We went out with friends for dim sum today. It was really good. And much cheaper than NYC. I was digging out cash for the bill when my friend said “it’s $25.” I only had $10, which I handed over and told her I would run over to the ATM. She looked confused and said “I meant $25 total.” Wow.
Anyway, I had some very tasty things that I don’t know the names of. My daughter had noodles, which are her carbohydrate BFF. She figured out how to climb out of the highchair. Meal over.
We dragged ourselves and the assembly of kids with us down to the Complex Desjardins (mostly like a mall, with a really big atrium), which had a Christmas Village set up inside the lower level. It’s pretty nice. It has a play area with squishy shapes for toddlers, a reading circle area with books, a maze with slides at the end, and HUGE inflated slide for bigger kids. Everything is arranged to look like “North Pole-Elf Village” buildings. My daughter played in the reading area quite a bit with some older girls who pretty much thought she was there to be their little doll. And there was Santa Claus, of course. When we got there, he was still on his “lunch break.” I’m assuming this Santa was actually eating lunch, because hey, this is a classy joint. They hire sober Santas.
We played for awhile and then got in line to see the Big Man. Of course, this is when my kid gets cranky and sleepy. After about 7 years of bouncing and singing, she falls asleep (may have actually only been 10 minutes). I held her sleeping while the line sllllooowwwllyyy trudged along. After 45 minutes, it was our turn. Still sleeping.
So I told Santa, “I’m going to hand her over, if she wakes up, oh well.” He was understanding. I guess it’s in his job description. I put her in his arm and she wakes up, looks at me, smiles, looks around, stretches a little, and then looks up and who’s holding her.
This is the photo I got 1 second before she made the face of total shock and started crying.
To be fair, she literally woke up on his lap, which my sister said must be like some horrible morning in Vegas. I am pretty sure she would have been fine with the whole Santa’s-lap thing otherwise. Kids can have pretty unpredictable reactions to Santa, but I had faith she’d be okay.
It was not to be. She looked at him like he was a grotesque monster, cried, reached for me, and as soon as I took her back, she was fine. My timing was lousy.
I had one more errand to run before we went home, and that went much worse. Let’s just say that I’ve had a lot of health insurance paperwork catch-22′s in my life, but this was the clear winner. I have never had a doctor’s office tell me I had to PAY out-of-pocket for them to LOOK UP A CODE NUMBER for my last visit (a diagnosis code) so that I can get reimbursed from my insurance. The receptionist was stone cold. She did not care at all that this was unfair. She did not care that I had actually asked for this code AT my last visit, and was told at that time that no such code existed. She did not acknowledge my cute, awake baby who was trying very hard to get her attention. Festive spirit, lady, after an hour in line to make my kid cry, I needed that.
