Valentimes Day.

The girls and I had a busy morning.

First up- a doctor appt that I stupidly scheduled for 9:00am. Most days I am just crawling out of bed at 9. (I know, I know. It's just that the baby will usually remain content in her room until then, and the big one usually crawls into our bed at like 8ish and occupies herself with Netflix or Cupcakes! or a downward spiral of random Youtube inappropriateness that always begins to go bad when she clicks on anything Dora-related on my iPhone until I tell her the phone needs a nap and then I begin parenting for the day. I just can't resist the way she asks "Oh, Mama? Do you think you would never mind if I play with your phone?") (Also not on days I run. On days I run the alarm starts going off at 7:15 and I can typically mange to drag myself outside by 7:55.)

But I digress. 9am appt. Which I was very nearly on time for. So close. We finished up there by like 9:30 but we were all dressed and had a full diaper bag packed and I sure as heck wasn't heading home already. Baby's day out! Huzzah!

I had heard on City and Baby's blog about this new café that opened up fairly recently, and had been wanting to check it out. So we headed to the north side of the river (according to their Facebook account, they're actually considered to be in the central-west part of the city) to check out Café Tiramisu.

Love it.

The thing that drew me there was the play room I had heard mention of. It sounded much less crazy than our usual haunts, and I was right. It was actually relaxing. They had this little room off to the side with some blocks, books, a couple random toys, and OH MAMA LOOK BIG IPHONES. (Well, you're close, kid. They're called iPads.) Not a crazy runaround pandemonium center like Cafe O'Play, but my girls were more than engaged. I parked them in there and showed them how to turn on the iPads and then I went outside the room and sat down with a cafe mocha and a scone and ACTUALLY DRANK MY COFFEE WHILE IT WAS STILL HOT. Which is kind of a big deal. I really liked how I was able to sit outside of the kid's room and still monitor the munchkins through a big plate glass window. We'll definitely be going back.







I also caved and let them get pre-lunch cupcakes. It's Valentine's Day! That's a good enough reason, right? Shut up. It is.



My sincerest apologies to the staff of Cafe Tiramisu for the obscene amount of cupcake crumbs my children mashed into your sofa. I really did try to clean up the best I could. Thanks for a lovely morning.

Then we went and met Nate for lunch. Is it a Valentine's Day tradition yet if we have had a Japanese food lunchdate two years in a row? Or do we need a third year to really call it a tradition?

And then we came home. And there was napping throughout the land. Or at the very least, quiet containment while Mama edited a couple images and wrote up a blog post.

Tonight our big Valentine's Day dinner will be... leftovers. Romantic, right? But by God, there will be ice cream for dessert.