“What’re we doing today?”
“I dunno.”
“Everyone we know is out of town…Well, to be more exact, all of Sophia’s friends are out of town.”
For a couple of seconds we contemplated going to Disneyland, but today was a blocked out day for the Annual Pass holders (like us), so we decided to do other touristy things instead.
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We started off in Pasadena, where we had breakfast at Mi Piace, which has a very, very good brunch. I was biased against Mi Piace for the first several years we were here, because we went to the one in Burbank a couple of times with Darin’s friends and every time we went something horrible went wrong. The Pasadena location, however, has always been very, very good to us.
We hit the Barnes and Noble for an hour of so of story reading time (and Darin went nuts buying books, something he hasn’t done for a long stretch—yes, we’re about to move, but hey, someone else will be carrying the boxes), and then we hit the road.
“How about we go to Malibu?” Darin said.
I said that was fine with me. Probably not too many Malibu driving trips on the agenda in the near future.
There was terrible traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway, but who cared: it wasn’t like we were trying to get anywhere, and the kids were asleep anyhow. I looked out at the beach as we drove.
“We never took them to the beach!” I wailed.
“Hon, we’re still going to be in California. It’ll be the same ocean even.”
Okay, so I’ve been freaking out about the little things.
We parked in Santa Monica and decided to get some lunch at Il Fornaio. I wasn’t terribly hungry, so I just had soup. Darin had a small plate of ravioli. Sophia ate nothing. Simon ate almost an entire plate of pasta with cheese. Every stereotype I’ve ever heard about the differences in eating between boys and girls…well, let’s just say the kids aren’t dispelling them right now.
Then we got very touristy and did something Darin and I have never done, with or without kids.
The Santa Monica Pier is a boardwalk filled with junky food (cotton candy and churros), junky clothing (does anyone except anorexic fifteen-year-olds wear those clothes?), games where you win gigantic stuffed animals, and carnival rides, including a pretty big roller coaster. But everything was for the taller end of the human spectrum.
We thought we were going to get out of there scott-free, until we discovered the kids’ part of the boardwalk: rides just for the 48-inch and under set. You tell me if Sophia wanted to go on rides and whether she enjoyed any second of it:
Crying. Hysteria. “I don’t want to leave.”
Daddy took Sophia down to the beach, where she could kick off her sandals and run free:
(Poor Simon. Trapped in the stroller. Although if the past few days give any indication, he’ll be running on that beach with Fia in less than a week.)
When it was time to leave the beach…Crying. Hysteria. “I don’t want to leave.”
We were dragging her off the pier when we discovered the Carousel. Oh, can’t resist a carousel. Mommy and Daughter rode the Carousel twice. Before the second ride I explained that this was the last time. At the end of the second ride, Sophia began to negotiate for “just one more ride.” We said no. Crying. Hysteria. Etc.
By now Sophia was finally hungry and wanted chicken. More specifically, she wanted chicken with peapods, which is her favorite dish at PF Chang’s. So we found a Chinese restaurant.
“Does she eat Chinese food?” the waitress asked.
“In fact, she’s why we’re here,” Darin said.
Sophia ate—and, to no one’s surprise, so did Simon—and then we headed home. Amazingly, none of us (including parents) fell asleep in the car. The kids fussed a little about going to bed, but it was strictly pro forma fussing.
Following my memories of childhood and that of our children I have ever more become conscious of how short a time childhood is.
I remember talking to youngest son eye to eye one day and it seems that the next day I started to talk to him and was looking him in the beltbuckle.
How precious, how short. Yet we crammed what was seemingly a lifetime into it while we were young.