Noodles

My baby is an explorer. She loves to investigate her surroundings- sights, smells, tastes, textures... And it's all explored with her mouth as well as her hands.

The thing about my little explorer is that she ends up messy- covered in dirt or drool or food. Now I'm not at all opposed to dirty children- those are the ones who are burning off energy or learning something or generally having fun being kids. And that is awesome.

What I am less excited about is when, unbeknown to me, I am also covered in whatever my daughter is into. Furthermore, this usually happens instantaneously. Before I even see her getting into something, we are both covered in it. It's like some sort of baby superpower or something.

So, today, I was out at an Asian restaurant and had a vermicelli bowl. Baby was fussy and sitting in my lap playing with a toy, when suddenly I'm covered in noodles. So is the baby, and she has them all over her face an in her mouth. She was thoroughly enjoying the texture and apparently the taste of the sticky, squishy rice noodles. Instantaneous mess, I swear! And it's not like I didn't have my eye on her- I had my arms around her and she had a toy. Then I hear the toy hit the floor and the fistfuls of noodles are everywhere.

Secretly, though, I didn't mind it :). Covered in noodles and smelling like Asian food, I loved watching the smile on her face when she was flinging those noodles. Amazing to watch the baby so excited about something so simple just made my day :).