A Christmas Baby Reunion

Last weekend, we had our monthly reunion with our classmates from birth class. All the babies are around 9 months old and in various stages of cutting teeth, crawling and pulling themselves up. Aidan is the youngest of the four babies by a little over a week. (And wouldn't you know it-- he cut his first tooth the next day. Maybe it was peer pressure, seeing that the other babies already had a few.)

You would think that meeting up at the children's area at Bellevue Square during the height of Christmas shopping would be a bad idea, but it worked out just fine. Paul, Aidan and I arrived first and found an empty bench and chairs for the rest of the group. After several minutes, the rest of the group trickled in. Since it was already well past noon and the parents were starving, we decided to go to The Cheesecake Factory for lunch.

When I think Cheesecake Factory, I think long wait, long lines-- and I expected as much with eight adults and 4 babies. But a 25 minute wait goes quick when you've got kids and parent-talk to keep you occupied. I was impressed by how kid friendly the Bellevue restaurant was-- there was a "parking area" along the side of the restaurant for strollers (and judging by the number of stroller there were, other parents already knew what a kid friendly place this was.) They offered our choice of high chairs and boosters. They even offered free bread and cut-up bananas for the kids. We were able to eat and chat and, as a nice way to end the lunch, a customer sitting at a nearby booth complimented us on how well behaved our babies were.

Well, almost. I had some spillage problems on my side of the table. I was mixing Aidan's formula and accidentally dumped water on the table. Then, Aidan made a reach for my glass of soda and in my attempt to get to it before he did, is spilled on my lap. All I can say is thank goodness for quick drying cargo pants from Lucy.

We then decided to stand in line for a Santa picture, only to ditch the idea when we found out it was $19.97 for one 5 x 7 and you had to come back in the middle of the week to pick it up? In this age of digital cameras and on-demand photo printing, WTF?!

So, instead we took advantage of the holiday displays around the mall and perched our babies on a sled. For FREE.


The day ended with a gift exchange. We put the babies around the pile of gifts, the idea being that they would "choose" one. Each of them gravitated to the gift "they" brought (after all, they've been looking at it all week at home) so we encouraged a little gift swapping. The babies are capable of ripping gift wrap paper, but not very fast. And, of course the first torn piece goes directly into the mouth.

So ends another baby reunion. Stay tuned for next month!