The Terrible Two Begins
Saturday, we went out for a walk in the park and had lunch out as we usually do. Dining out had been more and more enjoyable as our daughter can now stay at the table long enough for us to finish most of our meals. We picked a Chinese restaurant near the park which serves noodles, our daughter's favorite food. At the restaurant, we were seated to a table across the aisle to another group of diners. Once seated, our daughter started to explore the settings on the table. Usually we will keep the breakables away from her but still allow her the latitude to play a little. There was a little round saucer plate with little plastic bottles of sauces in it on the table, which turns. Our daughter was fascinated with that little turn table and started to play with it. Since nothing was breakable in it, we saw no harm in letting her have a little fun with it.
The food started to arrive. As our attention was diverted to arrange the different plates on the table, our little explorer had made the saucer turn table into a spinning top. The moment we had discovered that it was spinning too fast, it flew off the table. The crashing sound of the plastics hitting the floor was not horrible but what followed was. One of the sauce bottles had red hot chilly paste in it. Nothing else left the plate but this red staining mud. It hit the floor, bounced across the aisle, its lid flew open, and its red contents splashed toward our neighboring table. As we helplessly gasped, our fellow diner who sit diagonally across from our daughter was ambushed with blots of red stains from his shirt to his pants. The once proud dad covered his face in disbelief. The apologetic mom offered napkins to the poor diner. Waitresses brought over more napkins and mop to clean up the mess. Our little culprit, red-faced, sitting quietly, was on the fringe of tears. And the lunch was yet to begin.