Sunshine

Sunshine
Originally uploaded by vczdavis

The title of this post is quite optimistic I had a pretty bad day, but it was good in the middle and ended well.. So lessons learned. It started off with me being very tired and waking up and sitting on the couch and hearing a loud noise and suddenly remembering it was street sweeping and realizing this meant two.. yes two 35$ tickets. It was already 10:00 Holly woke up late and the sweepers usually come earlier so we didn’t even bother to go and look.

Then I check my email and see that my neighbor had send a message that he came over and knocked and rang the bell to remind us but didn’t know if we were asleep or out but perhaps the email would reach us in time. Alas, no I thought. Strike two. How did I not hear my obnoxious door bell this morning?? So then I hear something and look outside and don’t see the tickets. Well on Joel’s way out he wanted to put a sweater in the car so I just assumed he grabbed the tickets off the windshield. Yes… Strike 3. 20 minutes later I hear a very loud noise and it is the street sweeper coming by at 11:00 and there are two shiny tickets on the dash.. What are they doing coming at 11:00 when for the last 4 years they almost always get her before 9 AM? I actually had 3 opportunities to move my car this morning and was either too dumb or too tired to realize it at the cost of 70$ lesson 1 learned.

Well my afternoon got better. Not before Holly took an only 30 minute laugh giving Mommy no respite this afternoon we headed out to SadieDey Café.. I am trying to get into the habit of Calling Tumble and tea this, as that is the new name. I don’t like it but I guess it is sticking and I have to get used to it. We were meeting an old colleague of mine for lunch and she agreed that a Play café would be ok. I figured we would have much more of a chance to talk if I could let Holly run around and play instead of trying to constrain her in a high chair at a real restaurant.

We had a great lunch and I we had lots of time to catch up. When I first arrived I was the only person in the Café which is a little eerie since it normally has a ton of gremlins running in every direction but alas it was like 80 degrees outside and the workers said that sunshine is there enemy, on a nice day everyone goes to the park. They were even thinking about closing early. I suppose I could have taken Holly to the park, but later the other moms agreed that she is too little, I mean not too little to go on walks and play “some” at the park, but I am not ready for her to be crawling around in the sand and dirt on all fours and put it in her mouth, whereas the Café was a safe place for her to let out all of her energy and explore.

By the time my lunch was over there were many other kids there, three specific babies Max, Zia and another little girl all had fun with Holly. I admit with my friend as a distraction I was a bit neglectful and told the other moms that Holly is very social and friendly and they could feel free to move her is she gets too “in their face” when playing. They were all very excited to have their babies play with her though and from my seat at the table I watched as she touched their faces and arms and they all crawled on top of each other and it was great. Without me hovering the babies were able to work things out on their own, I supposed I am a bit extra careful afraid she might scratch or accidently hit someone. She actually did “hit” one little girl with a toy, but she was ok and it was more like she put the toy down on her and she didn’t like that.

Also Holly was a very good eater. For lunch she had ½ a container of green beans and a whole container of banana orange. So my friend was getting ready to leave and I sit over by Holly and the other Moms and one asks if my bag is in the Cubby. I say that it is, it’s the yellow one, and they report that the woman by the door was just rummaging through it. I jump up, run towards the door, check my purse, see all my cash is missing and block her from leaving while I call over the employees.

She is immediately confrontational and whips out a wad of cash with 50’s and 100’s and says I have all my own Money, why do I need to take yours.. Is this your money? And then accuses me of racial profiling. Sigh…. All I know is that the cash was gone and someone said they saw her in my bag, so while the staff try to detain her and call the cops I go and talk to the witness (other mom). She said that when she went out to put her money in the meter she saw her standing by the cubby looking into the bags (plural) and that her purse was also in the same cubby as mine. She assumed both her hers but thought it was fishy when she was still standing there when she came back. Then when the woman went to go she only took one bag, so then she realized she must have been looking through someone else’s.

I checked and my Credit Cards and IPod and other stuff were all still in my purse, so it was only my cash. Sadly I don’t even know how much it was.. It may have been as little as 30$ but as much as 80$ I had a lot of 1’s like 15 and some 5’s and 10’s. I don’t think I had any 20’s. I had planned on putting more money in my purse before leaving the house but didn’t, so I am grateful of that. So the thing is, she was smart. Only taking cash there was no way to prove if it was mine or hers and the staff couldn’t force her to stay though they tried. It took like 20 minutes to even get through to the cops and she was gone by then, and it was maybe 90 minutes before I left and they had not shown up, so I wrote down my contact information and my statement and left it for them to give to there local beat cop when he came by the next day. The guy who works there said he has seen her before, but as far as he knows she has never done anything like that before. The sad thing was she had her little boy with her, which is why no one though anything of it, but he looked like 8 which is a bit old for the place. She said she was there picking up the local free parenting magazines and there is a sign that clearly states to keep your valuables with you, so it was my bad. I am too trusting and should have known better. I am there so often and leave my stuff there all the time, but I guess I have learned better. It ultimately just makes me sad.. Less angry about losing 30ish dollars but Angry that I have to worry now every time I am there about my stuff.

So today was a BAD money day for me. But I tried to brush it off and not make it ruin the rest of my day. Later I went to pick up Joel and we went to Baby Brigade. Holly was zonked in the car after playing for like 5 hours but by the time the movie started she woke up with a vengeance. I actually fed her pears and some more green beans while watching the movie, while she sat in my lap, which I think is impressive. She is starting to out grow baby brigade… So I know why the age limit is 1. That doesn’t mean Joel will get out of going again during the next two months, But I am second guessing letting her sleep on the way. I guess I hoped she would sleep longer, like half the movie. But she wanted to be the center of attention so instead of crying like the other babies she just wanted to talk through the whole movie squealing during all the most inappropriate times I just had to laugh.

Oh and we saw 7 Pounds. It wasn’t good, but I enjoyed it, so it wasn’t bad. I had the heartfelt reaction it was hoping for. It was a very good premise, but I felt like with a better writer and maybe a more Indy feel it could have been much much better. I think I lost my brain for the day, or maybe this heat is just getting to me, but I ordered a small pizza for dinner so I was still really hungry and filled up on Popcorn instead of real food, but Joel said he was full so that was good. Holly’s energy didn’t diminish when we got home and she played and played. She then got very cranky very quickly and cried a lot when Joel tried to put her to bed. She drank 1 bottle but it didn’t make her fall asleep, and she just kept crying so I had Joel make another and that did the trick, she drank ½ of it but then woke up like 3 more times, so I had to hold her and rock her for a little bit before she was really down for the night. She was so sweet though that I didn’t mind, but I think her agitation really got to Joel, she hasn’t been this cranky for a while. I think it might just be growing pains. She ate almost 3 containers of food, and a yogurt today, But I think that if we hadn’t gone to the movie she would have gotten a bigger “food” dinner and it might have made a difference, but she has to learn to adapt, and we need to practice filling her needs when we do things like go out, so I didn’t mind practicing feeding her at the movie.

One cool thing that happened is we ran into this couple that we had met several months ago, and they remembered us as the little girl with the triangle toy. It was the toy that taught Holly how to sit up on her own, and I had brought it to the movie once and told them about it and explained how it would help their little guy learn to sit, and they reported back that it actually worked like a charm and they have told like 3 other friends to get that toy. So thanks to Tracey who got it for Holly to begin with. It’s great, she still plays with it.

Alas, it is late and I must go to bed. Tomorrow … Well today.. is a new day. Let’s hope for winter to last more than 3 weeks and for a cold front to hit us. Anyone who thinks global warming is a myth can come visit me.