Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Decision-making 101

My husband will mock me for this title indefinitely.  Mainly because I am the last person on the face of the earth who should be giving advice on decision-making.  In fact, he knows well by now that in my side of the family we are all significantly affected by "Decidophobia." Well, maybe not to the extent of actually attaching that valid title... however, we none of us are good at decisions....

That being said, I thought I'd share a moment from yesterday which beautifully sums up the new and wonderful world of decision-making as a mother.  Note: learn from my mistake.  It's nothing major but little things make a difference...

So I got little E beautifully timed with her feed and nap schedule to go and meet my coworkers for lunch in Dublin city centre.  Needless to say that made for quite the morning and getting into the city, parked and walked to the restaurant was quite enough activity for one day.   Anyways, we were meeting at one of our favourite spots as a staff: KOH.  It's a Thai place that is simply good food made with fresh ingredients (lots of lovely market fresh veg) and their menu is a very reasonably priced for lunch.  Love.

Little E and I arrived early so I could get situated at the table with our stroller/pram, and feed before the others arrived... mainly because Eleanora is so dis tractable now and my game plan was to be able to eat  lunch without having to hold a baby.... but wait you say, did you inform little E of the plan? Apparently not.  She took a little feed, obviously smarter than I give her credit for as it was 30 mins before she was really due one... and then got into her Stokke Xplory to entertain herself.  Enter all my coworkers and boom: fussy fit.  I noticed E's cheeks had gone bright red and there you have it folks, a teething attack... and what didn't I have in my bag?  Anything... ANYTHING to help her.  Sure she had toys to teeth on but this was one of those that-will-make-it-worse-mummy moments.  Great.  That was it then.  I had to be baby entertainer extraordinaire for the duration of lunch.... so here entered my decision-making moment....

With the menu in front of me, a screaming child in my lap - the ONLY child, never mind infant in the place, amongst several business lunch meetings... and I panicked.  Make a quick choice, give the menu back to the waitress and have two hand to entertain and hold little E.  My thought process then went as follows:

Little E is not going to stop crying....
There's no way I can put her back in her stroller, that'll make it worse...
Noone else can take her...
Find something you can eat one-handed....
Thai Green Curry with Chicken.... that comes with sticky rice...
The sticky rice can pick up the rest of it and yes.... win... I should be able to eat that with just a fork!


And yeah - remarkably it worked... but BOY oh boy did I pay for it last night... I remembered having a conversation with a Dutch couple recently who had 6 children, as they remarked over lunch one day that if you like spicy food it's sad when you are breastfeeding because that's tough for the babies.  Now, if you know me well enough, I tend to not get too paranoid about all the research, do's and don'ts etc and during my pregnancy and now breastfeeding have avoided most of the biggies but don't maintain a list in my head of all things that could have a significant knock-on effect.  Oops.  Apparently spicy food is just waaay too far across the line for little E. 

She had such bad wind and obviousely her tummy was upset and did we get much sleep last night? nope.

Potntial bonus factor?  She may indeed be exhausted enough on Friday to deal with our international flight to the US.... that or we are in line for some pretty tough days.


Mummy lessons come in all shapes and sizes.  I will not be ordering the Green Curry again for some time.  In fact, I myself was a little shocked at how spicy it was yesterday so bless, little E musn't have been happy at all.

Decision-making in a split second.  You think your logical skills are superb and then you realise that a salad with a simply lime dressing would have done the trick.  Oh well.  Today is a new day.




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