Tales of Life with a Girl on the Go

There is a story on the back of Starbucks cups about how people speak of conquering mountains but really the mountain lets us climb to the peak in the end.

On Saturday morning as we left the house, Reid dressed as a princess for the Kindermusik party, Reid noticed the chicken costume in her stroller where I’d put it to take back to the store. She exclaimed (yes, exclaimed, not merely said), “Chicken doat” and wouldn’t wear her purple coat that Ken offered but insisted on the chicken coat. And so, Reid was a Princess Chicken for the Kindermusik class. I thought, for a moment, I won! And then I thought of that Starbucks cup and realized my mountain hadn’t changed (or at least not beacuse of me).

Reid was a hit at Kindermusik, both in her chicken coat and as a princess. She wore her tiara and “glass” slippers and carried her sceptre from Melissa and Peter and the kids with regal grace. There were cute pumpkins and frogs and Woody from Toy Story and also some other animals. My mama-heart went out to the lady who sat next to us whose son wouldn’t put on his costume, not even the hat. I told her about Reid wearing a dress-up dress rather than the costume I bought. I hope it helped as she seemed self-conscious that Malcolm wasn’t in costume. He is a generally shy kid, though, but sweet when he warms up.

After class, I changed Reid into jeans and a couple shirts, including her “Ghoul power” t-shirt, and she happily put her chicken coat back on. When we got to the Agricultural Museum, I said she needed her orange pants (the chicken legs and feet) for warmth, which was true. She put them on without a word. I felt like doing a victory dance. We got some good photos that I’ll send later and had fun seeing the animals and doing a couple of crafts. The oddest costume we saw was worn by one of the staff who had on pink pants, a pink shirt with two rows of four bottle nipples down the front, and a snout. We saw one other Old Navy chicken and some ladies in the colouring room asked where Reid’s costume was from. Wet and cold, at least Ken and I were, we headed to the car with Reid clutching the apple juice can we purchased about 90 minutes after arriving. I thought the allure of the can had to do with Daddy’s Coke cans but when I realized it was 12:15 and she wanted to nurse when we got to the car, I decided her tummy was probably rumbly, too. I guess the two jack o’lantern cookies at Kindermusik didn’t have enough stick-to-your-ribs power.

Reid fell asleep nursing and then Ken and I went to Lick’s for lunch. I braved the wind and rain to get our scrumptious hamburgers and fries and we pretended we were at a crowded (but quiet) restaurant and ate and talked. Kinda nice, actually.

Just before supper, I bundled Reid back into her chicken costume and we headed out before we left, though, Ken said “Are you going to get your picture taken?” To quote Homer Simpson , “D’oh” I said and as Reid started to pull off her chicken coat, I LIED and said, “No, we’re goung to buy a balloon”. Once we got to the grocery store, I had to come through with the balloon but Reid didn’t fuss in the portrait studio, at least. She was pretty reticent with her smiles, though. Her expression was sort of pleasant, in a humouring the child sort of way. But then the photographer brought out Dora and Reid smiled a real smile and so we left the portait studio for another month. I thought I was being organized and asked about an appointment for November to get Christmas card photos done. There were no morning slots for Saturday or Sunday for the last week of November or the first week of December. Yikes! It’ll be another before supper adventure, I guess.

Okay, gotta go. Have a great day!