Sweatin' the Small Stuff

Hubby doesn't sweat the small stuff, and sometimes the small stuff perspires out of every pore in my body.  But I'm not blogging about perspiration today, no - instead I will blog about a different bodily secretion - boogers (I don't know why my posts have been gross lately.  I guess it's just a part of motherhood!).

Way back before my first son was even 1 yr old, Hubby had one of those non-small stuff sweatin' moments.  He said, "Hey, let's go have a romantic dinner in North Beach (San Francisco's Italian district) and bring Diego with us."  Cue Shirley's need for deodorant....

Didn't he realize how stressful and non-romantic that would be?  If we wanted to go somewhere with Diego, we should take him to a family restaurant where people understand and expect kids of all levels of crazy to take over.  I tried to reason with him and convince him to leave Diego with my parents for a few hours instead.  After all, he was just getting over a cold or so I thought.

Well, I lost the reasoning battle.  It was apparent that the "romance" Hubby was referring to was only between Diego and his overly-smitten father, with no regard to Mama's emotional tolerance.

After FINALLY finding parking in the world's worst place to find parking North Beach, we enjoyed a wonderful summer dinner out on the patio along with other couples enjoying the view of the San Francisco streets.  A young couple sat next to us, and it was apparent this was their first date.  They were just getting to know each other, but if you ask me there wasn't any chemistry (The tables in North Beach are packed together like sardines, so we were more close than we cared to be with the other couples dining that night).  Diego had been sitting on his smitten father's lap the entire dinner and we were SO close to capping off our dinner without any incident.  Suddenly Diego let out a HUGE post-cold sneeze and a huge, dangly, green mucous was hanging from his nose and almost touching his knees.  It felt like it dangled there for hours!

The girl from the couple next to us looked over in disgust and said under her breath, "That's so gross!" to her date.

In a flash I went from extreme embarrassment to the natural defensive mom thinking, "Don't nobody better talk about MY baby like that!"  This chick didn't understand.  She was not a mother.  She probably didn't even want kids!  Hubby, as always, kept his cool and reached for the folded cloth dinner napkin to wipe Diego's nose.  Where was a disposable paper napkin with Chuck E. Cheeses' face on it when you needed it?  Not a cloth napkin!

It took everything in me to keep my cool, but underneath the facade I was sweating bullets.  I just wanted to get out of there fast before the next sneeze.  But Hubby was relaxing, enjoying his evening at this fancy place in his beloved city with his beloved son.  I don't know how long it took (because it literally felt like HOURS of being on pins and needles to me), but at some point Diego started flirting with that girl next to us.  She was surprisingly very receptive and this time she uttered, "He's so cute!" to her date.  I suddenly had a change of heart.  Maybe she did want kids after all!

Unfortunately, I didn't have a change of perspiration status.

Still sweating the small stuff to-date; and now worse with 2 kids - Shirley

 Writing Prompt:  Write about a time your child embarrassed you in public