Our morning

Ben and I have accomplished a lot today by my standards, and it's not yet 1 o'clock. We hit a few bumps early on, waking to a depleted oatmeal supply and a refrigerator bereft of milk, meaning no Cheerios or Corn Flakes, the cereals of choice in my household. I suggested, in my I-will-talk to-my-toddler-like-an-adult-voice, that we head out for breakfast at a local coffee shop and Ben happily obliged. He might not be two-years-old yet, but he is quite capable of articulating that he'd like a muffin when the opportunity presents itself. We set off, in our newly repaired 1994 Saturn station wagon, beginning our morning odyssey with our coffee-food stop. Instead of a muffin, Ben tasted his first self-selected croissant, which went down well, while I nibbled on a blackberry ginger muffin and observed the other pre-8 a.m. patrons (or rather, watched them observe me).

I'm eight months pregnant with a toddler, so I get some looks when I'm out in public. It's not like it's such a weird thing. I can rattle off many families I knew growing up who had two or three kids, each separated by two years. But for some reason when you're watching a Mom trying to navigate two objects of food, a cup of hot decaf coffee, a lidless paper cup of water, a cumbersome wooden high chair, a full diaper bag, and a 30 lb little boy, to an empty two-person table in a busy coffee shop, the stares start coming in. Some are sympathetic (yet there were no helping hands emerging from behind newspapers or laptops), some bemused (the all-knowing look of an seasoned parent, out alone after dropping her two children, a more reasonable four years apart, at a local summer camp), some indifferent (a glance, then a glance away), some critical (the older, athletic gentleman who chose first to sit next to me, but then opted to move down three tables in the opposite direction a few moments later). Frankly, I thought we looked pretty damn cute, Ben and I enjoying a breakfast date, something that we won't likely have again for quite some time after baby #2 arrives. It is curious to think about what the reaction would be if it had been Ben and me and baby #2 and 3.

After coffee, we headed to the bank, but misjudged a turn and ended up at the grocery store instead. With a list of more than 20 items in hand (many never-before-purchased), I knew it could be a challenging shop. After only a few missteps (do we really need peanut oil? No. Do the pretzel goldfish need to be opened now? Yes.), we were back in the car, off to the bank (I did the lazy-Mom's drive-through method to save my back from an extra in-and-out of the car) and then onto the mechanic's, where I paid my bill and picked up my keys. A quick jaunt home to unload perishables, while Ben emptied the baking racks and trays into the middle of the kitchen, and then into the car again and off to a neighborhood elementary school for a vaudeville-like juggling and joking performance by a local kid entertainer.

Could I have done all this before 11:30 a.m. if I had two kids with me? Of course I could have, but how would I have handled it? Did I watch the families in the gym at the elementary school and note that not one of them appeared to have more than 2.5 kids in tow? Yes. Tomorrow I'll discuss the brief, yet telling, conversation I had with a mother of two with a third due in September, while Ben beelined for the entertainer's unicycle and four step ladder.