Cold Plates and Bread Crust
By: Sumip Patel
Tags: Baby, Fatherhood, Life, Parenting, Millennials

Cold Plates and Bread Crust

Eating meals with a baby is just different. Get used to it.

Maya was about 2–3 months old when we went out to eat for the first time. Our friends had come over to see her and their favorite restaurant was within walking distance of our home. They were hankering for some Mexican and we were starting to get cabin fever, so we saddled Maya up in the stroller and headed out.

I only remember three things from that outing:

I jammed my finger trying to move my seat The server gave us free Andes mints at the end (memorable only for nostalgic value — when we were kids, they charged 5 cents each) Maya fell asleep during the meal

In other words, it was a fairly uneventful dinner…which made it a perfect outing. Now that Maya is older and has more stamina, we have become more confident and go out a bit more often. Overall, it’s become easier and in many ways, a lot more enjoyable. Since she’s on solids, we can now give her bites from our dishes. It’s joyful to watch her enjoy butternut squash pasta for the first time or eagerly scarf down chicken pieces. At this point, we pretty much let her try anything except hummus (sorry Oren’s, your hummus is really tasty but it gave baby crazy gas/constipation, so we’re not ready to have you back in our life just yet). Yesterday, we stopped for some Smitten and gave Maya a few licks of cookie dough ice cream. Not surprisingly, she liked it.

Amidst all this enjoyment, there are two major drawbacks of eating out with the baby: cold plates and bread crust.

When it comes to feeding the baby, we have two major objectives: get the first bite in (this gets the ball rolling) and then get in as many bites as possible before she becomes difficult. In a public restaurant setting, it’s the equivalent of carrying a ticking time bomb. It’s a two person operation to diffuse this one. When the food comes out, we’re likes machines — cut the food into right sized pieces, distract the baby, pick up the things she’s thrown on the floor, and then actually feed her. By the time we get through this ordeal, our plates have usually gotten cold.

Re: bread crust — I never liked bread crust when I was a kid (I don’t think any kid really does). I literally ate PB&J for lunch 3 times a week, if not more, growing up. That equates to over 1,000 PB&Js consumed in my childhood (3 per week * 36 weeks/per year * 12 years = 1296), and not once do I recall eating the crust. As an adult now, I’ve welcomed bread crust into my life (mainly because I don’t want to waste food). It’s bearable and sometimes has it’s moments, but I still don’t love it. Let’s be honest, it’s the warm, moist middle that makes a good piece of bread…and that’s exactly the part Maya loves. If we offer her bread, be it the free bread you get at an Italian restaurant or the Italian Herbs and Cheese on a Subway sandwich, she’s going to eat it, which means Daddy ends up having to finish off a hollowed out roll with only leftover crust remaining. I guess it’s karmic payback for years of being a staunch no-crust brat.

It’s all good.

My advice: Don’t be afraid to go out to eat even when the baby is very young. Knock on wood, but so far we haven’t had any disasters — no uncontrollable tantrums with spaghetti flying all over the place and hypocritical patrons looking at us as if they’d never been in this position. Based on sheer probability, it’s just a matter of time though. Until that happens, enjoy the experience. You may end up eating cold plates and bread crusts, but it’s the little things like this that make the journey special…or at least, that’s what we tell ourselves.