Is it ok to let your baby eat off the floor at Starbuck's?

Actually, it's not as bad as it sounds. Ok, maybe a little.

We did a family outing this morning at Starbuck's. I love their low-fat banana chocolate chip cake. Doesn't sound very low-fat, though, does it? I'm not even going to start on the whopper I had later at Burger King. Well ... maybe I will talk about our outing at BK in a bit. But first, Starbuck's.

My husband is having coffee, I am chowing down on my banana cake, and our baby is sitting on the floor, having given warning that if she wasn't taken out of her stroller soon, a fit might very well be eminent. On the floor she goes, and while she's down there, I give her little pieces of banana cake in her hand. I don't much like feeding her when she's on the floor, because I have the impression of giving scraps to a dog, or throwing crumbs at a pigeon, or whatever. But she doesn't seem to mind.

Of course I hadn't thought this through, as usual. A little piece of banana cake rolls to the floor, and way beyond the 5-second rule, my daughter decides to pick it up and, before I can say anything, pops it in her mouth. I know at this point some parents may be cringing. But I would like to share with you some words of wisdom that my grandmother used to share with her kids:

"You have to eat two buckets of shit before you die."

Well, if that's true, my daughter is well on her way.

I don't believe in the lysol-everything solution to germs that has become some sort of fad lately. In fact, I strongly believe that exposure to germs are good for you. I mean, how else do we develop immune systems?

But when I saw my daughter go for another piece of some thing or other on the floor that had been left there god knows how long and by whom, I let a loud "no!" burst forth so suddenly and with so much force she actually flinched. Needless to say, she didn't try to eat that particular morsel of food she had found so inviting.

Now for Burger King. By the way, I am aware of the fact that I am on a fast track to gaining back the 5 lbs. I have lost last month in Rome. But I will compensate by having hummus and a green salad for dinner. Yum.

One of the first things we noticed was the noise. The ceilings were very high, which was perfect for letting the 40-some kids' screams bounce around the vast space. This is a place with family-friendly convenience parents cannot resist. Get food fast, let the kids run around the play-park. By the way, when did those fast food restaurant play-gyms turn into a three story contraption the likes of which one would expect to find at the Family Robinson treehouse in Disneyland?

These places are never just filled with happy kids who run around in their socks. There was one little boy who, for a reason unknown to me, decided to have a crying fit. His mother, a heavy lady who, had she been in a movie, would have likely been wearing a mu-mu and curlers in her hair, was carrying him to the bathroom, holding him firm against her chest by his shoulder and left leg, while he kicked and screamed, gradually turning purple in the face.

Oh, the joys of parenting!