Nice Lesbians & Minor Mayhem

Daddy agreed to take a shift at Disneyland today since Mr. Eddie couldn’t be there, so that left Aunty Megan and I to our own devices (which usually means lunch, and perhaps shopping) for an obscenely long amount of time.

Feeling no need to expand our horizons, we took advantage of the nice day and headed off to Victoria Gardens. Now for those of you who don’t live out where we do, I should explain that VG, which opened in Rancho Cucamonga in Dec. of 2004, is a nice outdoor mall built to resemble an old downtown district of the 50’s. It has good stores for shopping, good places to eat, a big grassy square area, a playground, a choo-choo train to ride, and a play fountain- which makes it a great place to take the kids and go for a stroll.

Tenley happily nodded off in the car on the way there and continued her nap in the stroller, so we took that opportunity to pop into some places we don’t usually get to like Williams Sonoma, Coach and Pottery Barn. She woke up in Pottery Barn and I bundled her into the Baby Bjorn (thank you Doug & Tina!) and we continued on our way.

That’s when we became lesbians. Or, that’s when we began to look like a nice lesbian couple to the general public. Megan is usually fashionably dressed in linen capris and a top from Ann Taylor or April Cornell, and always has make-up on, cute sandals and a cute handbag. I currently exist in nylon capri track pants, a t-shirt or tank top, Tevas, minimal make-up, and I carry a diaper bag or back pack. We’re carrying an adorable (and obviously adopted) Chinese baby, we both wear wedding rings and so people just assume that we’re a nice lesbian couple who adopted. It doesn’t help that when people ask about her I automatically say things like “We went to China in June” and that Megan jumps right in with her age, a birth date, or recent milestone and can answer all their questions too. People always beam at us and tell us how happy they are for us. Most people don’t know that China does not allow gay couples of either gender to adopt, so unless one of us had adopted as a single mom, it would be an impossibility. But, if I was a lesbian, I’d be proud and honored to have Megan as my partner, so we just smile and thank them for their good wishes.

Our goals for today were to: purchase some shower gel and lotion for me, get Megan some more lip plumping gloss, and take Tenley to the fountain. Megan & I’s respective trips to Bath & Body Works and Sephora are of little interest....but Tenley is a different story.

Tenley loves the water. The last time we were at VG she saw the play fountain and leaned toward it and began smiling, flapping her arms and grunting excitedly. She was extremely put out that we didn’t take her over to check it out. So, since today was nice and hot, I packed extra clothes and a towel so we could let her at it. She was not disappointed. I first introduced her to the mosaic water table by the playground. Tenley dove her hands right in and began splashing wildly, completely soaking me in the process. After a few minutes, I decided to take her over to the big fountain and turn her loose. I set her down on the wet pavement and she crawled right in. She happily crawled around to the water jets and put her hands, face and the rest of her body in them. A nice little Hispanic boy and his sister were fascinated with her and kept coming over to sit by her and play with her. Eventually the wind kicked up and she began to shiver so it was time to get out and cause mayhem!!

I stopped into NY & Co to check out the sale, and Meg took the Monkey Princess (now dry & changed) to the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to get us some iced teas. Tenley loves iced tea (proving once again that she is definitely my daughter). Now Megan knows this, and took temporary leave of her senses and decided to continue to carry Tenley instead of putting her in the stroller when she went to retrieve the iced teas from the counter. Bad idea. Turns out that Ten was thirsty too, and would much rather have our iced teas than her lemonade. So the nice clerk handed Meg the first tea, and Tenley lunged for it sending it sliding out of Megan’s one available hand and crashing to the floor in a huge geyser that soaked Megan and 2 other patrons from the knee down. Poor Meg was so embarrassed and offered to clean it up and buy another tea, but the nice CB&TL people assured her it was fine and happened all the time and cheerfully re-made the tea.

I caught up with them on a bench on the corner, heard the tale of horror, and we headed for the car. But Megan needed to stop in Ulta (cosmetics, shampoo, etc), which I was only too happy to do since I love make-up. I was immediately derailed by a display of OPI nail polish showcasing new colors that I had recently seen in the 3 minutes I had to flip through a magazine at the supermarket checkstand. I picked up the color I had been eying (“The Grape Lakes”), and Tenley happily began gnawing on the lid. I headed to the nail polish aisle to see if there was something I liked better. Tenley became dazzled by the array of pretty colors and dropped the bottle into the hand I had placed under her chin knowing she would do just that. As I sat there debating between “Toron-toes Rose” and “Mother Road Rose”, Tenley seized my moment of distraction to grab the bottle of Grape Lakes from me and fling it to the white tile floor where it shattered into a bazillion pieces and left pool of metallic purpley-mauve oozing into the pale gray grout. She giggled with delight and tried to climb out of my arms to go play in it. Now it was my turn to be embarrassed as I went and found a nice salesman and confessed my daughters destructive behavior. He just laughed and whipped out an industrial size bottle of nail polish remover and a roll of paper towels. I offered to clean it up and pay for the bottle, but he assured me that was not necessary. I bought the Grape Lakes and Toron-Toes Rose anyway, and having now caused enough destruction at the mall for one day, we headed home.