11 and Counting

N and I celebrated the 11th anniversary of our first date today. We dressed to the nines and drove to Naples (the Florida one for now.) I was in a light beige pantsuit and an off-white lace poncho. It makes me feel very chic to be out in an off-white number with a two-year-old.

We walked up and down Naples’s 5th Avenue, which is the shopping street. There was one store that I especially wanted to visit for sentimental reasons. I went inside while Klara and N played with the big stone lions outside.

“Is that your family?” the store assistant asked. “What a beautiful little girl!”

“I was in your store 3 years ago when I was pregnant with her,” I explained.

We went to a really chic Italian restaurant. I can’t eat anything there or even look at alcohol but it was nice to go to a place with white linens and wild-boar-bolognese type dishes anyway. Plus, N deserves a great meal even if I have to sit there fantasizing about my vegan frankfurters. The waiters did look at Klara in stupefied horror at first but with the international clientele they are getting (the rest of the patrons tonight were Scandinavian, French and I’m guessing Central European) I don’t see why they are so scared of kids. Klara didn’t break or spill anything and peace wasn’t disturbed for a second.

On the way back, Klara said, “I had a lot of fun here with you, guys. Because I love you.” This is the first time she said it, and that made the day even more special.

Then she searched for something else to say that would make us even happier and came up with, “I had a good nap!” She obviously wasn’t having a nap in Naples but she knows she always gets a great reaction to this statement.