Adventures in Eating

So we finally got the green light from the advice nurse to try solids. Callie hadn't been sleeping well for quite some time. We assumed it was teething, but her two bottom teeth are out (and totally adorable I might add), so we started looking to other possibilities. She had hit all the milestones that they say mean they are ready for solids: can sit up while supported, can hold up their head and neck and are interested in food. The first one was the one that was plaguing us for a while. I had been trying to get her to sit up at playdates and at home, which was pretty funny, actually, because she would just start to fall over in all different directions. And then we go to our music class on friday and bam! She sees all the other kids sitting and she gets it. So there you go, peer pressure can be a good thing! I called the advice nurse just to get a second opinion and she said it sounded like she was ready. Hallelujah! I was so excited! I was just so ready for something new. We had definitely been in a rut. I was at Bye Bye Baby, that store is the devil by the way, and spied some baby cereal, so I bought it. I didn't really look at it, I just tossed it in the cart because Callie was melting down and I had to get moving. I didn't notice that it was Gerber. Ugh. Also known as Nestle. I do my best to avoid buying Nestle products. To find out why, check this out. I didn't notice it was gerber until after I gave some to Callie and she also is not a fan of Nestle! She hated it! And I couldn't blame her. I took a whiff and it smelled awful! Then I looked at the small print on the label and was mad at myself for not looking more carefully. Oh well. She spent most of the meal putting her fingers in the spoon, she clearly wanted to do it herself! Oh, the teenage years are going to be interesting with two strong willed women in the house. Poor Bill! She grabbed the cereal and rubbed it on her face for a little baby facial and then grabbed her legs so she successfully bathed herself the cereal. Lovely. Smelly sticky baby. But I didn't let myself get discouraged. I didn't want to force her into anything. We certainly don't want an aversion to food this early on. So I cleaned her up and called it a day.
Yesterday it was a totally different situation. I picked up some new baby cereal made by Earth's Best. It smelled much better than the Gerber stuff. We still didn't have a high chair so I just sat her on my lap and gave it a whirl. She was all over it! She was just sucking it down.

I was so excited, like really excited. It kind of surprised me how elated I had become. I was so proud of her, I was proud of us! We did it! We hit a major milestone. It really made me realize how quickly things are progressing now. I was positively beaming. And then...

she started screaming her head off because there was no more!
The next day I decided to try to give her a bit more than the day before. It wasn't going quite as well as yesterday. And then I figured out why. A friend had dropped off their booster seat since their kids had outgrown it. And Callie was just absolutely hating it. She kept drawing up her knees trying to kick up at the tray. So of course in the process, all the cereal was just sliding out of her mouth onto the bib, her clothes and her neck. Once I took her out of the seat and sat her on my lap we were in business.
Next week we are going to try to move on to some squash that Grandma Tere lovingly grew in her garden, cooked and pureed for us. It should be interesting and very colorful!

Yet Another Breastfeeding v. Formula Controversy

Seems like there is a new one every week! Ah, such a faded memory, the comments by Giselle that every mother should be forced to breastfeed for 6 months. The newest controversy? An Old Navy onesie. That's right a teeny tiny piece of pun inspired baby clothing.

So that's it. That's what started the constantly renewed fervor of breast v. bottle. It seems never ending. The constant guilt messages that are sent about using formula. And I have to wonder, how effective is the use of guilt? When you are first pregnant, the question you hear EVERYWHERE at every turn, at every doctor's appointment: "Are you smoking?" It was totally overwhelming to me. I felt like screaming, "For the umpteenth time, NO!" Now I understand why guilt is used with an issue of a pregnant mom smoking. To say the impact on the fetus is bad is the understatement of the century.
But where is an acceptable line for making new mothers feel guilty? And where are the messages coming from? In terms of breastfeeding, it seems like you can't go on a website where it is all about breastfeeding and how bad formula is. Sure, I'm down with it, I'm drinking the kool aid. I felt horribly guilt on that one night we had to give Callie formula. I cried and cried. I felt like a failure. And all those familiar phrases run through your mind "What is wrong with me that I can't do this for my daughter?" We searched the internet for instructions on how to make the right amount of formula and guess what we found "all children should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life." Awesome. Thanks.
The early days with breastfeeding Callie were tough to say the least. I didn't want to call a lactation consultant. Why? I don't know. It felt intimidating. Weren't they just going to tell me the same things I'd been reading. I came across a mommy blogger who met with a LC who told her "Breastfeeding isn't hard. You must be doing it wrong." So its no wonder that more moms said they would rather get advice from friends and family members than breastfeeding professionals. And I have to say I definitely fell into that category. When I was still pregnant, I emailed my friends that were moms and asked for advice on what types of things were truly needed. We didn't want to clutter up the house needlessly, since it seems to happen anyway! My very good friend Seeta told me, "Breastfeeding is hard. Try not to give up. The payout is worth it." I held onto those words so tightly in the first few months. If those words had been a teddy bear, it would have been in tatters. That was the first time I had heard those words, that breastfeeding is hard. Pregnant/new moms don't hear that enough. It is hard! It is frustrating and painful on top of everything. We are already judging ourselves at an impossible level, who needs a professional to do it for us too?
Back to the onesie. I feel incredibly blessed that I have enough of a milk supply for my girl. But not everyone is so blessed. Some women just don't have a good supply. Some are just too frustrated. And you know what? If mom is stressed or unhappy, everyone is. So something must be said that if breastfeeding is just too much, formula is an option. If you venture out into the blogosphere on the topic of BF, you will meet some interesting characters. Some that say formula companies are tantamount to tobacco companies. Come on now. Now I know there is some junky stuff in formula, but come on! And of course the other formula news item was Similac's nasty recall last week. Gross to be sure, but at least the stuff is coming off the shelves and not going into babies tummies. And it seems that it came from the company itself, not from some outside pressure. Companies like Similac and Enfamil are worth billions. There has been a lot of pressure on these companies of late for all the "freebies" they give moms when they leave the hospital. Breastfeeding activists say it is setting new moms up for failure. I.e. giving up on breastfeeding and going to the bottle. Maybe if moms were allowed to stay in the hospital longer with more access to helpful LCs, it might be different. We were very lucky. We had a great LC that came to see us and was very helpful. And she actually stayed as long as we needed her, she didn't just rush out and mark an x on a chart that said "helped new mom breastfeed at 11am." Because you know what? It is about not just that one feeding but all the feedings afterwards. Because when you go home, whether we like it or not, we are on our own.
Back to the onesie. Does Nestle (Similac) need help promoting formula? Absolutely not. Do you want to see the stack of free formula I get in the mail every week and the 3 giant cans of formula that they sent us home from the hospital with? But do moms who can't/choose not to breastfeed need support? You're damned right they do. Judgement doesn't help, because lord knows we do enough of it ourselves. So back off, crazies. Stop the boycott of Old Navy, stop the letter writing campaign and give some moms a cute onesie to put on their kid. And by the way, the whole point of the onesie is it was a formula one car racing pun. Seems like the whole world missed that one.

There I was, Blogging Away When...

The cat waltzed into the dining room meowing. I had just put Callie down for a nap so I was already quietyly scolding dear Mr. Sprite about the possibility of waking her up when I heard a small thud on the floor and saw what he had brought for me.

Ugh. The poor bird was still very much alive despite having been carried around in my cat's mouth. One of its wings seemed pretty gimpy, but beyond that he seemed to be fine, albeit pretty fucking scared out of its mind! Now, I know what to do when my cat brings in dead animals, which doesn't happen very often, he usually keeps his kills to himself. But a live one? That was new territory. By the time I called Bill for some advice, Milo took an active interest in the freaked out bird in the dining room. Can't blame the guy, certainly isn't an everyday occurrence. So now I was on the phone and trying to keep Milo away from the bird at the same time. So I gathered up my poor little friend in an old tshirt and put him outside near our buddha statue and kept the cat and the dog inside for the time being. Hopefully he is well enough to hop/fly to his next destination whatever that may be.

While Callie Sleeps

Sometimes it is all so amazing. Sometimes I just stare at Callie and my mind gets blown. I try to put it all together. The fact that I grew her in my belly is just so crazy! I watch her chest rise and fall and think, that heart is beating because we wanted a family. We wanted to see the world through her new eyes. That heart was beating inside my body before she met the world. I look at her little fingers and toes curling and uncurling. I see your nose twitch. I stare at her and think, you are us. You are love and you are loved. You are beauty. You are simplicity. You are amazing. You are mine. I am yours. I look at her and I just feel like I will burst.

Paris Part 5: Last Day in Paris

This was our last real day in Paris. Hard to believe our week was almost over! We had another late start because Callie had another rough night.

Grandma and Callie having fun before we left for the day
But we opted to try to make it out to Versailles anyway. There had been some transit delays earlier in the morning so we had to come up with some backup ways to get there. We got our tickets and Bill was in absolute heaven navigating this train and that metro to get us there.

Callie gets to experience the train for the first time!
We got to Versailles and it was packed! Number one it was saturday, but there also seemed to be some sort of festival going on. We were definitely glad to have the Bob Stroller on those extra large cobblestones. We made our way up the street to the chateau. The sight of the place is always so shocking.

So much gold!
Bill and Mom got in line to get our tickets, so Callie and I hung out outside the gates and did some people watching. They came back after a while and we found out we couldn't take the stroller inside because there are stairs, so we checked the Bob and went inside. It was so gorgeous inside. The last time Bill and I were here the chateau was closed because they were fixing up the Hall of Mirrors so this was new for all of us. The only downside was some of the rooms were very narrow (not the Hall of Mirrors!) so it was pretty packed at certain points, especially trying to get around the tour groups. And we had an altercation in one of the rooms with a possibly rude, maybe just oblivious Frenchman.

Callie had passed out hard in the begining of the tour so Bill had her on his shoulder. This guy comes barreling past me knocking into me and nearly knocks me over. I try my best to keep him from knocking into Callie and Bill but he does anyway. I had given a loud "Geez!" so Bill knew he was coming. He runs into Callie and Bill. Since I was behind them, from my perspective Bill just somewhat roughly poked the guy in the back. The guy turns around quickly and sees a sleeping baby on Bill and barely musters a meek "Pardon." I was so mad! I found out later in talking to Bill about it that Bill had chosen a specific place to poke the guy, as in using a pressure point to inflict just enough pain to make him notice. That made me feel better:) We finally made it into the Hall of Mirrors and it was stunning!





We finished our tour and headed outside to get a picture in front of the gate which was tougher than we thought it would be!


We were competing with this young mom who was practically doing a photo shoot with her camera in front of the gates. Just when we thought "Ok! Lets go, it is clear!" A big tour group who's members were totally oblivious to everyone else walked in front of us.

Some artsy shots by Bill of the chateau





Return of the sock monkey!

After we were done we walked around Verailles with Callie before heading back to Paris.

We stopped at a little cafe before heading back to the train.



Grandma Tere and Callie enjoy watching the scooters go by while comparing and contrasting Paris with Italy.

"What's that daddy? I want it!!"

Sorry Kiddo.



Okay Mom, how about you hand over your smoothie?
After we enjoyed our drinks or just kept Callie away from them long enough to slurp them down, we headed back to Paris for our last meal in Paris. We had played around with the idea of eating in Versailles, but we opted to return to the restaurant we went for our first dinner in Paris. So with Triadou Haussman, it began and ended. It was at Triadou that I first tried onion soup and thought "Hey this stuff is actually really tasty!" not knowing that it was just Triadou's soup that was so good, not necessarily onion soup itself! We dropped off the stroller and walked down to the restaurant.

Although along the way, sock monkey made a new friend:

This rooster is perched outside a bottom floor window across from the train station.
Anyhoo, we had an amazing meal! Their meat was absolutely incredible and we enjoyed a really nice bottle of wine.

Callie started fussing pretty loudly, so mom took her for a walk so I could eat my meal and oh my lordy it was amazing!
Then we ordered dessert: creme brulee, chocolate crepes and profiteroles. So delicious, I can't quite describe it!

Did you know Creme Brulee is translated as "Burned Cream" ? Yumm....

Bill ordered some Grand Marnier after dinner and got a *very* healthy pour!
Callie was sufficiently tired so we walked back to the apartment. By this time, Mom and I realized just how much of a healthy pour that drink was, when Bill exclaimed, "Take a picture!" All I could mutter was "Bill, no." But there was no stopping him now!

We laughed about it all the way back to apartment.

We spent the remainder of the night packing up for our return home. Thank god my mom was there to hold/entertain Callie while we got everything packed up. I stayed up almost all night trying to get at least 2 ounces of milk pumped for the flight, in case Callie's ears had trouble on our descent. Ends up I should have just stayed up all night, not going to bed at 4am like I did. Because Bill and I slept through our alarm. Of course Callie chose that as her first night to sleep more than 2 hours at a time! Mom knocked on our door but no one woke up, not even Callie! So she started doing dishes loudly. Thank god she did, otherwise, who knows when we would've woken up. Our taxi was scheduled to pick us up at 6am and it was 6:15. Ugh. Bill got dressed in a hurry to see if there was any chance they had waiter. Nope. He came back up and in the remaining 10 minutes that he was gone we were ready. No shower, but we opted for the hippy shower instead. Little water, little deoderant and out the door. Luckily, our apartment was across the street from a hotel and the concierge was nice enough to call 2 taxis for us. We still managed to get to the airport with plenty of time to eat and do some last minute shopping. I have always loved the book The Little Prince and this store had a ton of stuff! So I picked up a couple of things for Callie when she is older: a music box and a set of dominoes. I also stumbled across a Paris sippy cup. I couldn't help myself. We had talked several times over the course of the week how much Callie is going to love eating and using a sippy cup and had joked that if we found a Paris sippy cup we would have to buy it. So there you have it...We boarded our plane after I bought a couple of extra diapers. None of our seats were together on the plane so we had to do some shuffling around and asking people if they wouldn't mind trading seats to where at least Bill and I were sitting together. Callie was fantastic on the plane! Apparently she saved up all of her sleep for the plane. She completely slept through the hour delay on the plane, and the takeoff itself as well as another 4 hours of so! She was a bit fussy in the middle of the flight, so we just walked her around the plane and I think we met every grandma on the plane! They all fell instantly in love with her. They all told us how good she was being and how beautiful she was. We knew which ones were French. For some reason, we noticed this week, that they all make the same sounds to babies. First they click their tongue at her and then say "Cuckoo Cuckoo." We also met some Italian grandmothers as well. As we got closer and closer to our descent, we started to prepare for the coming onslaught. We had been asking the flight attendants all day for ice and adding it to our ziplock bag that held those precious 2.5 ounces of milk to help her ears even out. So Bill got the bottle ready while I held/bounced Callie. There was a girl next to us from Spain that started playing peek a boo with Callie and she was hooked! So Callie laughed and giggled the whole way down to SFO! No milk needed! It was hysterical! Once we landed we waited for everyone else to get off the plane so we could get all of our stuff together again without getting in anyone's way. While Bill got all of our bags together, I stood up with Callie so she could see all the people leaving. She was in heaven and we got to see all the grandmas again. Soon we were out of the plane and going through customs. Bill was a bit more specific on the customs form than I am sure they are used to. How often do you think they see "Sippy Cup" written on a declarations form? Not often I'd wager! So there it is, the end of our trip. I am going to try to do a reflections kind of blog in the next few days, so stay tuned.

Paris Part 4: Friday

Callie had another rough night. It seems her teething is in full effect. She was waking up every 1/2 hour to an hour. She also was very gassy, so we tried giving her some gripe water and it helped a bit although she was quite perplexed by the sensation that ginger, water and fennel provided. I was soooo close to getting her to sleep and it looked like it was going to be a sound sleep around 7am as Bill was getting ready to go to work, when all of a sudden the alarm clock started blaring. Curses! I was pretty darn close to just ripping it out of the wall and tossing it across the room. But of course I didn't. I had to turn on the light to figure out how to turn it off. As a result, Baby Girl was wide awake. I finally gave up around 11:30am, even though I had only gotten a grand total of 3 hours of sleep. We decided to take it easy because I was feeling pretty ill. You know how when you haven't slept enough that you feel like you're going to puke? That's where I was. No fun.
So Mom, Callie and I set out for a mellow day. I was determined to make sure that my mom saw Notre Dame before she left Paris. We loaded up the stroller into the elevator. Mom noticed that there was only a down arrow on the elevator on our floor even though there are 6 floors. So of course she pushed 6. Baaaad idea. Floor 6 is a maintenance floor. We got to the sixth floor and realized what it was and pressed the 0 floor button to go back to the ground floor. But nooo go. The elevator was kaput. So we got out on the the sixth floor hoping that we could take the stairs down one floor and get to the right spot. But it appeared to be a staircase just for maintenance and of course every door was locked. I had Callie and the diaper bag, while Mom was lugging the crazy heavy stroller down 6 flights of stairs. We got down to the bottom floor and for a moment I thought we were going to be locked inside, but managed to finagle the door open. So that was an interesting way to start the day. We stopped at Midore for some breakfast. I opted for water and a mini bagette to settle my stomach. Then we caught our bus to Notre Dame.
It was a lovely sight!

Callie was calm all the way until, you guessed it, the moment we walked into the ever so quiet cathedral. Fantastic. She started sneezing, I think because of the dusty smell inside. I kept her calm enough to get through the church quickly and out we went. I was hoping to get my mom to climb the steps to the top to see the view, but the line was crazy long, so we opted to sit at a cafe and get crepes and feed Callie as she was getting pissed. We hit up some souveneir shops and walked down to the Bastille. I picked up a Tour de France onesie for Callie, because I knew her daddy would want her to have one:) Then we walked back, but we didn't really realize just how far we had walked. We got all turned around. We just wanted to find our way back to ND to get our bus. We took out our map and this very nice lady in a Washington Redskins tshirt asked us in a heavy french accent if we needed help. It was so nice! We found our way back to a bus that would get us back to our area. Some very nice folks offered their seats to me. I must have looked totally exhausted with Callie dead asleep on me in the ergo. We made it back and waited for Bill to come home.
Because tonight was date night! Hooray! I was definitely in dire need of a break from Callie. We found this really nice restaurant called Le Grand Cafe de Capuccin. It was all decorated in Art Deco stuff. Gorgeous! It was a very nice meal. I decided to give onion soup one more try, as I had read online that this place had a good one. But it was mostly meh. We had a lovely bottle of Rhone wine and a great meal.

Bill got a lime sherbet for desert with a curious addition.

That's right. Vodka.



I had a very good creme brulee. After dinner we decided to take the metro to the Arc of the Triumph since we hadn't been there yet. We couldn't quite figure out the map, so Bill went up to the ticket agent and asked for tickets to the Arc of Triumph. Ends up there are 2 Arcs and the they gave us the ticket to the wrong one. So we ended up at The Grand Arc. Which is kind of this weird square arc.

Nearby we discovered a sculpture of a very life like giant thumb. Very odd. We were determined to get to the other Arc so we got a taxi. Now here is where it gets interesting. The taxi driver dropped us off in front of the middle of the Arc near the eternal flame.

We did wonder why no one else was there.

Then suddenly two police officers came our way and they told us fairly aggressively that the Arc was closed and we had to leave. Okey dokey, so sweat. Or not...We went into the subterranean exit, which is normally the way you get out. But we found ourselves faced with two locked doors.

Door # 1

Door #2
So there was only one other way to get across the street. Run across some of the scariest traffic I've ever seen. If you've ever been to the Arc you know that it is a gigantic roundabout with about 5 lanes of traffic going pretty darn fast. So we walk out and try to find an opening to no avail. Then our friends the police officers return telling us it is forbidden to be at the arc. Uh huh. Thanks. Then they say "you must cross now!" I was pretty much scared shitless at this point as motorcycles, scooters, taxis and cars are zooming by with very few gaps. The police officers wait about 10 seconds and ask "Do you want help crossing the street?" As if we are babies. Of course we say yes. So the cops just walk out into the traffic and each lane of traffic swerves to avoid them. No one stops mind you. So we follow them most of the way and then dash across the rest of the roundabout. Then we grabbed a taxi back to the apartment, very glad to have survived our date night.

Videos From Paris

This is a video that Bill took of us on the carosel. When I was watching later that night I actually said outloud "Well this is a boring video." It was like Bill heard me because it suddenly got unboring. So do yourself a favor and watch the whole thing.


The lights of the Eiffel Tower

Paris Part 3: Wednesday and Thursday

Wednesday was a very late start. Miss Callie was a big ole mess! We really didn't get going until about 4 oclock in the afternoon when all was said and done. We stopped for lunch at a cafe. I decided to give onion soup another go and was pretty disappointed. Oh well.

Bill's first beer of the trip. So hard to say no to such good/cheap wine!
It was raining off and on so we decided to make it a shopping day. We had heard that there were some great kids' stores in the area so that's what we did. We got her some socks since it was so cold and we really hadn't brought any. We also found some really cute stuffed animals. We thought it would be fun for her to have a pretty unique toy so we found this really cute stuffed animal that looks like a chicken super hero! On the back it says "Juliette la poulette marquee." And Callie looooves it!

Say Bon Jour to Juliette!
We also stopped in at a bakery. I got a pistachio macaroon and mom got a devilish chocolate eclaire. It was ridiculously good!

Callie is definitely eyeing my Pistache Macaron
We also stopped at Printemps which is a super crazy department store for people who have money to burn. Each section had 6 floors and they carried crazy brands like Burberry, Fendi, etc. Needless to say we didn't buy anything:) Before we left we wanted to change Callie so we asked where the bathroom was. They pointed the way, but when we got there we had to pay for it! And since we were changing her we got to deluxe room with changing pad. And for that pleasure we had to pay 3 euros! Oh well.
At this point was back was really hurting and everyone else wanted to sit for a while as well, so we found a table at Cafe de la Paix across from the Opera House.

Once again I opted for the soup and it was so-so.

Callie was more interested in the soup than I was!
I had to nurse Callie on the terrace with the nursing cover but she sure didn't make it easy. She kept trying to give everyone a free show of my boobs. Its nice that she likes them so much, but come on girl! So Bill helped by continuously re-covering me. After dinner we walked over to the Opera House to take pictures of my mom and the sock monkey.

Its a long story, but mom and her brother have a duel going on. They each take pictures of the sock monkey in different places and email them to each other. I'm pretty sure she wins with the sock monkey in France!

After that we walked home and painstakingly got Callie to sleep.

Thursday
Today Bill had one of his two work days so it was just us girls! Poor Bill only got about 4 hours asleep when all was said and done. Today we were heading to Jardin du Luxembourg. We had read that it is Paris' most popular park and they had a lot of fun things for kids to do. We got an earlier start then yesterday but that isn't saying much:) We successfully navigated the bus system and made it to our destination.

Callie on the bus
The bus tickets are pretty funny. It costs 1.80 and it is good for as far as you can get in 90 minutes.

The gardens were gorgeous! Before we explored them we thought it best we stop for food first. There was a really cute cafe near the gardens so we sat down. It became clear there was only one poor soul for alllll the gazillion tables. They also had a Take Away Bar so mom went up to ask for 3 things: cafe au lait, club sandwich and some fries for her. Apparently that was too much, because that was exactly what the guy said to her! Then he told her to sit down and a waiter would come to us. Nice dude. We waited longer and finally the waiter did come our way. We tried to order the club sandwich but he said "No sandwiches today. Bread is bad today." Oooh kay. So Cafe Au lait. Mom tried to get a cappuccino but he said it was too busy for them to make a good one, so 2 cafe aulaits. It was so odd it was hilarious! So all day we kept saying "Bread bad today."
After we ate we explored the gardens.

Medici Fountain

Sculptures
It just went on and on! Callie got to see some ponies and a huge playground. We also stumbled onto a bocce ball court, although they called it croquet.

Mmmmhmmm. Whatever. There were no mallets.
We were about to leave when we were hit with a huge downpour! Everyone went running for cover under the gazebo, so there we all were Parisians and tourists alike all huddled together to wait out the storm.

Run for Cover!

View of Callie from above the stroller:)

Making fun out of being stuck in the rain

Smile!

Finally it stopped and we went on our way. I had read online about a place nearby that was famous for their onion soup called Boullion Racine. So on we went to find it. We found it at last and guess what? They had no onion soup! Curses! So we had a nice glass of wine instead. We had passed by a cute spot called the Creperie Cafe so we went there. The waiter was hysterical. We was totally amazed by our gigantic stroller and sat us in the back so we would have plenty of room. Callie was starting to get grumpy so everytime the poor guy came up to her she started screaming. We got our crepes and drinks and after I finished I decided to go change her in the restroom downstairs. The downstairs was like a bomb shelter. Once I changed her I tried to open the door to no avail. We were locked in and no way to get out. It was pretty freaky. I knew I was so far downstairs that I couldn't really yell for help. As I was about to kick the shit out of the door I heard voices. A nice woman tried to get me out, but the lock was jammed. Enter nice/funny waiter guy. After a few minutes he was successful. The woman was so happy when it opened and even more relieved when she saw Callie. Who of course took one look at our waiter who had just rescued us and started screaming again! I have never seen her do this to anyone in particular before! We got cleaned up and left the cafe and she started in on the poor guy again! He yelled to us as we left "Tell her goodbye for me!" so she wouldn't start crying again.
We caught our bus back and headed back home. We had another long night with Miss Callie. She was all worked up.