Banana Splits

The display case is filled with beautiful goodies; miniature tarts stuffed with glossy fruit, tall cakes decorated with tiny flowers, thick donuts covered in colorful icing and over-sized cookies littered with giant chocolate chunks.

Grandma orders her sundae and looks back at me.

You ready, babe?

I leave the case and join my grandmother at the ice cream counter.  

Can I have a banana split?

Her wide grin spreads slowly across her soft cheeks. Well, it is your birthday, so I guess you can have whatever you want.

The excitement rises in my cheeks.  Mom never lets me get banana splits.

One banana split for my oldest granddaughter.  She winks at me, pays the cashier and leads me to the small table along the wall.   We sit and wait for our gooey treats talking about my new shoes, Sunday school, Grandma's garden, baking pies, little siblings, anything that comes to mind really.

I love my Grandmother.  She always listens to my stories but never makes me feel silly or babyish.  Today is always our special day.  Every year, near my birthday, I get to spend one day all by myself with her.  That's not easy with so many cousins and siblings.  Seems there's always some other little kid around.  We shop for brand new shoes and get ice cream.  She does it with all her other grandchildren, but i just know she loves my day best.  I can feel it.

The man working at the shop delivers our ice cream.  My banana split is huge, I've never seen so much ice cream.

I thought maybe you were going to get that pink donut?

I shake my head.  No way.  It's too hot outside.  Ice cream is perfect.

She nods in agreement.

I take bite after bite, watching the ice cream begin to melt.  The three colored sauces swirling around one another, turning from their distinct hues to a brownish gray.  

Grandma finishes her sundae, How you doing?

I sigh, Getting really full.  But I keep eating.  Wasting food is not allowed, especially when I've chosen so extravegantly.

Babe, you don't have to finish it.  Just eat what you want.

I smile and put my spoon down.  Grandma really is the best.



This piece was written in response to a prompt at the Red Dress Club: write a piece, fiction or non-fiction, inspired by the delicious shot. Word limit is 600.

 

Like I said yesterday, I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts into stories lately.  As soon as I saw this picture, I knew what I wanted to write about, but I'm just not sure the story came across the way I wanted it to.  Constructive criticism welcome...

Baby Needs a New...First...Pair of Shoes

So, I finally caved...I've insisted all along, babies do not need shoes. And everything you read now is "babies learning to walk should go barefoot" or "bare feet give them more stability" or "let them feel the different textures of the floor, grass, sand, etc." Well know what they don't tell you...crawling babies work up friction on their poor little toes and they get blisters! So I bought Ainsley some shoes...I have a bunch of shoes for her, but at this point they are either too small or too big. So I went to Target and bought two pairs of $9.99 shoes. Grandma Livingston would scold me for this (For those of you not familiar with my grandmother, she was always adamant about a good pair of shoes. Just about every year for my birthday, my day with Grandma consisted of a new pair of "very good, supportive" shoes and ice cream. Grandma was very serious about shoes...and ice cream :)

So, hence the pictures of the new shoes. They are pretty cute though!

Last night Ainsley had a taste of a new delicacy...dog food. Yes, my child is obsessed with Gatsby's food and water bowls. I have always been able to pull her away at the first plunging of the chubby little hand into the pellets of dog morsels. However any of you that know my dog, know that he is a bit odd. Rather than just eat his food, he prefers to carry it piece by piece and leave it in strategic places all over the house...the living room carpet, the kitchen floor, under the table, down the hall...wherever he thinks it will come in handy later. So while I was trying to put together a new toy for Ainsley, she was constantly moving towards the dog food. And I was constantly pulling her back declaring a very firm "NO!" What I didn't account for was the piece of dog food sitting on the kitchen floor that I placed her right next to after about 15 of these "NO's!"

I look up at her and see her chewing with a horrid look on her face (because as fun as dog food looks, I assume it does not have the best taste based on the nasty smell), and I immediately know what she's done. My heart drops thinking "oh no, she's going to choke on dog food!" which is way worse than choking on regular food. So I scooped it out of her mouth and instead of thanking me for getting that nastiness out of her mouth, she proceeds to scream like I have just beat her. And nothing can console her, not even the new, semi-put-together toy.

Clif and I also installed Ainsley's new car seat in his car last night. We are headed to Raleigh this weekend to visit Aunt DeeDee and Uncle Mike. For any of you that don't know, car seats are pretty much a nightmare to install. I'm not sure why it's so difficult but it is. And Clif and I have a conspiracy theory about them. The car seat manufactures and the inventor of the mini van are in cahoots...yes it's true...car seats do not fit correctly in any regular car or SUV. You must have the biggest, clunkiest, gas-guzzlingist vehicle around. It's a conspiracy to have us all driving mini-vans...I'm refusing as long a possible. Right now in Clif's pathfinder, which is not a small SUV, the front seat must be all the way up. No normal sized adult could possibly be comfortable in that seat for any length of time.

So Clif installed the car seat, but because she's still rear-facing, it's not installed at the correct 45 degree angle, so we have to take it out and shove this foam thing under the front of it. This foam thing is sold at Babies R Us in the car seat isle. It is basically a triangular swimming noodle. I say, let's just buy a few noodles, but right there on the box it has a picture of a swimming noodle with a big red X over it stating "This is NOT safe." So even though I know this is a gimmick, what can you do? You don't want to regret it after an accident. So you pay 10 bucks for the "modified" triangular noodle. They have us hook line and sinker.

Well, I guess it's just all part of the job.