Loud Noises, Big Fires, and Bulimia. Just another night out with our toddler.

We try to get the Gabster to bed at 8:00 most nights. But sometimes life happens and we are out and about when bedtime rolls around. Most of the time she deals pretty well. But sometimes it makes for an interesting evening.

Last night we went out to supper with Eric's youngest sister, Kelly, and a colleague of Eric's who is visiting from Brasil. We decided to go to a Japanese Steakhouse.

Gabriela was seated in a high chair between Eric and me and happily munching away at tomatoes and cucumbers from our salads and lemon wedges from our water when our chef arrived right at 8:00. He greeted everyone seated around the grill, confirmed our orders, and then made a giant crashing noise with his knife on the metal grill. Gabs, who is rarely scared or weepy, nearly jumped out of her seat and then rolled her bottom lip out a mile as her eyes welled up with tears. She began sobbing and trying to climb out of her high chair and into Eric's lap. Like the superb parents that we are, we laughed. Really hard. And then got her unbuckled and Eric held her.

She put her little head on his shoulder and wept for a moment before turning around to glare at the guy with the big knife and funny-looking hat.

About the time she had changed from frightened to just plain mad, the chef created the giant flame in the middle of the grill. And once again her bottom lip poked out and she began crying and buried her face in Eric's chest. Because we're exceptionally empathetic towards the delicate feelings of our daughter, we laughed again. A lot.

Through all of the slicing, dicing, and shrimp throwing, Gabs was a little on edge. She went back to her high chair and didn't cry anymore, but, in between her bites of veggies and ribeye, she gave the chef her best stink eye. I'm not sure she'll trust anyone wearing a chef hat ever again.

Once the show was over and we were all finishing the last few delicious bites of our meal, Gabriela had caught her second wind and was eating tons of steak and chatting up a storm. We were mostly engrossed in our own adult conversation, paying little attention to the chatterbox at the corner of the table. Until we heard a gagging sound.

We all turned to look, a bit startled, just in time to see Gabs vomit onto herself. With her little plastic spoon shoved to the back of her throat. And laughing hysterically. I immediately grabbed the spoon from her and tried to catch/clean up the gushing bile, veggies, and meat bits. Gabriela continued laughing and trying to wrestle the spoon from me so she could do it again.

We have only recently gotten the food-throwing under control so that we no longer leave a complete disaster area around her high chair when we exit a restaurant. I'm not so sure a self-induced puke-trail is much better though.