Motherhood FAIL of the Week: Feed Me, Please

He was not amused.

Two weekends ago, during the heart of the Christmas/New Year/First Birthday whirlwind, one of my nephews was called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah.  This was the first (of many) Bar Mitzvahs in the family, so needless to say it was a pretty big deal.  On Friday evening, the whole extended family met the Temple for photographs and a casual shabbat service.  We had to be there, in photo ready form, at 4PM so that all pictures could be taken before sundown.  Somehow, I managed to get myself, the Muffin Man, and Chris dressed in some approximation of Bar Mitzvah-approrpiate clothing, and get us to the Temple almost on time (read: 15 minutes late).  Photographs were taken, my nephew looked handsome, and I think Noah cracked a smile for at least one picture.

Photographs were finished around 5PM, and then we had to wait until 6:30PM for the shabbat service to start.  As those of you who have children know, the 5 o'clock hour is not the best time for babies.  This is absolutely true for Noah, and has been since the day he made his entrance downstage vagina.  He's prone to whining and bouts of fussiness under the best of circumstances, but add in an unfamiliar place and the fact that he refused to nap that day, and let's just say that he wasn't his usual charming self.  Sometime around 5:30PM, as Noah was attempting to pull my hair out by the roots for the sixth or seventh time, it occurred to me that he was probably starving and wanted dinner.  While this would've been no problem were I a parent who thought ahead and prepared for the fact that we would be at Temple during Noah's usual mealtime, I am not one of those Mothers and therefore I had not a crumb of toddler-appropriate food on my person.  Sensing that the Muffin Man was minutes away from having an epic starvation-induced meltdown, we left Noah in the capable hands of his Nana and went in search of something (anything) that could be fed to our hungry child.  There happened to be a 7-11 just two blocks away and, after stepping over the man peeing in the doorway, we ventured into the convenience store wasteland to find something even marginally appropriate for Noah's dinner.

Not surprisingly, 7-11 does not carry a selection of baby food.  I suppose their lucrative customer base of long distance truck drivers and tweakers doesn't exactly warrant any shelf space for packets of Plum Organics, but I figured they would carry some sort of GMO and sugar-filled mass market brand that would at least put some nutrition in Noah's empty tummy.  No such luck.  As we cruised the aisles of Cheetos and Pop Tarts and Sour Patch Kids, I began to despair.  Could it really be possible for a store to be full solely of unhealthy items not fit for adult human consumption, let alone ingestion by a small child?  Finally, just as we were about to give up in despair, we stumbled upon some packages of hummus and pretzels in the refrigerator section.  I was so relieved to find something edible that was not only full of protein but also one of Noah's favorite foods that I almost dissolved into tears while standing in that dirty 7-11.  We grabbed two packages of the hummus, paid for our loot and hightailed it back to the Temple to feed Noah.

Our starving child was so happy to have something to eat that he practically attacked that little carton of chickpea puree.  I haven't seen him eat with so much excitement or gusto before or since, and I'm pretty sure that he got most of the hummus into his mouth, though there was a significant amount wiped on his sweater, my dress, and in my hair.  Hey, at least we avoided a temper tantrum in the middle of the House of G-D, because if the "Big Guy" does see everything, that would've been really, really embarrassing.