A quick catch up post:
- Noah’s decided not to sleep between 1 and 4 in the morning. Or at least he had; he may be coming out of it (fingers crossed!). He was also nursing ravenously at 10:30-11:15. And at 5:30. This did not leave me many hours of sleep and I have been woefully sleep deprived which has made regular old life a lot harder. On the weirdly plus-side of things, when he is ready to go to sleep (after nurse and walk and such), he now sometimes lies down in his crib and… goes to sleep. Such a big boy. Of course now that I’ve said that he won’t do it again until he’s 20.
- The week was crazy! Crazy! If you’ve ever worked as a nanny or babysitter and had a crazy day, that was my week except I never got to leave. Carl was doing a weird work downtown all day/at home ’til 2 am thing. Monday I think was normal ish, but Tuesday we had playgroup and then swim lessons; Wed I went downtown in the pouring rain on the subway (I thought I was too tired to drive but I regretted it) to do therapy with Anna, baby in tow, and we had many public adventures. Thursday I washed the floors the hands and knees way during Noah’s nap, then we had a pool get together that was way fun. Then we came back and played and read and dinner and everything and then he went to bed (luckily) and tired I… smashed a bottle of balsamic vinegar all over the kitchen floor. Grr.
So yesterday I’d tried to keep the day clearer but got sucked into lunch out and then I decided since I was out I might as well do a few errands before coming home and collapsing. Noah was a trooper, putting up with lunch in a restaurant and then looking for a booster seat and hitting the grocery store. So our reward in sight, a few hours at home playing, I turned on the radio in the car… to hear that the GO trains were all cancelled because of a derailment. So I got home, put the groceries away, called Carl, and headed downtown to pick him up because I’m nice. (The subway was working but packed.) Unfortunately that pushed Noah way past his tolerance for sitting and we had a sad 20 minutes before he fell asleep. It was good he did ’cause I made the mistake of taking Lakeshore through the downtown core and it took 27 (!!!) minutes to get from Jarvis to York. (that’s like, 10 blocks)
Of course that screwed up Noah’s sleep and he was up ’til 10:30.
But we did stop for dinner at Celine’s Garden, which is just a couple blocks from Carl’s and my old workplace. We used to eat there pretty much every Friday when we worked together - it’s a Chinese-Canadian restaurant, the unpretentious kind where you /can/ get red sauce, although some of their dishes are much less mall-steam-tray type Chinese. Basically you & your date can get stuffed and even have a beer (one of four kinds that they offer) for $20, and they have a TV and have game shows on while you wait for your workaholic… oh wait. Anyways. Then when he still worked near there I’d meet him after my work, and then because it’s not that far from the base of the DVP, we still met there even after he changed jobs. So for like, I don’t know, 8 or 9 years we ate there quite a lot. And were good tippers.
And I almost always ate the same thing which was rice noodles with a black bean sauce, although sometimes I’d have the vegetarian version and then once Lyr’s edict came off, the beef. I am not always a creature of such habit but at Celine’s I was, although I’d sometimes vary it by getting appetizers and then basically just taking the entree home.
Post-Emily I think we ate there once and it was weird because I’d pictured taking Emily there to our haunt, and of course, did not happen.
So we took Noah there and it was trippy, in a nostalgia, a bit sad, and fun way. And sure enough, when Daisy came to take our order she looked at me and said “beef and black bean sauce on rice noodles and a gingerale.”
Got it in one. Now that’s a neighbourhood joint.
Noah liked the rice noodles, sucked clean of the sauce. He also ate steamed rice, and some of the mango from Carl’s dish. And I’d bought some jarred Heinz baby food at the drug store across the street, since I hadn’t thought to throw dinner in the car as I didn’t expect to get caught on Lakeshore for a half an hour and then on Front for 20 minutes (why did we meet at Union, the more fool us). But Noah categorically refused the chicken. He would eat the sweet potato but I’d mixed half of it with some of the chicken in an attempt to make it palatable.
But no dice. He may have developed a taste for real food already. Go him. Of course in a few years he’ll probably be begging me for Kraft Dinner.
