Andy's Greatest Accomplishment!

"Oh my God," Chris whispered, staring at our son. "This is the greatest thing he's ever done."

And there it was, Andy's finest accomplishment to date. We were in a casual restaurant during that depressing hour between lunch and dinner when only the very old and those with babies eat their late meal for the day. I'm not even sure it was five o'clock yet, and the group of senior citizens right behind us were so ancient that they were reminiscing, loudly, about being middle-aged during World War I. Eating out so early on a Saturday evening- technically, let's face it, still afternoon- was one of the many lame habits that we'd picked up since becoming parents, but by this point, we were barely fazed. We wore our lameness with a sort of delusional pride, much like the hunched over lady to our right boasted a lone pink sponge curler on the top of her head.

"Wow," I breathed, awed by the actions of my sixteen month old. By this time, we'd been at the restaurant for close to an hour, and our table and surrounding area, especially the floor underneath our table, had been legally declared a disaster zone by FEMA. President Obama was on a flight en route to our table, ready to give a prepared speech on the far reaching impact of our tragic table. He would deliver this speech while the three of us continued eating in the background, our actions and messes serving to illustrate how dire the situation was. The table top in front of Andy was sticky and gummy and crusty and slimy all at once. I was managing a big plastic bag full of Andy's food and food remains, and the contents of Andy's overstuffed diaper bag were half spilled all over the floor, on top of the unmanageable pile of crumbs and smushy sandwich bits that Andy had created almost instantly after being seated in his highchair. There were baby wipes, milk spills, ketchup stains, stray noodles, chewed up pieces of crayon, crumpled menu pages, hunks of soggy bread, and balled up bits of wet napkin littered across our table. Something in the corner near the salt packets was on fire and smoldering ever so gently, but we were too wrapped up in Andy to try to solve that particular mystery.

Going out to dinner with Andy isn't exactly a relaxing way to spend an hour on a Saturday, but even super moms like myself need a night out of the kitchen and a meal consisting of something other than pizza or chicken nuggets. As a cook, I have refused to make two different meals- a baby meal plus an adult meal- and so, instead of Andy eating the food that Chris and I would like to eat, it quickly became apparent that Chris and I were stuck eating the food that Andy wanted. That lovable bastard has already affirmed himself as the boss of our household, and the worst part of it is that our new boss only knows about eight words, is an incredible slob, and can't keep his hands out of his poop while we change his diaper.

So, it's nice to get out of the house for a proper meal, even if it's a Meal Event that requires packing Andy's bag with a balanced dinner for him and enough baby supplies to hold us over should we get lost on our way home and need to camp out in the wilderness for a couple days. Yes, it's nice to have Andy create a mess somewhere other than our dining room, one that I can still be embarrassed about but not feel necessarily obligated to clean, and it's nice to eat the food I want to eat and be served by someone who's not me and have the dishes washed afterwards by someone else who's also, importantly, not me. Even if it's still kind of a pain to take an antsy toddler out for a meal that requires he be trapped in a high chair about twenty minutes longer than he'd like to be, it's a wonderful experience to eat my shrimp scampi in relative- relative truly being relative here- peace.

But I digress, as I tend to do these days, now that I'm a mother and a multi-tasker beyond most multi-tasker's wildest dreams. Andy had just done something amazing. And, Chris was right. It may have been the greatest thing he'd ever done.

I'd handed Andy a yogurt container and a spoon. This was obviously not the brightest move on my part, but the kid loves yogurt, and I can usually handle the mess. Andy's at the point in his young eating career where he wants to feed himself, so even though I'd started out trying to spoon him his yogurt, he'd become irritated at being babied and snatched the spoon out of my hands, stubbornly set on doing it himself. Andy's not the greatest with the spoon. He's getting there, but he misses his mouth frequently, smacking himself in the nose, cheeks, forehead, and eyeball with whatever item he's trying to enjoy. In this case, the yogurt was dotted all around his face making him look like he was suffering from some strange skin disease that resulted in creamy, delicious pustules on the face. Except for the big smile on his face, you'd think that he was really ill, or at least in serious need of some ointment.

Andy, ultimate maker of messes, little king of slobs, did something incredible, though, instead of continuing to slather on the yogurt dollops. He put down his spoon, reached for a napkin, and WIPED SOME OF THE YOGURT OFF OF HIS FACE.

This kid is disgusting.

If you're a parent, you can understand how proud we were in that brief shining moment of Andy's self-cleaning. Chris' heart swelled with love and joy, and my vision blurred with tears of pride. It was a milestone for Andy, like walking or saying "mama." Andy had WIPED HIS OWN FACE. After getting over the initial shock, Chris and I burst into a round of applause, which temporarily halted the conversations of our fellow, elderly diners, who for a moment had forgotten where they were and how they'd gotten there.

Which, aside from eating dinner at 4:30 on a Saturday, is another way that we are lame- all that damn clapping we do. That evening, after we got home and relaxed for a bit in the family room, I found myself getting in to bed at about 9:00, exhausted from the day's events. I drifted off to sleep with a smile on my face, playing the moment over and over again in my mind. Andy had wiped off his own face. I can only imagine that Andy fell asleep the same way I did, with the same pride and the same five seconds replaying over and over in his own head. Either that, or he had already totally forgotten and was instead imagining all of the horrific messes- on his face and elsewhere- that the next glorious day would bring. Or perhaps he was thinking about balloons.