White, two sugars and a tranquiliser please

Motherhood. Blissful days spent doing yoga, shopping with friends and ordering steaming hot lattes while bub gurgles contentedly nearby. Gents, if this is how you think your lovely ladies spend their days … you should try it some time.

I’ve come to realise that coffee shops and children mix as nicely as oil and water. Yet still I persist. Why? Is it my ignorant ego that can’t fathom why my darling daughter wouldn’t enjoy the same things that I do? Or is it my defiance? I work bloody hard so I’m going to go and do something I enjoy God dammit. Perhaps a mix of the two. However it’s quickly becoming apparent that it may just be more trouble than it’s really worth …

My daughter is gradually progressing through the different phases of coffee shop conundrums.

Phase 1: Juggling infant, juggling adult conversation, juggling hot coffee all while juggling jugs. The breastfeeding stage. Coffee shops are wonderful places to excite bub’s curious mind – full of lights, noise, and businessmen trying to work on intricate deals except they can’t concentrate for all the boobs flapping in the breeze. Many a time has my daughter found coffee shop surroundings more interesting than feeding, leaving me on full display for businessmen, pimply teenage staff and everybody in between to have a good gawk. If I ever imagined myself in that situation, I’d be expecting hundred dollar notes plunged into my pockets, but alas they didn’t even shout me my coffee.

If you’re as lucky as I am, phase 1 can also come with phase 1.1 – the reflux stage. Nothing better for the coffee shop business than having hot, steamy, smelly milk projectiled around the shop ad nauseum. Mmmm, mmm. I want me some of that.

Before too long we progressed to phase 2: the “now that I’m sitting and crawling and learning to walk, I don’t WANT to sit still” stage. This phase is easily recognised through mum spending more time on a gym workout than actually sitting, drinking coffee. Picking up bub, running after bub, rearranging bub, removing sugar satchels from bub … oh *!*%$, too late. This phase is usually accompanied with unrelenting wails that drown out the coffee shop’s preferred ambience which may even progress to full blown tantrums if the desires to move around freely are not immediately met. An interesting battle of wills – what will give first: mum’s embarrassment or bub’s voicebox?

Phase 3: The “you’ve just dragged me away from toys / painting / tv / playing with friends to come to this boring place to sit on a boring chair and talk to these boring people … so why should I behave?” phase. This is the phase I’m now approaching. It regrettably comes with the dilemma of bub now outgrowing prams, so all help of physical restraint is goooneskis. The only way of combating phase 3 is by packing for a camping trip when you go to your coffee shop date. It is IMPERITIVE that you be armed with toys that excite and delight, but aren’t noisy, messy, destructive, breakable, capable of breaking said coffee shop, capable of falling off the table and meaning we revisit phase 2 … which leaves you with ….hmm … a knitted doily for bub to fiddle with for an hour. My one gem of an idea to constantly arm her with sultanas (ie something that would occupy both hands and mouth for a LONG time AND is healthy) is starting to make its mark at daycare …”Hayley is definitely very regular”. Cripes, I should probably keep a record of exactly how many I’m giving her …

So, where to from here? Mummies still need caffeine and friendships … and kids need a place to, well, be kids. For all the flak they’ve received, one place has actually got this mix just right. McDonalds. God bless ‘em. With safe, confined areas for kids to run around in, mums can sit nearby in air conditioned comfort and enjoy café-style coffees and snacks and chat in peace and quiet. A win, win, win for everybody. So on behalf of all the caffeine-addicted mums I say, McDonalds, we salute you. A happy meal, err, coffee, indeed.