Today my friend Laura, also a new mom to two, Ellie, 3 1/2, and Josie, 6 weeks, met at Fred Meyer and decided to visit the built-in Starbucks after we finished shopping. Before children, grown women planning to meet at a grocery store as a social event would have seemed pathetic to me. Maybe it’s the waning daylight or the fact that all day my two-year-old calls me “Auntie Katie” and pretends that she’s her cousin Jacob, but it seemed like a good idea.
There we were, two moms nursing tiny babies, sitting across from two toddlers who were teetering back and forth on the precarious 4-foot café chairs. We both knew this was a bad idea, but we were hopeful. We had managed to get everyone cocoa and caffeine and to make it through Josie’s poopy diaper. We sighed, nursed the babies and relaxed a little.
Laura said, looking at the girls, “Oh my god, Nicole, do you realize that all three of them could be yours.” I didn’t know what she meant at first. Then watching Cedar and Ellie wave their arms in a toddler interpretive dance, I realized. It would be possible for me to have a 3 and 1/2 year old, a two year old, and a four month old. There are women who have that exact combination right now. The thought took my breath away.
Before I could inhale, Cedar’s hot chocolate tipped off the table, into her lap, all over the chair, and into a lake sized puddle on the floor. It spilled halfway into Laura’s full grocery cart and coated Ellie’s boots. We began mopping with napkins and the Starbucks folks brought out a giant squeegee to clean the floor. Ellie tried to dance in to puddle and both babies started crying.
All clean and settled again, Laura said, “It was hubris.”
Cedar promptly fell out of her chair, hit her hip on a sharp corner of a Starbucks Christmas display housing snow globes and holiday mugs. She screamed. I set Coral down and she started to scream. Ellie tried to climb out of her chair and Josie began to cry.
A man with a long beard, a cane, dark sunglasses and a Carhartt coat approached. He asked, “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” The girls fell silent. I thought, “This is just what we need.”
Then, a little wiener dog poked its head out from underneath his beard. I entered the flow. Everything became manageable. I said, “Cedar, look at the man’s doggie” and I thought, “Thank god this man has wiener dogs in his coat,” unsurprised, as if he had been sent to help us. As in, “Thank god this paramedic is here to check my child’s broken hip.” Paramedics check injuries; grizzly Alaska men hide wiener dogs under their beards. It made sense to me. He was just what we needed.
He let the girls pet the dog and another popped out. With the toddlers occupied, we packed up the babies, rearranged the groceries, and got ourselves together. Everyone was glad to see us go.
The next time we meet for coffee it will be in a rubber padded coffeehouse and I’ll be sure to put Cedar’s cocoa in a sippy. I hope the man with the wiener dogs will be there too
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