Tuesday, April 3, 2012

A chocolate paradise, and a milestone for Anne...

Monday evenings are the night Mike teaches, and so I made plans with my mom to take the kids out to dinner and to travel to the local haven for Easter chocolate in this area. Since we had Anne with us, we weren't exactly bound for a 4 star restaurant. Hence, we wound up at McDonald's.

I eat at McDonald's probably one or two times per 5 year interval. It's very rare. Thus, I felt little guilt adding some tiny crispy Chicken McBites to my southwest salad *halo* and scavenging some of Hank's french fries. And thus, Anne reached a milestone that all children aspire to:

Her first McDonald's french fry.

Kids love those things. I certainly don't want my kids eating fast food on any kind of regular basis, but for the few times that the opportunity presents itself, I have no problem with it. She was thrilled with the little bits of fry I put on her high chair tray. She's definitely very into solids all of a sudden. She still loves to nurse, but Mike reports that it's a struggle to get her to drink much milk out of her bottles during the day. She's clearly transitioning, making for lots of mixed emotions in Mommy. I've moved down to pumping at work only once per day in an effort to lessen my milk supply, since we're getting an overabundance all the time now. And she's nearly a year, at which time she will switch to cow's milk for when she's not with me. I'll then nurse her only when she wants to. At a year, she'll still want to nurse regularly when she's with me, which is fine. But it's definitely a turning point in the nursing relationship. *sniffle*

Anyway, McDonald's was a nice choice because Henry could play on their playground and there were lots of other kids there for Anne to watch in fascination while we ate.

After we finished up, we headed to the chocolate factory. I love this place. It's been around forever, and obviously, Easter is when they go all out. The bunny makes frequent appearances, and chocolate is everywhere. All kinds of chocolate. Milk, dark. white, and (in what is apparently a western New York specialty) orange chocolate. They've also introduced a few new choices in recent years such as cheery cheesecake and raspberry flavored chocolate. And the chocolate is molded into every possible configuration one could ever imagine. My favorite is the little animal miniatures, which I picked up in both white and orange (my favorites), but also present is chocolate in the shape of any living thing or object you could ever think of. Want a giant bunny, oh, I don't know, playing racquetball while carrying a basket of eggs? They have it. Tiny crosses? Check. Barn animals, tool sets? Check, check. Cell phones, iPods and ballerinas? Check, check, check.

We had a good time. I got the miniatures, plus a few things Hank picked out (a milk chocolate radio and a hockey player) and two bunny suckers in different flavors. I tried some free samples of the new dark orange chocolate they were advertising, and away we went, all sugared up.

It was a fun night. Easter is a wonderful time to be a parent. :)

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