Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Can't You Read the Sign?

Yesterday I was at the Children's Museum in Mashpee with the kids. The building has several signs posted about not eating or drinking in the museum - but I look around me and everyone is feeding their kids! There was this puppet show and we're all sitting on the floor watching it and this baby who is with his mom and older brother is sitting next to me eating PB&J or maybe it was just PB because I didn't actually see any J. Anyway, the baby crawls over and smears peanut butter all over my dress, which wasn't the worst because it's a print pattern and besides I'm used to being smeared with gross stuff, remember the white shirt incident? But the mom didn't seem to see it or to acknowledge that her kid was smearing me with mushed sandwich and I didn't have any Kleenex on me because I am "unprepared mom." I'm sure all the other mom's had Kleenex in their pockets probably those little travel tissues or better yet, travel diaper wipes. I didn't want to ask the mom if she had a napkin because I didn't want it to look like I was trying to point out that her kid had smeared me - kind of like the Seinfeld Big Salad episode. So I sort of casually wiped it off and wiped it on the rug, which I know was gross, but I didn't feel like I had any other options. I could have gotten up, hoisted up my baby, and gone all the way across the museum to the bathroom but I don't know if my older son would have gotten upset, plus I would have had to maneuver through all the other seated moms and tots and it would have made kind of a scene.
Then at the end of the puppet show when we finally did get up to leave there were all these cracker crumbs in the corner where we were sitting and the snack wielding mom had already cleared out so now it looks like I'm the guilty party. There were even some half eaten crackers on the floor that of course my baby tried to finish off. Not to mention that I don't think PB&J or just PB is a very appropriate snack to sneak into the museum. First, it's messy. Second, for Pete's sake, there are kids who are deathly allergic to PB! But, since I learned my lesson from the M&M women, I didn't say anything. What I could have said was, "Hey! What do you mean bringing PB into the museum! Are you trying to kill someone?" That would have been effective.

Song: Signs • Artist: Five Man Electrical Band

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Joanne:

AMEN to this blog entry !!!!
I am another mostly stay-at-home mom you know who moved to the central part of the state (sent you some getting published stuff not too long ago) and an ex-supplement writer. Don't want to give names as someone might steal my identity ... evil Internet, you know.

Anyway, WHAT IS UP WITH THESE MOMS?

When we take our toddler to church, we are trying to teach him (among other things) that church is an hour out of your week you try and behave and that includes not snacking in Our Lord's Holy Santuary, for Pete's sake! But these other moms in our church's crying room break out the Goldfish and of course my boy is over there with his hand out like we don't feed him. Ever.

In his Toddler Time class, same thing: signs around not to eat in the library and everyone's breaking out their Cheerios and pretzels, not to mention juice boxes. One mom actually told me her kids don't eat at home, they will only eat in public. HUH?

Anyway, this insanity has to end and it makes it so much harder for us other moms. There is a time and a place for snacking, is what I'm trying to teach my kid.

And you are so right on about food allergy dangers, adding to the irony people aren't more considerate.

Enjoyed discovering your blog and will be a faithful reader!
S

Anonymous said...

Excellent point about peanut-butter- allergic children. Something to keep in mind.