Yesterday

New Brighton, MN

Hello,

Sophia decided to stay home with me yesterday. Brian wanted me to drive him to school and then help or accompany him on some food shopping errands. He felt that Sophia would be quite fine waiting the hour in the car with me. Because his class was later in the morning there was no parking close to the building, but I parked in the east forty.

Waiting was fine as Sophia enjoyed sitting in the generally off limits front seat. These kids who have grown up with the child seat in the back do not get to sit up front with the grownups. Around us, I was astonished to see how quickly this distant lot was filling with cars. We had arrived while there were still choices.

After about 20 minutes I realized I must go to the bathroom, however I was not sure that Sophia could walk fast enough to get me there in time. Brian had mentioned that we could go to the McDonalds on the last corner before the school.  I decided I had better go there. After putting on Sophia’s shoes, convincing her to go the back seat, and buckling her in we took off.

I am not much attracted to food in most eating establishments in the US, but felt that since we were there, I had used their facilities, and it was cold out that we should get something. Sophia liked the picture of the hot chocolate, but I passed on that. Their yogurt parfait fit into my idea of something acceptable to eat, however Sophia was not sure about this parfait thing. Even after telling her what it was I decided I would only order one in case she would not eat it.

After getting to the table she found she liked the yogurt and granola. She does not like blue berries so I used a straw to push those on to the lid. She likes strawberries, but declared these frozen almost thawed berries to have a mush feel and therefore unacceptable. Those joined the blueberries and became mine as they appeared in the cup. She continued to eat up the rest of the yogurt and granola.

I had been wondering how to spend so much time in this place waiting for Brian, but Sophia without any urging from me managed to take almost forty minutes working her way through this small parfait. Perhaps I could learn something from her about loitering over food. I tend to eat at the races with Leroy.  It was just perfect timing when Brian called letting us know that he was ready to be picked up.

Paula