The perils of dining with a toddler

Liza loves the local Japanese restaurant, so when the event we were supposed to go to at the nature center was full, we decided to take her to a hibachi table for the first time. We've avoided them up until now because tables with giant frying surfaces in the center weren't the best idea when she was long on arms and short on impulse control. She's gotten to the point now where, given proper warnings about bodily harm to be suffered, and reminders in the proper tone of voice, she can be (mostly) counted on to avoid self-immolation and/or third degree burns.

All Liza will eat at the restaurant right now is the tofu I strain out of a bowl of miso soup. By the time we strained tofu out of my soup, Jason's soup, and her soup, we ended up with a very narrow table filled with bowls of miso broth (and one very full child).

Liza has recently decided that green onions are evil, which is surprising considering her earlier love of them. But now when she sees one in her bowl of tofu, she picks it out with her fingers and attempts to put it in my bowl. You can probably see where this is going, right?

Tonight at dinner she reached for my bowl, overbalanced in the booster seat and caught herself on the edge of my bowl of soup. Which was full of about 10 ounces of hot miso soup. Which ended up in my lap.

Two large and very unabsorbent restaurant napkins later, I got to sit through the rest of dinner with miso soaked into my shorts, shirt, and underwear, as well as pooled in my sandals. When we left the restaurant I realized that I had green onion pieces stuck to the fronts of my legs. And until I got a chance to change, I smelled strongly of miso (Jason won't let me insert my joke here ... just use your imagination).

This is not the first time I've gotten to hang out with unpleasant stuff soaked into my pants ... don't ask me to tell you about the time I found out the bags airplane headphones come in weren't designed to hold vomit after all, or how somebody (I honestly don't remember if it was Jason or me, which means it was probably me) bumped half a can of Sprite into my lap at the beginning of the flight to Puerto Rico on the first day of our honeymoon. Nothing says "tropical vacation" like a lap full of sticky, lemon-lime-scented water.