just a little filler

(stroller post coming up soon - hopefully tonight) but in the meantime ...

As part of Project Compartmentalize My Life I have been working really hard to drop everything and just focus on the fusspot and the dumpling when we are together, which is every afternoon from 4 to 8 pm (sometimes cut short by work events which start in the evening, but I try not to head out until 7). So 2 nights ago the dumpling took a real nap and I fed the fusspot dinner and then she suggested going out for ice cream, and even though it was late and close to bedtime for her (and work time for me) I agreed.

Which is how we came to be sitting outside Pinkberry at about 7:30 pm when some type of brawl spilled out of the bar next door. Had I not been nursing the dumpling, we would have definitely relocated. The source of the fight seemed to be some sexual allegations between a highly articulate young lady and a mostly mute guy who looked more than slightly baffled. Needless to say, the details of their prior involvement were being shouted across the street complete with a significant amount of 4-letter word padding.

I tried to distact the fusspot with the ABCs to no avail as she sat wide-eyed watching the shouting match, the friends restraining both parties, the cops idling nearby and trying not to notice ... and after a few minutes she turned to me and side "She wants her mommy?" And all I could do was smile and say "Yes, she needs her mommy" because it is simply too delightful that my toddler still lives in the world where that would make everything ok.

And then this morning when she found herself in a most awful pickle, having managed to get her head thoroughly stuck in a shirt by not noticing the buttons on the back she stood in the middle of her room and called out: "Mama! Dada! Baby!" Because at just over 2 months baby is every bit as much a part of her taken-for-granted world as we are.