Another day, another ...

lemon? Since long before we became 3, our weekend has included a leisurely bagel breakfast at a local cafe. It started merely as a way to get out of our water damaged and temporarily kitchen deficient house (you can only cook in a bathroom/kitchen combo so many times...) but it became a routine we look forward to throughout the week. Until August of last summer we would walk downtown (or drive if the weather was particularly nasty), peruse the local free papers and work on crossword puzzles while leisurely consuming our bagels and coffee. The routine is a bit different now; we pack up the stroller, portable high chair, sippy cup, cheerios, toys, books, extra outfit (yes, we've needed it) and so on. "Leisurely" now means "as long as the boy cooperates".

The staff at the coffee shop has been rather consistent over the years and they are all very friendly and surprisingly receptive to the presence of a small, fidgety, some times loud (and on one occasion extremely stinky) child. Today though, they outdid themselves.

We were sitting next to the kitchen area. Little E was starting to get restless. Lemons needed juicing.

The man juicing the lemons caught E's attention. E turned on the charm and the man returned the serve. Pretty soon they were talking to each other between pulses of the juicer. I'm not sure of the man's name; the Mav thinks it may be Dan. "Dan" told E all about the lemons; showing the before and after juicing lemon halves. Then he handed E one.

Of course, E was not a novice to lemon exploration. He happily poked his fingers into the lemon, sucked on it, and generally had a fine time trying to hold on to the slippery fruit. "Dan" took a few sympathy bites from his half lemon and nearly gagged but our little monkey barely winced as he distributed lemon pulp to all of his facial features.

Dear "Dan" commented to one of his coworkers that he's never had so much fun juicing the lemons before. We're happy to have returned a bit of the diversion they given us over the years.