Wednesday 5 August 2009

Her and Me at the Breakfast Table

One of my greatest fears about having a second baby was that I would lose all that "one on one" time I had come to love with Madeline. I know that having a son will prove to have wonders not known to me before, but having a little girl.....ahhh.....it's just totally different.

Today I had to go down to the Castleton area for a big CL drop. Hmmmmm what to do in Castleton?? SHOP! I haven't ever really taken Madeline to the mall to just walk around and look at things. So I figure there's no time like the present. After packing up the 23457234987-1823492834 things required to take 2 children somewhere we headed out!

I stopped at Walgreens to exchange some diapers and since Jackson's carseat took up the whole of the cart she "had" to walk beside. She did great. She stayed right by the cart, and asked permission to touch things. She walked up and down the toy aisle - eyes agog with the treasures and didn't ask for a thing! She even carried a pack of diapers to the car for me!

We got to the mall and I just didn't know what to expect. Jackson was being a little testy so I always had one hand on him - sticking his pacifier in - stroking his head and she helped by singing "Twinkle Twinkle." I told her that I wanted her to sit in the back, but that she may ask permission to get down. So when I would stop and look around at clothes or shoes she'd ask politely "May I get down and yook Mama?" (I will truly be heartbroken when she can pronounce Ls better) Most times I'd tell her yes, but a few times I told her no and she totally took it in stride. We went upstairs to the girls section and they had a 2.37 cent sale going on so we picked out some tops and shorts together. She was so excited about all her pretty clothes.

I even let her have one of those sugar coated dry roasted almond things that smell up the whole mall. mmmmmmm. She loved it!

We picked out a pair of new sandals and she was so in love with them (and the foot measuring thing) that she wanted to wear them right away! She kept saying "My pretty shooooooes!"


We ventured into the Disney store if for no other reason than I knew she'd get a big kick out of walking through the big Mickey head at the entrance. (she did) As she's never been in the store before her eyes got all big and she quietly walked through the store taking everything in. Seeing all the Nemo paraphernalia got her quite happy. I transferred still fussy Jackson into the sling and told Madeline she could pick out a special cup to have. There was a whole SLEW of them by the checkout complete with snow globe at the bottom. She picked out one with Bolt in the bottom and took it up to the checkout herself and even said "please" when she asked for a bag. (lol) She was beyond thrilled with her cup and I made a special trip to the bathroom to wash it out so she could use it straightway. I told her that Mommy helped her pick it out, but Daddy paid for it. It's important to me that she learn young that Daddy (and Mommy) work hard to give her what she has. Her little heart breaks every morning when he leaves for work, and I try to remind her that Daddy doesn't leave because he wants to, but because he has to work to pay for our food and our house. I don't know how much of it she understands, but I just want her to grow up appreciating what a hard-working father she has. She gets to see me work hard for her, doing laundry and making dinner - but I think the concept of Daddy working and making money is a little more ethereal......and I want her to try to appreciate it. So I told her it would be nice to thank Daddy when he got home for her special new cup.

We had a fun lunch of Chick-Fil-A during which I managed to nurse Jackson and make sure she wasn't overdoing it on fries. She knows the rule of one fry per piece of chicken and she stuck to it herself! She asked to play on the playset in the middle of the foodcourt but it was getting close to lunch time and that playland has always skeezed me out so I told her no, that we needed to head home. She nicely said "Ok" and hopped back on the stroller. She saw the huge ice cream cone on DQ's sign and asked for ice cream, but I told her we had had enough treats for today. She took that right in stride as well.

The ride home Jackson was still fussy so she helped me sing to him and chattered on and on about her new cup. Once we got home we went straight to potty and to bed! I was beat and Jackson needed to eat again. She put up a tiny fuss about napping, but soon went to bed when she realized the sooner she went to bed the sooner she got to get up and play with her cup! She slept a whopping TWO HOURS (of course Jackson fussed the entire time) and woke up in a delightful mood! She helped me wash dishes and change Jackson and the first thing she said to Daddy when he walked in the door was, "Daddy! Thank you thank you for my cup!" That was when my heart just totally melted. Wow she listened AND remembered.....who knew??

Our days aren't always like this, but today was truly a treasure. She was a gem, even when Jackson demanded all of my attention. My heart just felt like it was going to burst, and it was wonderful to see that she and I can still get some "one on one" time if we try hard enough.

1 comment:

Jenny said...

Too adorable! I will be sad when Aaron irons out his diction, too. "you can lose that, daddy" when he means "use" - edible! He used to call me "mahnyah" and I was SO sad to see that go...