On our daily subway rides as we head in to the campus daycare, Morgen likes to make friends.
"She's quite the flirt" said a nicely dressed young man in a pink shirt this morning. As we pulled into the next station, I turned the stroller so she could smile and bat her eyelashes at him without having to look around the centre pole. He smiled and flirted back.
And then something new happened. A little boy hopped on the subway, sat down right next to me, and proceeded to munch on his watermelon bits, pretending not to look at Morgen but really staring at her as often as he could.
Morgen dropped the nice looking pink-shirted man in order to size up her newest neighbour. He wasn't as obliging when it came to waving back, smiling, or playing, but he was still more interesting than anyone else on the train. She burbled at him, wriggling in her stroller and whining a bit at me.
"What is she saying?" He asked me. Somehow he knew that she was a little girl, even though she was wearing brown and green this morning. I told him that I thought she was saying hello and wishing she could get out of her stroller to run around a bit.
He showed me his Thomas the Tank Engine snack cup, he told me his name in an undertone. He asked his father to read him a book (father said: "I can't read the book - no one else wants to listen to the words." Definitely didn't win any daddy points that way, but maybe he'd already read the book ten times this morning), and then the little boy said "Was I like that Daddy?"
Daddy said "Like what? There is a lot of 'that' there." I look at the Daddy, but the Daddy is mostly not looking at me.
The little boy thought about it before saying "Was I a baby like that?"
Daddy said "Probably. But maybe a bit bigger."
"Yeah," said the little boy. I looked up at the daddy again and smiled.
Daddy wasn't very friendly - no exchange of knowing parental smiles, just a bit of an odd look in my direction followed by an exasperated smirk and an attempt to return to the neutral expression that is the burden of most commuters on the Toronto Transit Comission. When we started to leave, the little boy said "bye" and the Daddy gave me that weird look again before getting out of the way so I could roll the stroller to the exit. Morgen waved at the train it as it pulled away - she'd never done that before, although she had made lots of adult friends on previous trips.
Arriving at daycare, I helped Morgen to settle in, or tried to. She is still very clingy in the morning, and it breaks my heart every time I have to walk away when she is crying and struggling to get back to her mommy. Still, if I stay and indulge our mutual clingy-ness, it just seems to make it worse.
Crossing the street outside of the daycare, I noticed something scratching my shoulder underneath my backpack strap. I looked down, and that is how I know my quality and worth this morning:
"Old Navy. Size M/M $12.50."
It's not a pricey place, but it isn't the cheapest thing you can find there either. Not a steal, but definitely a deal. I'll take me.
