Table for Two
Ever since my daughter was little I've had trouble going into public alone with her. Maybe it's the not knowing how she will act sends me into a nervous state and I swear she can smell the fear on me and acts out. I've been trying to get out more with her since her father and I are co-parenting. It's inevitable that I go places with her alone. Especially since I've been planning for us to go on vacations together, just her and I. After being sick for a few days and cooped up in the house, I decided that her and I would go to dinner somewhere. I picked her up from daycare school and off we went, headed for Olive Garden. I've honestly only taken her by myself a few times. And know we need to do more things more often.
She started crying shortly after getting in the car. She wanted to watch her shows. Which I allow more than I should. But I'm conscience of it and actively trying to reduce the amount of screen time. It's hard to limit her screen time when I struggle to limit my own. I want to watch my shows too. I talk to her for a few minutes and she calms down. She tells me about her day, what she had for lunch, that she played and colored today. I tell her that we're going to dinner. She wants rice, I want Italian. So we're getting Italian. We're having rice on Saturday for the Chinese New Year. She doesn't like that but I talk her into somewhat understanding that in 2 days, she gets to have chicken rice. She settles on pizza, broccoli, and lemonade. She is excellent at the restaurant. We sit and talk and color a little. We play the games in the kids book the waitress provided. She sings a little. She's a dive she loves to sing and dance. So one of the waitresses comes over and sings with her. They're singing "Tomorrow" from Annie. She acts shy and bashful for like 30 seconds and belts out the rest of the song. Everyone laughs. I'm glad people are smiling but really kid, mom does not like the unwanted attention. I'm definitely feeling like she's going to be in the spotlight someday and I don't think I'll ever be ready for that. I've heard the man at the table next to us making comments, nothing bad, but just saying she was a unicorn (she had on a unicorn hat), that she was a good singer after her song. And then when she started getting antsy, she kept getting up and I try to get her to sit back in her chair and eat her pizza. I hear him say he's going to eat her pizza if she doesn't. Kind of surprised that this didn't make her eat, it usually does. But she doesn't. She actually went over to him and told him he wasn't going to eat her pizza and they both laughed. It was cute. I try not to judge people too quickly, but I always feel odd when strangers talk to my daughter. I get when she was younger and was saying "hello" to everyone in the store. And the occasional isn't she cute comments. But tell her that you're going to eat her pizza? Weird right?
Any other moms out there who feel uneasy when strangers talk to their kid? I'd like for her to know there are good people out there, but I often feel conflicted and not wanting strangers to talk to her at all. I can't be the only crazy one out there, I hope. Tell me about your experiences.