"That cost 88 dollars!"
We gave Abbie an ice cream cone today. This was her first ever ice cream cone; before tonight I always got a spoon with the ice cream and let her scoop out what she wanted until it was obvious that she wanted the whole thing and I’d distract her with Goldfish so I could actually eat the cone I ordered for myself because I wanted it dipped in the peppermint coating for a reason.
Ellie suggested we go out for ice cream after supper. It sounded like a good idea to me, especially since I couldn’t remember the last time I went out for any sort of frozen dairy dessert meaning it had been at least three or four days. It also fit in with my philosophy of giving Abbie only occasional treats as it would be her first bit of nutritionally-devoid sweet for the day besides those two jelly beans, the sucker, the two lifesavers, the Oreo that I think she snuck off the table, and a handful of chinchilla food pellets that I’m pretty sure she ate off the floor.
We loaded the kids into the car and drove to the nearby ice cream shop. It’s a small locally owned business meaning the parking is scarce, the owner is usually on premises, and they serve “slushes” instead of “Mister Misties.” Their trademark is lodging an animal cracker in everything they serve so you might have a giraffe standing atop your cone, an elephant stuck in your sundae, or a round and hollow cookie that I guess you could call a snake straddling your straw in your malt. Hopefully they just do that with the ice cream because I’m not sure that having a horse sticking out of your hot dog would be appetizing.
We went through the drive-through. We thought about going through the hassle of loading and unloading the kids into and out of the stroller so we could walk up to a window, but the stray raindrops hitting the windshield on the drive killed that idea deader than the Cubs’ playoff hopes. I wasn’t sure what to order when I pulled in, but when I saw a little girl toddling about with a baby cone, I knew that I’d get to enjoy my cone all to myself this time.
We handed her the baby cone in her car seat, and watched the fun. Actually, I watched the road while Ellie watched the fun and provided play-by-play. An Abbie ice cream cone was a foreign concept to her, so she grabbed the recognizable part, the animal cracker, and ate it first because she certainly knows what to do with a cracker. After mommy instructed her how to eat it, Abbie attacked the ice cream, putting it in her mouth. Not satisfied with licking it, she then tried grabbing the ice cream with her fingers and tried eating it like a soft, melty, slippery Tasteeo. That didn’t work, so she took another bite, and set the whole thing down to take a break. Ellie jumped to save the car’s interior, limiting the vanilla stains to her car seat, and Abbie held onto the cone for the rest of the drive.
When I pulled into our home, Abbie was a mess. She had ice cream smeared on her nose, her chin, and generally in an ellipse of about an inch radius around her mouth. The hand that held the cone was covered in melted ice cream, and vanilla streaks ran down that arm. I unbuckled her, careful to keep the ice cream melt isolated to machine washable surfaces, and set her off to meet mommy at the front door. I then grabbed the twins; Ian was mostly oblivious to fussy during the trip, but Tory seemed to watch his sister intently, perhaps anticipating the day when he might enjoy sweets on a half-dozen occasions in one day.
With everybody inside the house, we set about finishing our nightly chores. Ellie cleaned Abbie; I cleaned the car seat cover.
Ellie suggested we go out for ice cream after supper. It sounded like a good idea to me, especially since I couldn’t remember the last time I went out for any sort of frozen dairy dessert meaning it had been at least three or four days. It also fit in with my philosophy of giving Abbie only occasional treats as it would be her first bit of nutritionally-devoid sweet for the day besides those two jelly beans, the sucker, the two lifesavers, the Oreo that I think she snuck off the table, and a handful of chinchilla food pellets that I’m pretty sure she ate off the floor.
We loaded the kids into the car and drove to the nearby ice cream shop. It’s a small locally owned business meaning the parking is scarce, the owner is usually on premises, and they serve “slushes” instead of “Mister Misties.” Their trademark is lodging an animal cracker in everything they serve so you might have a giraffe standing atop your cone, an elephant stuck in your sundae, or a round and hollow cookie that I guess you could call a snake straddling your straw in your malt. Hopefully they just do that with the ice cream because I’m not sure that having a horse sticking out of your hot dog would be appetizing.
We went through the drive-through. We thought about going through the hassle of loading and unloading the kids into and out of the stroller so we could walk up to a window, but the stray raindrops hitting the windshield on the drive killed that idea deader than the Cubs’ playoff hopes. I wasn’t sure what to order when I pulled in, but when I saw a little girl toddling about with a baby cone, I knew that I’d get to enjoy my cone all to myself this time.
We handed her the baby cone in her car seat, and watched the fun. Actually, I watched the road while Ellie watched the fun and provided play-by-play. An Abbie ice cream cone was a foreign concept to her, so she grabbed the recognizable part, the animal cracker, and ate it first because she certainly knows what to do with a cracker. After mommy instructed her how to eat it, Abbie attacked the ice cream, putting it in her mouth. Not satisfied with licking it, she then tried grabbing the ice cream with her fingers and tried eating it like a soft, melty, slippery Tasteeo. That didn’t work, so she took another bite, and set the whole thing down to take a break. Ellie jumped to save the car’s interior, limiting the vanilla stains to her car seat, and Abbie held onto the cone for the rest of the drive.
When I pulled into our home, Abbie was a mess. She had ice cream smeared on her nose, her chin, and generally in an ellipse of about an inch radius around her mouth. The hand that held the cone was covered in melted ice cream, and vanilla streaks ran down that arm. I unbuckled her, careful to keep the ice cream melt isolated to machine washable surfaces, and set her off to meet mommy at the front door. I then grabbed the twins; Ian was mostly oblivious to fussy during the trip, but Tory seemed to watch his sister intently, perhaps anticipating the day when he might enjoy sweets on a half-dozen occasions in one day.
With everybody inside the house, we set about finishing our nightly chores. Ellie cleaned Abbie; I cleaned the car seat cover.
posted by Matt at
11:06 PM
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