Buffets = queasy daddy, doctor = queasy mommy, anything = queasy Auggie

Oy.

Do you ever have those moments when that little voice inside your head says, ‘Don’t do that.’ But you do it anyway?

I had such a moment this evening.

We ate at a Chinese buffet.

I hear you, I hear you! I too had sworn off buffets of every kind. I mean after all the Dateline stories about the expired meat at supermarkets, unrefrigerated meat being delivered to restaurants after spending hours in unair-conditioned vans and the general evil-ness of meat in and of itself, how could you want to ever lift another meaty forkful unless you have raised the cow, slaughtered it, stored it below 40 degrees and cooked it over 170 degrees all by yourself? (You know, I have watched Dateline maybe, oh, 5 times in my life, and each time I want to vomit. Is this normal? I mean, this also happens when I catch 20/20, but that’s just because of John “Gimme a Break” Stossel.)

So the breakdown is this: we’re hurtin’ real, real bad. Tim more than me, definitely. Poor guy. Luckily, Auggie was not into anything there, but he was already a little oogy, having uked on me at least once this afternoon. And can I say that this is no longer a little, cheesy, sour milk-y spit up? It was not fun. Especially after the nuclear bomb of a diaper I had to change earlier this morning. It’s enough to make you want to go back to disposables! (Except that of course the diaper would be festering in the Diaper Genie instead of sanitarily flushed away right now. Yay, cloth diapers!)

In our defense, Tim was under the impression that this place was a “Mongolian Barbecue” which, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, is a restaurant where you assemble the fresh ingredients yourself, including the fixin’s for your very own sauce, and then some professionals cook it up for you, right in front of your very eyes! It is a wonderful thing, my friends.

The place where we went was not wonderful. At all.

Tomorrow, Auggie goes to the doctor for his one year old well-baby checkup. He’s scheduled to get his MMR vaccine, but I am a little wierded out by the things that I’ve heard about the tenuous connection between this vaccine and autism. The really annoying thing is that I haven’t been able to find much about the topic at my usual parenting websites. I’m hoping that this lack of information is only because the vaccine has been proven to be safe.

I’m worried that I’ll start asking our pediatrician about it and she’ll think I’m a nutjob. (As if she doesn’t already, right?) The main thing about the vaccine seems to be its inclusion of thimerosal, a derivative of mercury. I’m going to ask if the vaccine still uses it. And since so few cases of either measles, mumps and rubella occur in the US each year, I’m not worried about putting it off. The only thing is that it could be a total pain when Auggie goes to school, as we would have to get a special waiver.

Anyway, wish us luck!