TLM and I were hounded out of a coffee shop today. Ok, so no one threw stones at us, or biscotti or choc chip muffins or whatever people in Starbucks would throw if they were forcing someone to abandon their half drunk, half shot, tall skinny latte and run. In fact no one even told us to leave. But they might as well have done. Every time TLM shrieked – TLM lets out piercingly loud screams when he doesn’t get his own way– the other customers gave us looks so filthy that even a dose of Napisan wouldn’t clean them up.

There was the man quietly (well, quietly ‘til we rocked up) reading a book. The depressed looking young couple – she was all smiles at TLM when we first walked in and TLM was giggling and flirting with her but when he started yelping boy did her attitude change.

The lady at the next table with her daughter of perhaps eight or nine, at least seemed vaguely sympathetic. The thing is she has probably been there, done that and experienced the annoyed stares, and her children aren’t so old that she has forgotten what it feels like.

This all reminded me of an incident when TLM was even smaller – perhaps a month or two old. I was in a restaurant with my friend Amanda and her lovely little girl, a similar age to TLM. Both babies were supremely well behaved and really very quiet. But obviously not quiet enough the grumpy chap at the next table.

Around TLM’s feeding time, TLM started to cry for his milk - I was preparing his bottle there was little I could do to stop him. It wasn’t even particularly loud - nothing like the scale of his current, toddler level scream (trust me, crying newborns sound like cute mewing kittens in comparison).

Anyway, when he started up, grumpy git gave us disapproving stares and then said in a very cutting manner: ‘if I’d wanted to have lunch in a kindergarten I’d have done so’.

I admit the restaurant concerned wasn’t really of the child-friendly variety and the crying probably did interrupt his conversation for all of a minute or two but nor was this place exactly Gordon Ramsay.

I was pretty flabbergasted but luckily Amanda is a bit gutsier and gave him what for.

After months of this kind of thing happening on and off in cafes and restaurants, not to name trains, shops etc. maybe I should have learnt to stand firm and assert my right to be somewhere, crying, screaming child and all. But no, what did I do in Starbucks today? I put TLM’s coat on, strapped him in his pram, had one last rushed gulp of my unfinished latte and left as quickly as I could.