this weekend

mm, potato pancakes with applesauce and lingonberry

Sat was a girls day out in the city. I took Emma to look at books at Barnes and Noble and Books of Wonder. I found such lovely books and just could spend hours discovering more books. Emma actually behaved at Barnes. They have an area where parents sit with their children to read books and I have always wanted to share that moment with Emma but she is always running around like a crazy chicken. Parents tend to give me the stink eye when they see how unruly she can be. I think part of the reason people dont understand is that Emma looks like she could be a 4 year old. She is freakishly tall, yet she just turned two. She cannot control herself like other kids her height. I do notice very small improvements on her behavior but she really just has ants in her pants. BUT Saturday she was calm with me, she didn't stray too far and was picking out books that recognized from her own library. She would bring them to the circle and sit and read. I could tell she was getting sleepy so I went to Books of Wonder hoping she would fall asleep on the 10 mn walk over there. Alas she loves people watching and the energy of the city got to her. She was wide awake and her true ninja color came out. She was super cranky and I was only able to stay for 15mns. She of course passed out on the car ride back.
Anyway on Sunday her papa was back and she starting acting out. She was being super silly and all wound up. I noticed that when it was just us two she was rather well behaved but once Ant came back in the picture, she just let loose! I think she must feel safer when we are both in her environment. I don't know, I just know that it was very obvious how differently she was acting when it was three vs two.
Since we had Monday off, we went back into the city and we took her to the Museum of Natural History. It was a mob scene! Apparently all other NY parents decided to take their kids to the museum. While Ant waited in line, which took 30mns to get through, I was with Emma. She tried really hard to be good but those jimmy legs took over. That and doing anything right before nap time is just a bad idea. By the time we got in she was super cranky and unexpectedly freaked out by all the stuffed creatures. It took her about 40mns to calm down. She was screaming like a banshee at the sight of the giant blue whale. She eventually calmed down and had a great time. She even passed out on our way to pick up Ant's eyeglasses so we decided to take advantage of her sleeping to visit one of our favorite places in the city, Loreli and have some brat and beer. It was nice.