Things we shouldn't be able to do

I touched on this in my last post, and that is now being able to do all those things we used to do, which are the things we thought by now we would not be able to do.

Like go out for dinner on the spur of the moment on a Saturday night.

Last night, Simon and I did just that, to one of our old favourite haunts. It is a pizza restaurant and the pizzas are about as close as we've found to the pizzas we had in Italy a few years back. We invited our friends and their 15 month old, but they declined. I mean of course they would. They have a child, and he has a bedtime and routine. And I know they had been out the night before. I just couldn't attend, because I know there was a newborn there. It was fine, I never expected them to come. I just thought I'd offer though, as I don't see many people and I certainly don't invite many people out these days.

And anyway, who was I kidding, this is not the sort of place you can really take a kid. It is small, noisy, crowded and the tables are all really close together. And by the looks of things, they didn't have many highchairs, and good luck trying to get your pram in there. And with the huge woodfired pizza oven, it is damn hot. So most of the tables are outside on the footpath. But then I guess it is probably too cold to sit outside with a baby in a pram in the evening, so that means it is not the sort of place new parents would go. Bigger kids are fine, but little ones - too hard.

I hate that we can go there. I despise it.

We went there quite a bit during my pregnancy, as we loved it so much and we wanted to make the most of it as we knew it would be hard to go back with a new baby. I was ready to give up on the trendy restaurants and trade them in for cheesy family friendly restauarnts. More than anything, I was ready to give up on restaurants all together, just to be home with our baby.

This restaurant has two sittings - 5.30pm and 7.30pm. We of course booked for 7.30pm. Because who in their right mind goes out to eat dinner at 5.30pm? People with kids. Not us.

So we sat there last night. Had our beautiful pizzas. Simon had one of his favourite Italian beers and we just sulked. The service was crap. No one told us what the specials were. The waitress kept ignoring us. The pizzas took ages to come out and we were just grumpy.

We did see one couple struggle in with a pram. And wouldn't you know it, the little baby boy inside would have been oooooooh, seven months? There was no tables left inside, but given it was a very balmy evening last night, they sat outside. There wasn't much room for the pram, but they made do. And maybe that would have been us? Maybe we would have been flexible and adaptable as new parents, willing to take our baby to places that weren't really baby friendly. Maybe this was the first time they had ventured out like that on a Saturday night. The first time since she was pregnant, when they were "just a duo". Who knows, but I really wanted to be that couple.

I know I should not complain. It is so self indulgent to whinge about going to a restaurant when some people not only can't afford to go to a restaurant, but they can't afford to put food on their plates. Yes, I am fully aware someone is always worse off. Yes, I am lucky I can afford nice meals out, once in a while. But this is my new life, and right now, I'm going to bitch about it.

Thankfully though, when I got up this morning, I saw a post that made my heart sing. And it snapped me out of this sulky mood. CLC, a girl whose blog I have been following since August, welcomed her little boy Denis in to the world yesterday. She too lost her firstborn, a little girl named Hannah back in December 2007. Her story is one I have loved following, as that is hopefully where I am headed. So congratulations CLC. I am beyond thrilled for you that you made it to the "other side".