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Balboa Island Adventure
For being such free spirits, Baby Bug and I have a surprisingly rigid schedule. But on somedays, we break out of our rigid schedule and have an adventure!
Adventure days are the greatest. On Valentine’s Day we had an adventure to Balboa Island. Balboa Island is fun (when you can find parking). There is a cute little main street to walk down and there’s a Starbucks, a prerequisite for most of my “adventures”. There are also a zillion little shops that sell little girl clothes. I had no money to spend when we were there and it was like Chinese water torture for me.
One shop we peeked into was pure heaven for little girls. Everything was pink and in the back they had a little room designated for tea parties. For about $400 you can host a tea party for about eight little girls. It seems expensive to me now but while we were there we observed a party mid-progress and the little girls were having SO MUCH FUN!
They had hats on with veils and there were little black and white tea cups and little cookies and there was lots of taffeta and pink tulle. If I get over my sick-of-pink stage by the time Baby Bug’s five, I might consider shelling out the dough for her to have a birthday party there. It was magical.
We also stopped into the Balboa Candy Shop and marveled at all the amazing varieties of taffy there are. Baby Bug was grunting and reaching like there’s no tomorrow and she’s never even tasted taffy. I wasn’t about to get her hooked now. It’s bad enough she knows what lemon loaf tastes like from Starbucks. Everytime we go into a Starbucks now, she lurches towards the pastry display and shouts, “Ummm Naaaas! Ummmm Naaaas!” which is her word for tasty food. I think she means, “Mmmmmm, Yummy” or something like that. She says it all the time. It’s amazing how much I am learning her language as opposed to her learning mine.
After a trip down main street, we walked around the island looking for ducks. Toby and I used to feed the ducks here years and years ago. Back in those olden days when we used to go out and do things together “just for fun.” But for some reason there are no ducks on Balboa Island any more. It’s very mysterious. I think the island residents got rid of them because they didn’t like all the guano on their private docks. I don’t know. I sure would like to show Baby Bug what a real “Quack Quack” looks like though. We might have to go to the zoo.
As the shadows get long, I look at my watch and sure enough it’s almost five o’clock. At five o’clock, Happy Princess Baby Bug turns into The Grumpy Hungry Ogre and that means I better hurry home and feed her some macaroni and cheese and broccoli (her favorite dinner) before I get my head chopped off. Off! Off with your head, Mommy!
And that’s our day!
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“Stop and Go, Stop and Go….”
Baby Bug has a new toy. It’s a scooter bus for one-year-olds. It’s also a brightly colored plastic bus that honks and sings an annoyingly catchy tune. I could sing it for you right now, in fact. “Stop and Go… Stop and Go….”
What?!!! The horror!
This is a classic case of how much you change once you become a parent. I would die a thousand deaths over having such an obnoxious thing in my house before I became Baby Bug’s mom. But now, there is nothing that could make either of us happier. I love watching her try to get on and off of it. I love how happy she is that she can push the buttons all by herself over and over (and over and over). I love how she bobs her head to the sing-songy tune. I love how it’s the first thing she wants to play with when she gets up five thirty in the morning and I’m still groggy and so very not ready to get up. I love watching her open and close the seat lid and put toys inside and then take them back out again. It is a beautiful thing when your child learns to play with a toy all by themselves.
I could fill my house up with them. Ummmmm… No. I won’t go that far. But one loud obnoxious yellow bus in the living room is okay. We’ll rearrange our lives around it for Baby Bug’s sake.
Have you ever seen such a sad face? This is probably what she would look like if we took the yellow bus away.
