Hidden

Julie is in love with a product tastefully named the Hooter Hider. It's a cloth whose shape makes it possible to breastfeed in public without giving a peep show.

Here she is with hooters hidden:


The Hooter Hider is especially useful in non-baby-friendly establishments. So far in our eight weeks of being parents, we've tried to live normally in terms of eating out when we want to, within reason. Not once have we said to ourselves, "It's too bad we can't go out...damn kid." We just go out. Maybe it's because Lyla hasn't reached the stage where she crawls under tables, ties strangers' shoes together, and punches waiters in the crotch. All she does now is occasionally whine when she wants to be fed, changed, or held. Mostly she just sits there and looks cute.


Speaking of which, we ate with friends and Lyla at a restaurant we'd never been to that just happened to be rather non-baby-friendly. It wasn't our fault. I called ahead and said we'd have four people and one car seat, and the host didn't object or seem annoyed at all. I wish the host would've warned me that only a couple tables in their tiny dining room would even accommodate us, or that there wouldn't be any fold-down changing tables in the restroom, or that calling an hour in advance would still result in a 45-minute wait once we got there.

So in that restroom without the fold-down changing table, I realized that we need to add a roll-out padded mat to the diaper bag. Luckily in this restroom there was a pretentious-looking wood cabinet with flower vases on top. In a flash, those flower vases were replaced by a spit towel with a baby on top who had unleashed a momentous taste explosion in her pants. I walked out of the restroom whistling, clean baby on my hip, and glanced at the host and his raised eyebrow. Yeah, we might not be heading back to that place anytime soon. And if we do, then just to be obnoxious I'll urge Julie to leave the Hooter Hider at home.