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A few weeks ago BVZ was out of town for over a week for work.  It coincided with a time that Bubby was on vacation, the big cousins were wrapping up end of the year and starting summer, and little cousins were sick with some sort of disgusting throat virus.  Plus it was about 9 million degrees outside.  Because the kids and I were on our own for extended stretches of time, we did stuff like wander around Target, go out to dinner, and frequent the nicely air conditioned mall.  The mall has a little kid passenger train that I use as bribery or for special occasions.  This time Norah asked to sit in a car by herself.  

Lou would have loved to do the same, but that wasn't going to happen so he had to sit with me.  He's a bit of a contradiction lately.  On one hand, everything is "I will do it myself" but on the other hand he is pretty infatuated with me.  He constantly comes up to me and says, "let's have a hug" and when I am not in the room I can hear him say, "where's my mommy? Let's go find her."  He will ask for snuggles and smooches and genuinely acts adorable.  He wouldn't sit on my lap on the train but he did ride with his hand firmly planted on my leg for the majority of the ride.
 

Norah got invited to sit in the conductor's seat when the ride was over.  This mall train means business.  Notice she's wearing one of her ballet class dresses.  Whatever it takes.

We went to Chipotle for dinner.  It's a go-to GF place.

There was an ice cream shop next door, so the promise of dessert is what got Lou to eat the majority of his dinner.  New places are always hit or miss because I never know what the gluten situation will be.  Thankfully, Norah understands this and always seems to go in hopeful but with low expectations.  We had to wait in line behind a family that was taking FOREVER and when it was finally our turn I asked to see nutritional information for the ice cream.  The girl behind the counter dug around for it and asked if we had a particular allergy.  When I said Norah had celiac, she immediately said we were in luck because with the exception of one flavor (cake batter) everything else was completely GF.  She also reassured me she used non-contaminated utensils.  Norah literally screamed with joy.  She is always so good and never complains about always having to settle for something different in just about every situation (school, birthday parties, restaurants, etc.) and here was someone telling her that she could pick from about 10 different flavors--something that never happens.  She did a serious happy dance and told the girl "thank you" about 20 times.  She was so excited and adorable that she got her ice cream comped.  The girl said there was no way she could make someone pay who was that happy about it.  The dad of the slow family offered to pay for her ice cream as well.  She was that cute about it.

Otherwise we just spent the week hanging out and complaining about the weather.  After a few 106 degree days I was thrilled to be back in the 90's.

Norah was in charge of watering Bubby's garden while she was gone.

Lou had a bad night and I thought for sure he had the dreaded throat virus that was going around, but thankfully it was short lived and the only real victim was my sleep.

Life is not the same without BVZ around.  I need him for coffee making and trash taking out.  Oh yeah, and companionship and co-parenting.