NOT put it back in my shirt).

Hands clean, Will immediately plunges them back into my salad. Only this time, he knocks over the very full large diet lemonade, which falls to the ground. The cup explodes at both ends, lemonade going everywhere. Will looks down, looks back up at me, and sweetly smiles--"I sorry Mama."

Sigh.

Then my cell phone starts ringing loudly--I know it's John, thanks to the ring tone: "Daaaa, da da da da, Go Gators!!." I can't answer it or silence it because it's across the table, but I look over at the disapproving ladies again and (I still can't believe this) notice one of them is actually wearing an FSU shirt. So now I'm not only embarrassing myself, but am bringing down the entire Gator Nation with me.

Big sigh.

Looking down at the ice and lemonade on the floor, I decide that two disposable breast pads are NOT going to be enough to take care of that. I shove what's left of my salad (2 pieces of broccoli) into my mouth and start packing things up. The angel of a waitress comes back over and starts to clean up our table--I'm sure she just wanted us out of her restaurant, but I really, really appreciated her. I back the stroller (Will clamoring "more drink Mommy--I thirsty!" and Anna crying again) quickly out of the restaurant, head down, trying not to make eye contact with anybody--not feeling like such a fantastic mom after all.

So that's our day so far. I think we might try that excursion again in about ten years, but in the meantime, I am thanking God for Chick-fil-A waitresses and online shopping. :-)