Baby Girl and I went out for a lovely breakfast a deux given that Mr. Lemony Lemonade was busy studying for his CFA. We went to my favourite local place which is small and awkward but I really love the food, so I couldn't resist. The place, as usual, was filled with local parents, many of whom reflect the neighbourhood's hippy vibe - children in natural fibres with home knit cardigans and toys that sybolise their parents' eschewing of corporate America; no Fisher Price here, only locally made, "imagination" toys allowed. They probably run their homes on re-purposed household waste, eat exclusively vegetarian organic, call their spouses their "partner" and ride bicycles made from re-claimed parts.
Within minutes of being there, Baby Girl was all over the place, knocking over chairs, attempting to make a break for the door and generally causing complete and utter chaos. To avoid my head exploding, I opted to open up the dvd, a.k.a. the babysitter, and pressed play. The effect was immediate calm and Baby Girl settled down to her favourite episode of Blues Clues. You would have thought, however, that I had offered her a crack pipe as a hush fell over all the tables of hippy parents and their children, no doubt, the chirpy music of the dvd interrupted their family discussions about how best to solve the world water shortage. The disapproval hung in the air like a stinky fart and I assumed that they were all wondering if they should be calling Child Services to report me as an ufit Mother.
The tables are so close together in this particular restaurant that it was fairly easy to hear the conversations around us and nearby a family with two young children and a rather incongruous set of grandparents, not being in the least hippyesque, was having breakfast. The mom, in particular, seemed rather judgmental and scowered at me over the shoulder of her rather dirty, unkempt husband's shoulder. You would have thought that she was looking at a serial killer. The grandmother made a comment to the angry, hippy mom about what a good idea the dvd was and the hippy mom quickly launched into a tirade about the ills of tv and preferring one on one, human interaction with her children instead of the passive, mind numbing effect of television. As I mused how dull and empty a life without tv would be and wondering if the hippy mom was so grumpy because her husband was clearly hygenically challenged, Baby Girl turned to me and said, "Mommy, I want to count the sugar....uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinqo, seis....Mommy, do you know that in China they say 'ni hao' and in France they say 'bon jour'?". So, not being in the least vindictive, I tried to be only minorly smug as I congratulated the Little Princess on her obvious genius.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it interactive, hippy mom!
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