Whole Foods has a glorious fish tank near the exit. C&D tried to sign fish at the tank last week, but Carmen finally made herself quite clear today when she pointed at a fish on the wall and carefully waved her hand like a swimming fish.
Guess who drank carrot juice today without spilling nary a drop? Well, no, that's not true. He used his little juice glass and drank his fill of juice (several refills), then used his last refill to experiment with gravity and fluid dynamics. I was impressed at the effort, anyway. He usually tips his glass (flow) or dunks his food in his drink (displacement) much sooner. Carmen also enjoyed the juice, but in her impatience to gulp it down spilled much more.
The carrot juice came from a trip to Central Market today. If Whole Foods is the babes' favorite grocery, Central Market is a close second. We shopped (70% dark chocolate chips, Fuji apples, guacamole, orange and carrot juice), socialized with mothers (shoes, consignment stores), grandparents (yes, they are a handful, good thing they're cute), and employees (yes, Carmen is more bossy than David). C&D pointed at other children, but only if the other children did not point first.
In the bulk section in the center of the store I found slices of pressed and dehydrated mango for C&D to busy themselves with, and presented them each with one large slice. In the bakery section of the store, they received another. By the time we arrived at the checkout line, my little babes wore orange, sticky smiles. Mango goop dripped from their fingers and coated the fronts of their shirts. I hoped no one would notice.
As I paid for our groceries, C&D sat quietly, the mango all eaten, until David started chewing on Carmen's shoulder. I'm sure they could hear her protest from the seafood department. Everyone around us laughed. What a relief that most everyone thinks babies--even when orange, sticky, and rowdy--are cute!
Grocery shopping at Central Market during the day is a friendly, leisurely, almost small-town experience. Between sipping samples of exotic coffees and freshly-baked breads, midmorning shoppers like to stop and talk, or at least take a moment to smile at the two toddlers who want to touch everything they can manage to reach. Trips to the grocery could take hours if C&D's wriggling didn't remind me that lunch was in an hour and my cold juice was growing lukewarm.
Back at the car with groceries loaded, I snapped together David's carseat buckles and saw his eyes blink slowly in the way that signals an impending nap.
Except that naptime wasn't for another two hours. I was doomed, doomed!
Good thing I had an emergency bag of rolls from Whole Foods in the car. The back seat now needs vacuuming, but I did arrive home with two wakey babes. And at least the rolls weren't sticky.
Yesterday, David gave us his first temper tantrum in public. We were in the Galleria, walking. David laughed while he was tantrumming, so it wasn't a very effective one. In fact, even without his laughing it wasn't even a particularly impressive tantrum, more like a drizzle than a thunderstorm. We were walking in the Galleria. He wanted to walk into a shoe store, and I, holding his hand, did not let him enter. He cried and let himself fall supine to the floor. Except he didn't fall to the floor completely. David doesn't like to hurt himself. So first he slackened his legs and fell on his seat, then slowly eased his back and head onto the tile. Once on the floor he screamed and rolled, trying to look angry. He must have felt a little silly, and started to laugh. I picked him up, pointed his body in another direction, and off we went.
We were at the Galleria experimenting our new harnesses.
At our branch library, we sometimes talk to a librarian who has twins. "Hello!" she said to David yesterday.
He stared at her and blew a slobbery raspberry.
Thanks for showing her what you're made of, kiddo.
Parenting brings many opportunities for love and all of those other Hallmark feelings (including Get Well Soon). But parenting also brings us closer to countless opportunities for embarrassing ourselves. For example:
- Monday morning I was pushing a stroller full of groceries and sticky babies at Houston's most chi-chi supermarket. At least their clothes matched.
- Sunday I giggled at my little boy's temper tantrum in the middle of Houston's most chi-chi mall. And this time, his clothes did not match.
- Monday afternoon my son blew a raspberry at the nice library lady while Carmen didn't even bother waving or blowing her a kiss.
- On the way back from the library, I stopped at the gas station. While I was filling my tank I was blowing kisses at the babes in their carseats. Then I played peak-a-boo, and stuck out my tongue. When I looked up, a girl with long hair and tall boots was laughing at me.
I have done a bad thing. Well, two.
First, after years of hearing me exalt the many pleasures of a good dark chocolate, Matt finally listened to me and tried a piece of 70% dark. And liked it. Darn. Now I have to share.
And then the other day I gave C&D chicken taquitos for breakfast. Now they want them for snack, lunch, and dinner, too. Good thing they don't know how to ask for them, yet. David calls his taquitos "hot." "Haaaaaaaah," he says, and waits for me to blow on them. I've almost always prepared them too hot for him to eat right away. "Hot" is a lot easier to say than "taquito," anyway.
David is mightily afraid of the trash truck. He screams and hides in a corner unless I am holding him as the truck passes. If the truck is on another street, he stops and looks at me, waiting. "It is coming?" he wants to know. Even the rumble of the trash can on the concrete is enough to freeze David in his tracks and produce instant tears. The trashmen wave and smile, but that seems to make no difference to the boy with my shirt in his fists. Trash day is a hard day around here.
Carmen is afraid of the pots and pans. She got into the pots and pans cabinet this evening and started to cry when she accidentally made them clang.
It's taken me two days of interruptions to write this post, and it keeps getting longer. Time to hit "publish" and get ready for bed. I think I hear Carmen awake, anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment