That’s what the actual Father’s Day “celebration” was – just hanging out, eating at weird times, napping at weird times (well, one of us is all spoiled about – get this- sleeping when she is tired – what’ll she think of next?), mall-crawling/people-watching, buying a big-*ss flat screen tv and playing hangman on the iPad while one of us naps because This Is What We Go To Haagen Dasz For, Ice Cream Incidental. (Rockstar had like, 20% of his berry-float-smoothie-thing because apparently Father’s Day is not a festive enough occasion to imbibe more of what he reluctantly ordered. Well, he ate the fruit garnish. No he does not get that from me because I don’t like fruit and rarely eat it).
Hang on. My elder child is “normal”. He eats potato chips <gloat>.
And yes I know Wang Jia Sha Shanghainese has got bad reviews on Open Rice, but I booked there anyway because when you have a baby and youngish child and want to chill in HK (in itself oxymoronic), Super Duper Hot Restaurant becomes a lot less attractive when it is insanely booked up and crowded – it was a popular mall, it was Father’s Day. It’s like I’d be going so batshit crazy rushing everyone out the door to keep the appointment time (ended up moving the reso a whole hour), keeping people from bumping the high chair or the kids entertained while we wait for our table they could serve cardboard and I probably wouldn’t notice.
When we used to brainstorm with RMs over products, I would say things like, “Given current interest rate environment (and various other factors) these are the features you can afford in the structure/package” and then I realized it’s kind of the same here – think about it: You have a certain amount of time when the baby is not fussing or needing to eat or nap. You need to eat. You need to feel like you are kind of celebrating an important occasion. You need to not queue and queue and queue when you’d rather mall-crawl or play games on an iPad or buy a big-*ss tv. You need to feel halfway together by not running around too much, but you also don’t want a helper along. How do you cram as much of that in optimal combination in your “package”?
To me the “package” we were going to end up with was looking a lot like Who Cares What You Eat As Long As It’s Halfway Decent And You Have Minimal Stress? It’s supposed to be a happy occasion, not We Will Lose The Table In 5 Minutes Everybody MOVEMOVEMOVE Occasion.
We will do Super Duper Hot Restaurant when the kids are like, 20. But right now, Kings likes most Chinese food, and the obsessive-compulsive in me was all Aha! A Leafy Green I Can Easily Get Into Rockstar, Just In Case Broccoli 5 Days A Week Could Possibly Be Bad because on a good day Rockstar’ll polish off almost an entire dish of chopped up leafy greens by himself at this place, with some noodle soup thing both Mens eat…)
…Then sleepily nibbling a rice cracker towards the end of lunch (fed her before coming out)…
Then we went to church at 5pm. If they had children’s service at the 5 o’clock we would just always be at this one, but they already have two very active children’s services at the 9.30 and 11.30… (And they were giving out Triple Os burger coupons with Bible verse, for the Dads!) Then after service when it was getting dark we decided on super-hot curry for dinner. Rockstar had roti prata with cheese, sardines and chickpea curry – he has been known to describe hot shrimp, chickpea or assam fish curries as “desert”. Nor-mal. Normal Is As Normal Does. Nobody Realizes That Some People Expend Tremendous Energy Merely To Be Normal. If all else fails bung a bunch quotes with the word “normal” in it and hope no one notices.
So dinner led to us staying out even longer, just because we felt like it.
6 words that imply pure luxury when you have a baby.
Just. Because. We Felt. Like It.
Oh, the decadence.
Come Monday the baby’s nap times were pretty messed up (a.k.a. non-existent) which is why I had no time to write earlier, but well it was carpe diem weekend. Totally worth it.
So on Father’s Day after we wined and dined him with dishes I cannot pronounce but do a great job of ordering by pointing at pictures, Kings went shopping for a tv. It was a freaking brilliant day. Should probably do non-events to celebrate events more often.
Nice photo of the father with both Rockstars! Now that Miss Rockstar is older, all of you can go out more often. I assume she no longer cries when travelling in cars.
So when did Rockstar present his father with the gift that he made?
Rockstar was really going nuts in the morning and kept trying to wake the dad to read the book. He did everything short of kicking the dad out of bed so he would wake up and he could present it.
Little Miss doesn’t cry for the same reason in the car anymore. Not sure at what point it changed, but we’re pretty sure she cries (and she still does) because she doesn’t want to sit in the baby car seat esp as she sees the bro is not in one…