Spoiling the Baby

I know I've written about taking my son to Starbucks before. It's kind of become a big part of my life. It's just that I have this time lag? After I put my girls on the school bus in the morning, I have half an hour to kill until my son's kindergarten starts.

That 30 minutes is particularly excruciating if it's winter—since we have to remain outside until the bell goes—or if my son wants to play Teletubbies (a tedious game: he pretends to be Noo-Noo the vacuum cleaner so he can speak only in slurping sounds, which I then have to decipher).

Starbucks usually wins out. Or Second Cup. Or Tim Horton's.

My son has become quite the connoisseur, actually. He's not a fan of Starbucks because “it's too fah, too cwowded and da whip cweam is too small.”

Second Cup is his favorite, because the women who work the morning shift give him mountains of whipped cream with chocolate shavings on top. And they have the best window for playing “I spy.”

Tim Horton's also has a good “I Spy” window, but no whipped cream.

After two or three days in a row of hot chocolates--when, belly bursting with warm, sugary milk, chocolate shavings and whipped cream--he flops over a chair and says, “I need a nap,” and I think maybe all that sugar in the morning isn't such a good thing.

The next day, when he asks to for hot chocolate again, I stand resolute. 

“We really need to watch your whipped cream intake, son,” I say, feeling like a much more responsible parent.

“OK, Mom,” he says. “Let's go to Tim Horton's.”