Carbon copies

Sacha was under the weather on Sunday, so I took the kids out for an adventure in the morning. We went to different Trader Joe's than we normally do, because this one has kid carts that Mateo wanted to push. He pushed his cart around the store and put in lots of things that we needed and avoided clipping any senior citizens in the ankles, so I considered that a great success!

After we finished shopping, we wandered over to a part of the shopping center that I used to visit as a child. We traveled up here frequently so that my mom could attend meetings for the family business, as well as for holidays and other things. Right before Christmas, this shopping center would put down a bunch of hay and a fence and bring in actual reindeer to hang out there. I remember being amazed by them as a child. Since we were there, I described the whole reindeer scene to Mateo and told him we were standing right in the exact spot where the reindeer had been. This totally rocked his world! We called Grammy, who had also witnessed the reindeer way back when, and he described the whole thing breathlessly. The hay! The fence! The reindeer!

Then, I took them to the Moonstruck Chocolate Cafe for a treat. This place is quickly becoming my favorite dessert venue. They have fun little chocolates for the kiddos and delicious dark sipping chocolate for grown-ups. And this was my whole point when I started this post: We ended up sitting next to another mom and her daughter, who was in between Teo and Talia age-wise. The mom took one look at all of us and said, "You're like three carbon copies of each other!"

Before Natalia was born, Mateo and I used to get comments like this all the time when we were out together, and even when we were with Sacha. It has been important to us to build relationships with both kids without dwelling overly much on who is biologically connected to whom, so I usually would just say thank you and change the subject. I have been surprised that the same "they look just like you!" conversation has happened, and frequently, since Natalia has been born. When she and I are out together, people often comment on how much she looks like me. This was the first time it had happened with both kids, and I just had to laugh! There was no way to explain the whole thing, so I just stuck to the tried and true: I said thank you and changed the subject.