Three's a Crowd

So Brad and I attempted our first dinner "out on the town" with our two month old...Let's just say it didn't go very well! I was a bit nervous about our little outing to begin with since the dinner time hour is usually when she's the most cranky anyways. But the old saying "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear" came to me and I decided to be brave. I made sure she was well fed, changed and comfortable before we left. Brad decided that he wanted to go to the Olive Garden, so that's where we headed. The car ride over was fine. Chelsea was quiet as a mouse. We enter the restaurant and again, she is fine. Any one who has ever been to Olive Garden knows that it's not usual to walk in and be immediately seated but we were lucky. We walked up and before I knew it we were following a hostess to our table. I was beginning to think that all my worrying was for nothing. Chelsea's happy, no wait for a table...what could go wrong??? The SECOND we walked into the dining area where we would be seated Chelsea went all Jeckle and Hyde on us! She IMMEDIATELY let out a blood cuddling scream! This was no ordinary cry. This wasn't the I'm hungry cry, the I need to be changed cry, or the I'm just fussy cry. This was a SCARY "i just had a terrible nightmare cry". So we sit down at our table and by this time we have gotten the attention of the entire restaurant so EVERYONE is looking at us. We immediately pull out the bottle from the diaper bag to soothe our little one. Whenever there is crying FOOD always works! Well not in this case. Chelsea continued to scream and scream. This time the bottle was NOT doing the trick. People were begining to look at us like "What wrong with you? Can't you control your child?" So I decide I would take her to the bathroom and change her diaper. Thinking maybe that was the problem. The instant that I was out of the dining area and back in the lobby area she was fine. I took her into the bathroom and started to change her little bum. She was ALL smiles. Happy as can be. So I thought "Oh good...the nightmare is over" and we returned to our table. Once again the second we hit the dining room entrance she turned back into Mr. Hyde. Screaming that horrible horrbile scream again. It finally dawned on me that it was some thing in that room that was bothering her...more than just bothering her...actually scaring her. I didn't know if it was the noise, or the people or the lighting or something hanging on the wall, but whatever it was, it terrified her. So I sit back down with my screaming child. By this time Brad is frustrated, my heart is breaking because my child is scared and I can't soothe her, the entire restraunt is looking at us again, people at other tables are starting to make comments to me like "isn't that always the way it is with babies...just when you sit down to eat they start to cry", and our waiter is ready to give us our meal TO GO. It was sooo awful! Finally Brad took her and put a blanket over her face, covering her eyes so she couldn't see. She was able to calm down enough that we weren't disturbing the people around us. Brad held her long enough for me to enjoy my salad and bread sticks and then he handed her back to me so he could eat his. I ended up holding her through our entire meal, with a blanket over her head. She eventually fell asleep in my arms. I ate my meal one handed.

In the end, Brad and I decided it will be a while before we visit the OG again and before we take Chelsea to dinner with us. I think next time we will be making a pit stop at the grandparent's place and Brad and I will be having a dinner for TWO!